In the wild: boujie

[Jonathan Lighter]

See HDAS under "boojie."

JL

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 6:11 AM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      Re: In the wild: boujie
>
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>
> HDAS does have this, under the heading "_boojie_ or _boojy_",
> with a first quotation from the 1970 edition of Major's
> dictionary.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED
>
> On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 12:07:41AM -0500, George Thompson wrote:
> > > My immediate assumption was that this was some colloquial version of
> "bourgeois".
> >
> > Correctly, too.
> >
> > The indispensable HDAS seems not to have this, (while remaining
> indispensable); Green's Dictionary of Slang has citations going back to the
> mid 1970s; it was discussed here, to no benefit, in 2002.
> > I haven't checked OED.
> >
> > GAT
> >
> > George A. Thompson
> > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Date: Monday, January 24, 2011 10:35 pm
> > Subject: In the wild: boujie
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >
> > > Heard on Unique Eats program, in reference to a hamburger with poached
> > > pears:
> > >
> > > "It's a little boujie, but..."
> > >
> > > My immediate assumption was that this was some colloquial version of
> > > "bourgeois". And Google showed a healthy representation (24.5K raw). UD
> > > has it going back to 2003 (bouji), but the definitions leave a lot to
> > > be
> > > desired. Most suggest that it is some kind of slurred/mumbled version
> > > of
> > > "bullshit" (a la Animal House, I suppose). But the latest entry (2010)
> > > seems to be almost exactly on the money:
> > >
> > > > A Southern African-American contraction of the word "bourgeoisie",
> > > > used to describe someone rich or in the upper class. Similar meaning
> > > > to "sidity".
> > >
> > > The only issue is that the speaker in the program was a female
> > > Asian-American chef (I missed the name--[Lee] Anne Wong?) and
> definitely
> > > not Southern. (If it is Anne Wong, perhaps she picked it up at FIT...)
> > >
> > > OT item of interest: "Cold Stone Creamery is dessert pornography."
> > > Interesting that "porn" is not shortened.
> > >
> > >      VS-)
> > >
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