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I heard this phrase when I was watching Battleship. An old man said,

"Somebody is gonna kiss the donkey."

I do not know what it means, I only heard it in a movie. What is this phrase mean?

In Addition:

I think it was Rihanna who said "Saddle Ridge will be in weapons range in five minutes," then the old man stated the phrase.

Matt E. Эллен
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rpm07
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    I haven't seen the film. Another word for Donkey is Ass though. So maybe the claim here that it means "someone will kiss their ass goodbye" could be credible? Does that make sense in context? – Martin Smith Sep 21 '14 at 13:29
  • Not an expression I’ve ever heard. Could you edit your question to give some more context, please? Like, what’s going on when the old man says it? – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 21 '14 at 13:47
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    It's not a standard idiom, but I think @Martin has nailed the allusion. It's sci-fi, in which context scriptwriters often throw in credible, easily-understood "made-up slang of the future". I just found the exact context in a subtitle file (at 1h:43m:36s) CORA: "Saddle Ridge will be in weapons range in five minutes!". OLD MAN: "Oh, brother, somebody is going to kiss the donkey!". Which strongly suggests death and destruction is imminent. – FumbleFingers Sep 21 '14 at 14:11
  • @FumbleFingers you also included the timeline :-) – rpm07 Sep 21 '14 at 14:17
  • at least someone put an answer for this question for me to mark it as answer rather than commenting on my question.:-) – rpm07 Sep 21 '14 at 14:19
  • @robertpeter07: I'm not going to closevote, but to be honest I can't see this question being relevant to any future visitors. The meaning itself seems fairly obvious to me, and it looks like a complete "one-off" usage that would only be relevant to someone paying close attention to the exact dialogue in that particular movie. If the speaker had been a more "geeky" character (Dr Spock in Star Trek, say, or the ship's computer), he/it might have said "All hands prepare for some Equus Asinus osculation!". In which case, would that be a useful [facetious] usage to address here? – FumbleFingers Sep 21 '14 at 14:32
  • @FumbleFingers I know but some things are not obvious to people who are learning English and it is not their native language. should I delete the question? that is how other people learn, if it is not obvious to them, ask people who know and seem the answer is obvious to them. – rpm07 Sep 21 '14 at 14:40
  • @robertpeter07: I'm in no way suggesting that the question should not have been asked here, or that you should delete it just because you've probably already got the answer from these comments. I'm just saying that I personally don't think there's much else to say here. But that's just my opinion, and I'm quite happy to let others react to the question as they see fit. – FumbleFingers Sep 21 '14 at 14:51
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    @FumbleFingers I have nothing to say. However, I do appreciate your honesty and your answer for my question. :-) – rpm07 Sep 21 '14 at 14:54
  • @robertpeter07: Fair enough. But I will just add that I might well have posted an actual answer if the question had been asked on English Language Learners, because it might be useful to learners as an example of typical "wordplay" as used by native speakers. I honestly don't know, but I assume speakers of at least some other languages might be less familiar with the device of (usually, somewhat facetiously) ringing the changes on common idiomatic expressions. – FumbleFingers Sep 21 '14 at 15:09
  • The movie takes place in 2012, so I doubt the phrase is meant to be "made-up slang of the future." Another, and to me, more feasible explanation is that the phrase is uttered in Pidgin, which is widely spoken on the Hawaiian Islands. – pazzo Sep 21 '14 at 15:58
  • @CarSmack: The movie was made in 2012 - but since it features *aliens, I think it's reasonable to say it's a "futuristic" setting. The usage is clearly a facetious allusion to an idiomatic standard, so if the speaker is being portrayed as an "buffoon" with limited command of English then it probably is* the scriptwriters being facetious. But if the speaker appears to be fluent, it could be either his fictitious character being facetious, or simply a scene-setting "deadpan" usage assumed to be current in the very near future. – FumbleFingers Sep 21 '14 at 16:54
  • The movie was released in 2012 and most of it takes place in 2012. The presence of aliens does not imply the future – pazzo Sep 21 '14 at 18:08
  • @FumbleFingers That a tale of speculative fiction should feature non-human intelligences need not mean it must be set in the future, be it ours or anyone’s. The works of Jules Verne, HR Haggard, HG Wells, and HP Lovecraft featured non-human intelligences yet were set in our past, as in fact did everything from Homer and the Eddas to the Mabinogion and Nibelungenlied. Regarding word-play, are you thinking along the lines of something osculatory involving Equus africanus asinus? – tchrist Sep 21 '14 at 18:21
  • @tchrist: Ye Gods! If a movie features intelligent aliens, I'm prepared to call it "futuristic" even if it makes constant references to "Stardate 2014" or whatever! What I'm not prepared to do is assume that pidgin speakers would "erroneously" come out with forms like "He's a pain in the donkey". That's the kind of error people make when translating idioms using dictionaries, not normally a characteristic of pidgins. And yes - I deleted what I assumed was the relatively superfluous africanus because I was running out of characters within a comment. Jenny and I are on very close terms. – FumbleFingers Sep 21 '14 at 19:25
  • Analogy on "screw the pooch"? – Mitch Sep 21 '14 at 20:19

4 Answers4

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It is a confused attempt at a play on (for example) "kiss my ass," or, some similar phrase.

It is quite common in English today that idioms get mangled.

