Cut a Chogie, Brookyn Boy

Hi there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Vince here from Brooklyn.

Hey, Vince from Brooklyn. Well, welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

There was a Brooklynese saying that was on my mind. I’ll give you some background first.

I was born in 1947. In the early 1950s, growing up, a lot of the young men were returning back from Korea. These were all the cousins, neighbors, and this affected the neighborhood, all these having all these nice young men back again. And one of the things, as little kids who were five, six years old, we were very annoying, and they would say to us, go cut a chuggy. That became the vernacular that I thought was Brooklynese and was part of the vernacular of Brooklyn all the time. It was used in my grammar school. It was used in my high school.

What did it mean? Can you say it again?

Cut a chogi. It means beat it, you know, get away from there. And in 1967, I’m stationed in Fort Rooker, Alabama. I meet Fort Rooker, two MPs that just came back from Korea. And of course, they’re from Brooklyn. They’re from Brooklyn. You become very fast friends. And they had a car. And we were driving down the road, and the driver says to me, I’m in the back seat, he says, Vince, which way do I go?

I said, Kotechogi.

He turns the car, makes the correct turn. Then he turns to me and he says, where did you learn Korean?

I said, Korean? I don’t know Korean.

He says, yeah, Kotechogi, you told me that it’s Korean.

It is Korean. I said, I thought it was Brooklynese.

He says, no, it’s Korean.

So that’s my story.

That’s hilarious. So you didn’t realize that all those soldiers coming about from Korean were speaking something they’d picked up in the war.

Right. In Korea, they picked it up in Korea. They brought it back to the neighborhood. They all had similar experiences, linguistically, I guess, in Korea. And they brought it to the neighborhood. And I just assumed, as a young man, being five, six years old, that it was part of a vernacular.

That’s fantastic.

I mean, I used it in high school, even.

It’s not just old timers. It’s still running around. People still say cut a chogi or do a chogi or pull a chogi. It’s still out there.

Chogi being spelled C-H-O-G-I or I-E or E-E or E-Y, sometimes with a double G.

Yeah, directly from Korean as early as the early 1950s. It’s hard to say exactly which part of the Korean language it came from, but it roughly came from a Korean phrase that meant go there, roughly. Chogi means there in Korean.

So basically go that way. And so it’s the kind of thing that might be shouted constantly when people are giving directions or orders.

Well, I thank you very, very much. And I enjoy your show tremendously. It’s tremendous both of you. You do a great job. And I thank you for that.

Yeah, our pleasure.

Thanks for calling, Vincent. You call us again sometime.

Okay, fine.

I will call back.

All right.

Take care.

Thank you very much for your answers.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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