[Sca-cooks] It Sounds Like...

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Dec 10, 2005, at 6:35 AM, Elise Fleming wrote:

> Greetings!  I want to preface this by saying that I'm not intending to
> correct a person but I'm curious about terminology used in other  
> parts of
> the US.  And, I've been curious about words in print that sound  
> similar but
> have wildly different meanings.  'Twas written:
>
>> Thanks! My, they are expensive boogers, aren't they?
>
> Only on the second pass did I notice "boogers" which has around  
> here been
> used for the "snot" expelled from one's nose.  I was pretty certain  
> that
> "buggers" was meant and got curious about the pronunciation of "oo"  
> and "u"
> (which to me here is "uhhh".  From a food content, I'd rather a  
> "bug..."
>
> Alys Katharine, being pedantic

There's a similar pronunciation shift found in referring to the  
monster that lives in your bedroom closet or under your bed when  
you're a child -- the Bogey Man has, at some point, become the Boogie  
Man (talk about yer Danse Macabre!).

Conversely, I've been interested to note that in the film versions of  
the Harry Potter novels, what in the US would be called "boogers" are  
known as "bogeys" -- a term with which I was unfamiliar in that  
context, but whose meaning was fairly obvious. I don't think the term  
appears in the U.S. editions of the novels my son owns. Perhaps the  
Evil Patronizing Publishers Pandering To The Ignorance of American  
Children (tm) have acted to prevent said ignorant children from  
thinking the stuff on Harry's wand was either Humphrey Bogart, a  
ghost, or an incoming enemy aircraft.

I'm put in mind of the "boogers and haints" of the Appalachians as a  
possible source, but I'm more inclined to suspect it's ultimately a  
euphemism for another euphemism for "bastard", as in, the rust-frozen  
bolt you have to loosen on the underside of your car, but can't  
_quite_ reach the vicious, unholy little bastard. People have been  
known to use "bugger" as a euphemism (ignoring the fact that that  
term is more offensive to some, given one of its meanings, than the  
term it is replacing). "Booger" may be an intentional or  
unintentional shift away from that particular meaning of "bugger".

Of course, around here you rarely hear about expensive little boogers  
_or_ buggers anyway ;-)

Adamantius


"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04