What do you call a sticky, gooey, gross substance you can’t identify? Lee in San Antonio, Texas, calls it gookumpucky, a word she inherited from her mother and a great-grandmother descended from Czech and Polish immigrants. It belongs to a family of words for “gunk” that end with -pucky or something similar, like stickumpucky, which refers to a kind of adhesive, glue, or sealant. The Dictionary of American Regional English records akempucky as a noun that denotes such sticky things as sludge, wallpaper paste, sealant, or caulk. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Gookumpucky,” “Stickumpucky,” and “Akempucky”: Terms for Sticky, Gooey Gunk”
Hello.
Welcome to A Way with Words.
Hi.
My name is Lee, and I’m calling from San Antonio, Texas.
San Antonio.
What a great time we had when we were there.
Fabulous place.
Yeah.
Lee, what did you call about today?
So I have a word I learned from my mother, and it’s used to describe, like, a sticky, gooey, gross, usually unknown substance.
Mhmm.
And the word we use is gookupeki.
And I’ve asked my mother where she learned this word because we’ve never heard it anywhere out…
Outside of my family.
I learned it from her, and I use it.
And we’re pretty much the only people that use this word.
And she said she learned it from her grandmother who…
Her grandmother, like, made it up.
It was a made up word or if it had some deeper origin.
My mother’s grandmother was a descendant of Czech Polish immigrants to Central Texas.
Mhmm.
So I don’t know if it had, like, a Czech origin.
But, yeah, it’s a it’s a gross sticky substance, and the word is Gukumpaki.
Gukumpaki sounds to me like one of those towns that’s on a state border, like, between Kentucky and Georgia.
You know, like Texarkana or Mexicali or something like that.
Yep.
Yeah.
And any idea how you spell Gookupucky?
Or maybe you don’t even have occasion to spell Gookupucky.
Not really.
I mean, I would spell it G 00 C U D K P U C K E Y, something like that.
Yeah.
The judges will allow it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that’s as good as anything, Lee.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, well, it appears that gookup pucky is is one of a number of words that end with pucky to refer to sort of the thing that you’re talking about, you know, sticky stuff, gunk.
The more common version, the one that’s actually in the dictionary of American regional English, is a c k e m p u c k y, and it’s spelled a lot of different ways like a c k e p y.
People will use a c k e p u y to describe sludge or wallpaper paste or sealant or caulk or plumbers might describe the gunk that’s caught in the threads when you’re taking pipes apart as akam puckey.
And I’ve only seen gookum puckey a few places along with stickum puckey Oh.
Which refers to a kind of adhesive.
So I’m pretty sure that it’s just part of that family of words, you know, that that sort of sound like what they are.
I mean, if you’re wiping gookumpucky off a little kid’s face, you know, that works really well.
Yes.
Exactly.
So maybe she added the goo part because she was dealing with my mother as a child covered in goo.
I don’t know.
We keep hear from John in Florida who remembers using goo compake to refer to Bondo.
You know, it’s that filler you used to repair auto bodies.
They’re, like, smooth out the Ok.
Of divots in the in the seams.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I don’t think there’s a Polish or Czech connection.
No.
And the great…
It was your great grandmother who was Czech Polish?
Yes.
Yeah.
If she moved to Central Texas, a really good chance her main language was German and not Czech or Polish.
Mhmm.
But this isn’t Americanism, is the other thing that we know.
So it’s not…
You’re not gonna find this outside of of North America.
Yeah.
So it’s that sticky stuff that you wipe off and it’s still on your fingers.
Yeah.
You know, you just can’t get it off.
Definitely.
Is a good synonym for that.
I love that.
Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Thanks for sharing, Lee.
We appreciate it.
Call again sometime.
Alright?
Alright.
For sure.
Thanks so much.
Bye-bye.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Gukhampukki, Akhampukki, or any pocky, give us a call or text.
