The Language of the Lake
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Following up on last year's discussion of the local slang of Nonantum, outside Boston, Max Heiman sent in a link to a feature article by Erica Noonan, posted last month on boston.com ("Speaking the language of "the Lake" in Newton's Nonantum", 2/26/2009).
The site boston.com is the online home of the Boston Globe, and the cited posting starts with a note "This article was published September 13, 2001", presumably in the parent paper.
Daniel C. Parmenter said,
March 23, 2009 @ 12:50 pm
As Max Heiman notes in his original, this slang is by no means limited to the Lake, even if it did originate there. I didn't come to associate it with the Lake until years later. On the other hand, several friends of mine who went to Newton South claim to have never heard of "mush" (or any of this slang) at all, though at least one friend who went to a private school in Newton was quite familiar with it.
But where's "Yant"? In my experience at Newton North, being addressed as "mush" was usually preceded by "yant", as in "Yant, mush!" I suspect that it may have functioned somewhat like "Yo", to bring it all back to the original post.
I've also heard "mush" used in exactly the same way by a character on the British TV show "Are You Being Served?"
My friend Zev Handel, a fellow Newton North student (now Associate Professor of Chinese Language and Linguistics at the U. of Washington), once came up to me and said "Fermez la bouche, moosh!" which I thought was pretty funny. I still do.
Richard M Buck said,
March 23, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
I think every single word I recognize there is identifiable as Romany in origin (there are some that I can't place). For example, Ronald Lee's book on Kalderash Das-dúma Rromanes gives zhuvli 'woman, wife, female', mursh 'guy, fellow, man', avri 'outside', chor 'thief', and mui 'mouth, face' (compare Lake jivel, moosh, avray, chor, and moy). The glossary to a kid's book I read when I was little gives Anglo-Romani mush or moosh, choring 'stealing', and mooi 'mouth, face'. It doesn't have anything corresponding to jivel in its limited selection, but it does have divio 'crazy', and the usual pogadi jib (Anglo-Romani) word for 'I', mandy (compare 'mandi-ki' quoted near the end the original post).
There's probably lots more that I'm missing through ignorance, but so far I've spotted lots and lots of Romany, and no undisputed Italian…
Ozlang said,
March 23, 2009 @ 7:46 pm
"Mush" (u is short) was (still is?) used in Australia for "face/mouth". Macquarie Dictionary also gives spelling "moosh". E.g., "He got a cream pie right in the mush." Doesn't give any derivation. Not likely to be Romany in Australia??
dr pepper said,
March 23, 2009 @ 9:42 pm
I've suddenly got an image in my head of a long dirt road crossing an empty countryside. Two men in old style central european clothing are standing beside a brightly painted enclosed wagon, arguing over a map. Behind them the horses are sniffing dubiousely at a eucalyptus branch, while a little boy is throwing stones at a kukuberra that's perched on the roof of the wagon.
Don Campbell said,
March 24, 2009 @ 1:09 am
@Ozlang:
The OED has mush, n (2): the face, the mouth going back to 16th century Britain. Origin uncertain, but suspected to be from "muss" or "mug".
So this appears to be another example of Australians using old British slang for longer than the old country, rather than a Gypsy influence.
Aaron Davies said,
March 25, 2009 @ 9:06 am
(one version of) the dead parrot sketch has the line "Listen mush, if I hadn't nailed that bird down, it would have muscled up to those bars, bent 'em apart with its little pecker, and VOOM"
lots of romany seems to have made its way into cockney, and thence into general british slang (most famously, these days at least, "chav")
Sean Scho said,
November 23, 2011 @ 1:18 pm
Just got this e-mail from a friend and fellow Newtonian…Those Newtonians (from Newton High and (later) Newton North High schools should be fairly familiar with this list:
* mush (pronounced to rhyme with push) — "guy", can be positive or negative depending on context
* wicked pissa, mush!–"extremely awesome, guy"
* chabby — "boy child", possibly related to the Romany word chavvie = "boy"
* chor'd — "stolen", possibly related to the Romany word choro = "thief"
* chuccuo — (chu-co) — "donkey", "horse's ass"
* cuya moi — "shut up" or "go to hell"
* divia (div-ya) — "crazy", "jerk, screw-up, or harmless screwball"
* inga — "unattractive" or "bad-tempered person" or "junk" or "crap"
* jival — "girl"
* mush has a cormunga in his cover — "guy is hiding a gun"
* mush is the earie — "the guy is listening"
* over-chay or overchay (ova-chay) — "it's a lie" or "he's an actor"
* oy — "eat"
* pissa — "awesome"
* pukka to the mush — "tell the guy"
* quister jival (quest-ah dival) — "pretty girl"
* quister mush (quest-ah mush) — "good, standup guy"
* shapdude (shup-dude) — "how's it going?"
* wonga — "money"
* geech — "go away"
* gash — "girly man"
* jawl — "steal" or "look at"
Divya said,
February 1, 2014 @ 6:05 pm
It is for sure it Romany and it did not originate from The Lake. Check out my website http://www.thelakelingo.com. Forgive me in advance for any misspelled words, grammar… Just launched the website last week within like 72 hours.
Thanks,
Divya