Depends on the context! You need enough chuggas to establish that we are on a steam train before it makes sense to your audience that you are blowing a steam whistle – so if you’re at a bar and people have been talking about “chugging” beer all night, you may need several chuggas to get the btrain going in the right direction but if you’re already on a train you can just do the arm motion and say “choo choo” without even a single chugga.
I said this ditty to myself to see what I did and I produced *four* chuggas before the choo choo. Any fewer chuggas than that seems insufficient; and more than four is certainly acceptable, although with much more than four you start to bore your audience.
Just sitting here I’m on like 16 chuggas.
8 is my default
if your number of chuggas isn’t divisible by 4 then what the hell are you doing
I agree that no chuggas are required if you are already on a train (and similarly trainful situations like “pointing at a train”), but for other circumstances:
There’s a use/mention distinction. When *mentioning* “chugga chugga choo choo” it’s two chuggas, but when *using* it it’s eight chuggas.
(This is probably because of the same fundamental psychological reasons that cause there to be eight “nana”s before “Batman”.)
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#(*semi*-serious) #reply via reblog #oral culture #trains #Batman
Brinens and Things 