Dr. Fred Mbogo

/@m·boh´goh, dok´tr fred/, n.

[Stanford] The archetypal man you don’t want to see about a problem, esp. an incompetent professional; a shyster. “Do you know a good eye doctor?” “Sure, try Mbogo Eye Care and Professional Dry Cleaning.” The name comes from synergy between bogus and the original Dr. Mbogo, a witch doctor who was Gomez Addams’ physician on the old Addams Family TV show. Interestingly enough, it turns out that under the rules for Swahili noun classes, ‘m-’ is the characteristic prefix of “nouns referring to human beings”. As such, “mbogo” is quite plausible as a Swahili coinage for a person having the nature of a bogon. Actually, “mbogo” is indeed a Ki-Swahili word referring to the African Cape Buffalo, syncerus caffer. It is one of the “big five” dangerous African game animals, and many people with bush experience believe it to be the most dangerous of them. Compare Bloggs Family and J. Random Hacker; see also Fred Foobar and fred.