Monday, January 3, 2011

Fuggedybuggid

A couple weeks ago I was reading Stephen King's On Writing or maybe it was From a Buick 8.  Well it was definitely King. I came across a word in his conversation that I didn't know.  For those of you who haven't read King, he is the master of the vernacular and idiomatic language.  His dialogue reads like one you might hear at the bar, or the game or the grocery.  It is not the high blown language of an Oxford don, but the real language of the American middle and lower classes.  

In order to carry the inflection and tone, his words are spelled accordingly.  If you sound them out, you will hear what I mean.  Anyway when I sounded it out over and over trying to figure out what it meant, my ears heard over and over fuggidybuggid or fuggidybucket.  So I started saying it in my head in situations that seemed to warrant it.  Car on E - fuggidybuggid.  No job - fuggidybucket.  Trip up the stairs - fuggidybuggid, fuggidybuggid, FUGGIDYBUGGID!  I like the way it sounds.  

A couple weeks ago one of my friends posted a blog and about half way through it he used a word Fuhgeddaboutit.  Not fuggdiybuggid.  Fuhgeddaboutit (said like Joe Pesci or Tony Soprano).  That is the word King meant although I suspect he used fewer letters in his version.  I laughed so hard I almost peed myself.   

In my defense, and yes Your Honor it IS a weak one, I don't like mob/mafia/gang films.  I know about the Sopranos, but have never seen an episode.  I saw Godfather Part I under duress and against my better judgment.  The same is true for Pulp Fiction (or most Tarantino films), Jersey Shore, Road to Perdition, Scarface.  Don't like the Fran Drescher voices that grate my ear drums like cat's claws.  Don't like the way of life.  Really don't like the violence.  All that to say, I have not heard that phrase as often as some.  I told you it was a weak defense.

I told my brother Phil this story yesterday.  He didn't think it was as funny as I did.  But then comedy is outside my bailiwick.  In telling him the story, I realized I liked my word better than what King meant.  I used it all day.  Sure Phil got tired of it.  I don't think it's going away any time soon.  So just fuhgeddaboutit.    

2 comments:

  1. A sister-conundrum to my inability to correctly hear song lyrics. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. you mean the "bathroom on the right" syndrome

    ReplyDelete

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