21. Scutch (or scutch a gotz): Someone who is a royal pain in the ass. From the Italian, scocciare, meaning to annoy, this word is yet another bastardized version of the original and used by both Queens and Brooklyn Italians alike. Since most Queens Italians have their American origin in Brooklyn, this is no surprise. This can be used by friends and family, and may perhaps be heard yelled like, "Joey, why do you gotta be such a fucking scutch a gotz all the goddamn time? Just answer the friggin question!"
22. Goof: Used as a noun or verb, dependent upon the situation. As a noun, it means a good time. For example, "That was a great party! We had such a goof with all the cousins, hanging out, shooting the shit." Conversely, as a verb, it means to tease or joke around. As in, "Aw, come on, I was only goofin' on ya!" Even a person can BE a goof. "I love Frankie, he's such a fuckin' goof!" And that's a good thing, by the way.
23. Cugine: Pronounced COO-ZHEEN, it comes from the Italian cugino, meaning cousin. It is used to describe a guy from the neighborhood who looks like he went to Christ the King Regional High School in the 80's, blown back hair, wife beater, Sergio Tacchini track suit, multiple gold chains adorned with a crucifix, a cornuto, and Playboy Bunny, white slip on Keds, driving an IROC-Z. This bozo isn't usually very bright and punctuates his sentences by grabbing his crotch.
24. Earl: not to be confused with the Duke of..or the nobility equivalent of a Count. The second or third generations may not use this term, but everyone had their version of my Grandma Rose, who had oddball pronunciations of any word that had the sound OY in it. This word was actually OIL, as in the stuff you fry chicken cutlets in or the viscous liquid you add into your car when it gets low. So, when Grandma Rose told me we had to go to Finast because we were "out of Earl, and I can't make-a tha meat-a-balls with no Earl." She wasn't implying that meatballs couldn't be made without the presence of royalty. It was merely a hint to take her up the Avenue to buy a giant can of Filipo Berio olive oil.
25. Yooze or yooze guys: The plural of "you" is often heard bandied about in Queens and Brooklyn. While I am aware that it really isn't a word, it certainly suited many a situation while I was growing up. Even New Englanders use the word yooze, while the more emphatic yooze guys is reserved for residents of New York, specifically Queens and Brooklyn. Our best man at our wedding even kept it real by using yooze guys to refer to Kevin and me in his toast to the bride and groom. Touching, I know.
26. Madone or Madone-a-mia: Oh my God, but not really, because it's a bastardized version of Madonna, or the Blessed Mary Mother of Jesus. Every mother and grandmother used this term when we exasperated them, which was quite often since we actually left the house and played outside without benefit of a cell phone to be in contact with us every ten minutes. When we missed curfew as we often lost track of time in those days, running and playing outside, our moms or grandmas would sigh loudly, clasping the front of their blouses near their heart, and exclaim, "Madone-a-mia, you want to give me a heart attack, or what?"
27. Mulignan: Pronounced MOOL-EE-YAN, and derived from melanzana, which is an eggplant, this was our version of the derogatory name for Black people. Why, I have no fucking idea, I've never seen a plum-colored human being. Some used the abbreviated version of this word, moolie. I suppose it was like a term of endearment when you added "ie" to it. Cugines hanging out in Howard Beach would often be heard capping on the non-whites, "Hey, Vinny, you see that fuckin' moolie driving through here like who the fuck he is? I oughta kick his fuckin' ass." I never said cugines were classy.
28. Stunad: another word for moron. From the Italian, stonato, we decided it was easier to leave off the trailing vowel and clip it for quick insults.
29. Gumad or Goumare: This was a term used to mean a man's mistress who was like his second wife. His regular piece on the side, who received gifts AS good or better than his wife. Better because he wanted to ensure she didn't open her big fucking mouth about their affair. Pronounced GOO-MOD or GOO-MAR, it comes from the Italian cumare/comare, meaning second mother or godmother. This bitch was nobody's second mother.
30. I got your _______right here!!!: Said while grabbing one's crotch, this phrase was mostly used by males but I've heard it from a pissed off female or two in my time. This was used when you had no intention of granting that person's request or thought that what they've said was ridiculous. As in, "I got your fucking ride to the mall, right here!!! Do I look like a fucking taxi service or what?" When it absolutely was NOT happening in this lifetime...
Now that you are armed with many of the words and phrases used by folks from my old stomping grounds, you should feel confident in your ability to hold an intelligent conversation with any and all of us. Do NOT try to incorporate any of these into YOUR communication, unless you want to sound like a stunod. We appreciate the effort you've made just learning about how we speak so we don't have to slow down, or God forbid, translate. Remember, this does not make you an honorary New Yorker, you wouldn't last a day there, so just move on, satisfied with your newfound knowledge. Are you friggin kidding me right now???
Lessons #1 and 2 can be found here..Queens/Italian English, A Lesson in Linguistics
and here...Queens/Italian English, Lesson #2
For further clarification: Italians are Better Than Everyone
Oh my God I freaking love this. I'm from upstate New York and Rochester this was priceless
ReplyDeleteThis looks like a pretty good site. And from what I can tell it is spot on. And the reason I say this, is a close friend of mine has a cousin that has lived in this area all his life. He was born there and raise their.
ReplyDeleteAnd I distinctly remember that he knew several mob guys. More than one restaurant, we would go eat at our noticed nearly the same guys every day and I would see them around the neighborhood at different locations and they never seem to do anything besides hang out.
And by that I mean, they never work for a living and I picked up on this. I will never forget the first time I said something about this. Because I said this. “What do these guys do for a living???””
And one of the guys that was with us started laughing, his head off, and he kept trying to say something, but he couldn’t because he was laughing so much! After a while, it wasn’t funny I didn’t think so.
That’s when he laughed harder and some of the other ones did you finally one of them said between laughing, he said this. “ there (laughing) They are (back to laughing!) They are doing (back to laughing and pissing me off!!)
They are doing their fucking job right now man!! (now they’re all fucking laughing. I guess they’re laughing at me. Lol lol. They are man they are doing their job and their job is to hang out and talk and pick up on any crosstalk and they’re making more money right now in a day than you can make in a month!!”
I said this. “ you don’t even know what I make in a month. What I’m looked at me sternly and he said what do you make? I said $15,500 a month. About three of them looked at each other, Then loooooked at me, sternly. Like they didn’t believe me, and my friend that they knew that was a senior captain looked at them, and he knew them because he grew up with 2 of them, and he said yes he does. He makes that much I know him. Anyway, they didn’t laugh anymore. It stopped like somebody cut off a switch.
And from then going forward, they treated me different with more respect. They knew that I did something for a living that they couldn’t begin to do or understand. Because these guys not only wasn’t made, all of them is what I would call, low level wanna be scum, Thugs.