to ootz? (& not in the OED)

[Joel S. Berson]

Thanks to Ben, Dan, Gerald, and W. Brewer, who did the research I was
sure others than myself would do, thus saving me time and effort. We
appear to have two (related?) meanings:

1)  "Yiddish, utz." ... The meanings "to goad, needle, nag" are
given.  (From Gerald.)  This seems akin to some of the GBooks hits I
mentioned, which seem to have the sense of "push along".

2)  Sounds Yiddish. Cf. NHG colloq. utzen 'to tease, make fun
of'.  (From W. Brewer.)  This perhaps is more like what Bing said to
Danny (but I can't confirm with context, since I wasn't watching with
my friend).

Now if I had been told that Danny said it to Bing, I definitely would
have checked Yiddish!

And "utz" (as well as "ootz") is not in the OED.

Joel

At 12/24/2011 10:28 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>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
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org