Bogart

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, thanks for taking my call.

This is Dean Collins, calling from Hartford.

Hi, Dean, from Hartford, Connecticut.

Yes.

Welcome.

What’s on your mind?

I was wondering if you could tell me the origin of the word bogart as it’s used in, like, hogging things.

Like, you know, don’t bogart that drink.

Let me have a sip.

Oh, drink is what they’re not bogarting?

Yeah, well, that could be something.

Actually, where I work sometimes, it’s used even about time in a meeting.

Sorry to bogart all the time in this meeting.

Really? What kind of work is it?

Insurance?

Yeah, insurance. I’m a good guess.

Right.

Hartford, right.

That’s not all they do in Hartford.

No, that’s true.

But a lot of big business there is insurance.

You’ve probably heard this term for a long time, though, right?

Since college days?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Grant, what are you getting at?

Around it. And back then it was definitely a different connotation.

Oh, we can talk about it. We’re all adults here. We don’t have to giggle a little bit.

You’re talking about Don’t Bogart That Joint, right?

That’s right. Well, that was the song, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your question is, Bogart, how did that come about? And you probably guess that it’s connected to the actor, right?

Well, Humphrey Bogart, yeah, I guess, although I couldn’t imagine how.

Yeah, it is, it is. And you know, the original meaning of to bogart, the verb meant to, it was to bully or to intimidate, as in to bogart your way into a club, you know, kind of bully the bouncer into letting you into a club that you otherwise might refuse your entrance to, right?

And it dates to about the 1950s.

But then a little later, by the late 1960s, the meaning of to bogart had changed just enough that it meant to hog something or kind of like, you know, strong arm something, where you assume total control of it, especially a joint.

And as a matter of fact, most people heard this term for the first time in the movie Easy Rider, in which one character says to another, don’t bogart that joint, pass it over to me.

Huh. Okay.

So, I mean, that was a, if I remember correctly, Martha, you may remember better than I do, that was a huge film at the time, right?

Oh, yeah, it was huge. Did you see it, Dean?

Peter Fonda, right? I’ve seen parts of it on cable, but I’ve never watched the whole thing.

And that was 1969 that that movie came out.

So from there, and it still lingers.

It’s funny about, to bogart, it actually continuously shows up on lists of slang collected at college campuses, even today in the 2000s.

And many of the young people in college today believe it’s contemporary to their peer group, that somebody, you know, one town away came up with it or that it’s something that’s relatively new or novel.

And they are shocked to find that in some cases it’s older than their parents.

So, Grant, why Bogart as opposed to Gable or Matthau or?

There’s something, Bogart was, he was tough.

There was something about his face and his voice, right?

Yeah, yeah.

He had a force of personality and a character that really just said, look, you really want to do what I’m asking you to do, right?

That was what was in his eyes and then like the way he cocked his head and his intonation.

He was a great actor.

And so when they gave him these bad guy roles or even the good guy roles where he went a little sour before the end of the film, he somehow turned rotten.

He’s incredibly persuasive.

Just go watch those old Bogart films.

The man has got some force.

He’s got power.

And even when he’s sitting there smoking a cigarette, doing nothing, he’ll make you do what he wants you to do.

You’re going to look where he wants you to look.

You’re going to think what he wants you to think.

And through his acting, you’re going to feel what he wants you to feel.

So I can totally see how this term might come about because of great acting.

Is it still used in that bullying, intimidating sense at all?

Not really, no.

That’s pretty much gone.

Although, as you noted, the fact that it’s used to mean don’t hog anything, mean it’s kind of stepped out of really slangy English that has to do with drugs and young people.

And now you’ll find it in the workplace, and you’ll hear it on the radio, and it’ll pop up in movies.

And it’s something that’s kind of lost it.

It’s still slangy, but it’s lost kind of the counterculture connotations that it had.

But, Dean, thank you for calling.

I hope we helped.

Oh, thank you very much.

And I won’t bogart any more of the airtime.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Don’t Bargaret That Joint was by Little Feet, and it was used in the movie Easy Rider.

It was on the soundtrack.

Okay.

So that explains something that’s kind of circular, right?

Okay.

Yeah, right.

Well, if you’re curious about a word, give us a call.

The number’s 1-877-929-9673, or you can email us, words@waywordradio.org.

Don’t hold guard that joint.