Mooksie, Mucksig, Mucksch

Well, you have a way with words.

Hi, this is Grace. I’m calling from Abilene, Texas.

Hi, Grace. Welcome to the show. What’s up?

Thanks so much. Yeah, my question is about a word that my grandma and actually my great grandma used to say. It’s mooksy.

And she would say it if we were being pouty and maybe sticking out our lips. She would say, don’t be so mooksy. A little bird’s going to go poo-poo on your lips.

And so I would say that word to my friends and they never knew what it meant. So I thought, well, where does this word come from?

Well, you’ve got to tell us about your grandmother and great-grandmother. Where were they from? Where did they live?

Yeah, definitely. So we live in Texas now, but originally they were from Germany. And so I thought maybe it’s a derivative of a German word, but I couldn’t really find anything.

Were they direct from Germany or did they live in the German-speaking parts of Texas? Because those exist.

Yes, German-speaking parts of Texas. Like Henrietta, Wichita Falls, Wynthorce, those kinds of areas. Yeah, Texas Hill Country, right?

There’s still a few speakers of Texas German there. But your instincts are right on, Grace, because that term, and you said muxi? Muxi, yeah. I don’t even know how to spell it.

Well, it likely comes from a German dialectal term, Mucksch, which is spelled M-U-C-K-S-C-H. And it’s related to Muckisch, which both mean like sulky or grumpy or moody or annoyed.

Or if you want to talk about a fuss, that’s Muckchen. And so I suspect that that’s where they come from.

And I mean, did you call them Oma? Did you call your grandmother Oma?

You know, I didn’t. They didn’t speak German as much once they came over here. But I know there are people who do.

Yeah. Well, I was just going to ask if she ever talked about a Schiption.

No, I haven’t heard that.

Okay. Well, when you mentioned the thing that she said about don’t be so mooksy because a bird might poop on your lip, I was thinking about the German word Schiption, which means little shovel.

And that’s the term that they use in German to refer to that pouty little lip, you know, the way it sticks out. It’s a little shovel.

And so, yeah, I can see being warned against a bird pooping on your little shovel. And I bet that made you stop pouting, huh?

It did. Yeah, it still makes me laugh even now.

Yeah, it makes me laugh, too.

So just to spell those, muktsik is M-U-C-K-S-I-G, and it gave us the form muktsh, which is M-U-C-K-S-C-H. And then there’s the related verb muktshin, which is M-U-C-K-S-H-E-N.

And all of these had to do with being sullen or sulky or moody or grumpy or defiant or pouting.

Wow. Yeah, that’s so helpful because I was thinking the closest word I could think of was moxie, but it really isn’t the same meaning at all.

No relation.

No, no relation. As a matter of fact, this isn’t even, this is, like Martha said, this is a dialect term from Low German and Central German dialects, maybe around Hamburg and Saxony or Brandenburg, other places.

And there’s an expression, which I love, which uses one of these, a form of this word, and it translates as, as unhelpful as a postal clerk. Or as moody or as sullen as a postal clerk.

Oh, wow. Moks wie ein Postbeamter.

Well, that’s funny because my grandma was a post office woman. She would love it. She would deliver the mail. So maybe she wouldn’t like that phrase.

That’s so helpful.

Yeah, don’t be moksy, Grace. You’re quite lovely. You weren’t moksy with us at all.

Oh, good. I’m excited to share this with my family. They’re excited to hear it too.

All right. Take care now.

Thanks so much.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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