Italian-American “Skutch”

Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, how are you? Excellent. Who’s this? My name is Jen Guzman.

I’m calling from Denton, Texas. Welcome to the show. What can we do for you? Thank you so much.

So I have a question about a word that I heard growing up a lot. I grew up in upstate New York and both of my parents grew up in Brooklyn and then moved upstate and they always used the word scutch. And it was used in a way where if we were bothering, I was bothering my brothers or they were bothering me or we were bothering my parents, they would say, don’t be a scutch, go do something else or something along those lines. And so I grew up in New York hearing that all the time. And then when I moved to Texas for school, I tried to use that same word with my now husband. And he just looked at me with a question like, is that a real word? And so I realized that it was not used all over the country. And so I was calling today to see if you could tell me anything about the word scutch.

Yeah, we sure can. And we can also tell you that you’re not alone. We have this experience all the time where people call up and they say, I moved across the country and I use this word, and people looked at me like I had two heads.

Yeah, that’s exactly it.

So your husband was being a scooch?

Yes, he usually is being a scooch, so I use that word pretty frequently.

Oh, really? How would you spell it?

In a playful way.

Okay. I would spell it S-C-U-T-C-H.

Okay, S-C-U-T-C-H. That sounds about right.

Yeah, that’s pretty close. I more often see it as S-K-U-T-C-H, pronounced scooch, like you said. And apparently it does come from an Italian word scocciare, which means to annoy. It may go back to an earlier term meaning to break. But yeah, to annoy. And so somebody who’s being annoying is a scooch.

That sounds about right. I think the nice thing is that it always felt like a playful word. It was never a big insult. It was just kind of a light reminder, like, you know, stop being a pain in the butt.

Right. So you kind of grab his nose and tweak it or something.

Yeah, exactly. Don’t be such a scooch. That connects then strongly to the Italian history of Brooklyn when it was a lot more Italian, but I would think of places more like Bensonhurst than I would Williamsburg being Italian.

That makes a lot of sense. It’s all to spread it throughout Texas.

Yeah, spread it throughout Texas and say hi to that scooch for us.

Yes, I will. Thank you guys so much. Cheers. Take care.

All right. Bye-bye. All right, take care. Bye.

Oh, those little remnants of the past that are sprinkled like jimmies on the top of a cupcake, right?

Oh, yeah, or hidden like gems inside a geode. I don’t know.

Block that metaphor.

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