I was thinking the other day about verbal expressions my family used that I don’t hear a lot anymore. For example: “scooch.” In my family of Italian-Irish-German descent, it meant somebody who got under your skin, like a tiny bug, as in “She’s being a real scooch about dinner on Friday.
” My late friend Patti remembers my father referring to somebody as a real “kookoomobile.” For some reason, the Bozomobile comes to mind. In this instance, it means someone who behaves in an irrational manner, as in.
..well.
..we’ve seen tons of examples of that lately.
There are also a group of “ga” prefixed words: “Gagootz” (either “You understand” or “I’ve got nothing!”), “gabbidost” (thick head, block head) and (although it starts with a “c’ it’s sounded like a “g”) “capuzzelle,” which means lamb’s head or idiot. I also learned a few chosen dismissals from the movie “Pay Or Die” starring Ernest Borgnine and Zohra Lampert about a NYC police officer named Joseph Petrosino’s battle with “The Black Hand,” an Italian mob in Little Italy. “Stronzo,” “stugatz” and “stunad” mean fool or idiot.
But, the one that had the most impact for me was a slang term Borgnine uses for a guy who has ratted him out. When the man wishes him a good evening, Borgnine replies “Buona sera, schifoso!” with such contempt that I knew it meant something really bad. Actually, it’s not much worse than the other “s”words.
It depends how you.
