to ootz?

[W Brewer]

Sounds Yiddish. Cf. NHG colloq. utzen 'to tease, make fun of'.

On Sun, Dec 25, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      to ootz?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A friend, who probably has been watching too many Christmas movies on
> the Hallmark channel's multi-week marathon, claims that in "White
> Christmas", Bing Crosby tells Danny Kaye - you "ootzed me
> along".  Spelling not guaranteed.
>
> Any comments?   Google Books has some provocative tidbits, including
> claims but no previews for "ootzed" and/or "ootzing" from Dare and
> HDAS (which are both unfortunately not on my bookshelf).  And
> allegedly from "Story", Vol. 22, 1943, the snippet "The underground
> tells me that I'm being ootzed out of that part."  ("White Christmas"
> is 1954.)  Plus "ootzing" in 1946 from Jerome Weidman, 1971 from Max
> Shulman.
>
> Joel
>
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