Fattie
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The idea that "kiss the donkey" might be related to "kiss my ass" didn't make sense to me. The context is wrong. So I did some hunting. By 1950 the phrase was so common that it was simply assumed what an author was talking about.

Books: Kiss the Donkey THE MAN WHO LIVED BACKWARD (461 pp.) — Malcolm Ross — Farrar, Straus ($3.50)....If Author Ross had been satisfied merely to pin the tail on his pseudo-liberal donkey, his book might have been a very witty one. As it is, he all too often confuses the silly ass with some of the hard-headed heroes of U.S. history, and starts throwing him political kisses. A man can look mighty foolish kissing a donkey. (Source)

So I made the assumption it might have a World War II or Pre-WWII reference. My first clues came from a transcription from the 1937 New York Radio Daily.

Feb. 26, 1937 J. C. will introduce a game called "Kiss The Donkey."

and

Mar. 3, 1937 Georgie Hale will be honored at the "Kiss the Donkey" party Sunday in Leon & Eddie's.

So, we have two ideas. Sometime in 1936-1937 there was a game called "Kiss the Donkey" and in early 1937 there was a "Kiss the Donkey" party. I decided to chase the "party" angle first.

An OCR from the New York Daily News, March 6, 1937:

They're playing a game called "Kiss the Donkey" at leon and Eddie's Sunday nites.

OK, so it's not a party, it's a party game!

And here my research stalled. "Kiss the donkey" in a game context has been around a long time, yet while I can find numerous references to its use, I can't find anywhere a game called "kiss the donkey" save in one instance in 1984–1986:

The Odd Couple, neil Simon's new version [of his original play] written from the woman's point of view — Felix becomes Florence and Oscar becomes Olive and the infamous poker game is transformed into "Kiss the Donkey," a game with more wild cards than anyone can keep track of. (Source) (other sources of this play indicate every card is a wild card.)

And yet in the many instances (mostly post 1980) I found, the context seemed to be the same: the ignominy of losing a contest. If that context can be brought to bear (and in my opinion it suits the context of the movie Battleship better than "kiss my ass," which I believe is a taunt that means, "you're less than I am"), then the meaning in the movie is similar to "screw the pooch," meaning "you've lost."

I conclude that the meaning of "somebody is gonna kiss the donkey" is "someone is going to lose."

And if I had the 16-inch guns of the U.S.S. Missouri pointed at me, I would be inclined to agree.

JBH
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  • I agree the accepted answer does not convince. Saying that, there's the possibility that "donkey" was used as a euphemism for ass, because times were different back in the 50s and terms of vulgarity (however mild they seem today) were not published in newspapers. Just an idea. +1 for the research. – Mari-Lou A Feb 22 '24 at 08:16
  • @Mari-LouA You might not be wrong. There were specific instances as far back as the 1800s when the concept was specifically to "kiss the donkey below its tail." But things got so muddy after that thanks to the concept of kissing the donkey's nose (a "suitable" party sport on sunny days when the public bets its local leadership they can't throw a baseball) that I couldn't be certain. But I believe there is a contextual difference between "kiss my ass" (submission) vs. "kiss the donkey" (you lose! Now suffer the dishonor!). Thanks for the vote! – JBH Feb 23 '24 at 03:14
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This is a Wiki post which means anyone can freely edit, improve or add any relevant information. No one will gain any reputation points.

In the film Battleship, the catchphrase Oh brother, somebody gonna kiss the donkey is uttered by the character JPJ Sailor. The website Aloha On My Mind claims it is Hawaiian slang or Pidgin but doesn't provide a translation.

I did, however, find the word donkey listed on the Hawaiian website Write Pidgin in its introduction it says

Diffren peopo write dea Pidgin language diffren way. Dis how us guys write um fo Da Jesus Book. If you like write um some odda way, az okay, no bodda us guys. Gotta chop up da alphabets so da Internet can bring um to you mo quick. Click da one you like check.

Under the letter -D, donkey is listed and an example of how the word is used is the following

mill stone: two big stones fo make wheat flour. Da small kine, two wahines can turn da top one togedda. Da big kine, need one donkey fo turn um

So, unsurprisingly, donkey in Hawaiian means donkey in English. Which leaves me with two plausible explanations for the catchphrase.

First, in the UK an ass is just another name for donkey. The American slang kiss my ass! (BrEng arse) to a Brit would literally mean "kiss my donkey"; therefore, somebody is gonna kiss the donkey means that person's request or wish is going to be rejected aggressively. Not having seen the film, I suspect the to-be-kissed-buttucks belong to JPJ Sailor's, in other words, he is flatly refusing to surrender or concede to the "enemy's" demands.

Secondly, but least likely explanation, an ass is another word for a fool, an idiot, a stupid person etc. Hence the phrase "gonna kiss the donkey" could mean that somebody will have to kiss the foolish/idiot/imbecile person very soon.

Mari-Lou A
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  • it seemed like a good idea at the time :) I remember there being quite a fuss. Although the post has attracted over 4,000 views ... so somebody wants to know what it means. – Mari-Lou A May 01 '15 at 05:53
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Also notice, it's an asian guy saying the line. "Kissing the donkey" probably just means they've made an ass of themselves & are about to own that mistake.

epic-wolfe
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    In what way does "Asian" change the speaker's meaning? Does it mean he doesn't know English well, or that he is trying to save face? – Theresa Oct 12 '14 at 00:04