In our humble Italian-American youth, during holidays our large Italian family would sit for endless hours around the table discussing current events (and sometimes other absent relatives). Our holidays were a cultural blend, dining on a mix of classic Italian plates: antipasto, pasta, turkey, potatoes, side vegetables, apple pie and pignole cookies, and Galliano and Anisette.
Often these holiday dinners would last so long that adults would take a walk around the block, come back, and eat more.
Italian words were used to protect our innocence from the reality of the world. As a five-year-old, my cousin and I would drop a napkin and could not wait to escape under the table to retrieve it, to discuss our own important matters, staying a while looking at shoes and hearing words which had no meaning to our young ears.
I learned after schooling in Siena, Italy, and many years later while working in Italian tourism, that the counterculture of being “Italian” in the USA which we learned from southern Italian grandparents was different from the “Italian Italians” – born in Italy. For one, as southern Italians, we never ate risotto.
We heard these words growing up, but it was not until becoming fluent in Italian that I learned that fazool was an East Coast extraction of the word fagioli (beans). You may recall a few of these words as they were often inserted into TV shows and movies about Italians.
These words below are not true Italian words, but East Coast Italian-American language in and of itself.
“Fazool” is an Americanized Italian slang term for “pasta e fagioli,” a rustic dish of pasta and beans. The word “fazool” is derived from the Sicilian or Neapolitan dialect for “beans.”
“Oogatz” is a slang term in Italian-American culture meaning “nothing,” particularly used when someone has no money or has nothing to give. It is not a term from modern Italian but is used in Italian-American communities, popularized in shows like The Sopranos.
In Italian, “mamaluke” is a derogatory term for a fool or an idiot, coming from the word “mammalucco.” The word is also used in Italian-American slang and can mean a fool or someone acting stupidly.
“Fugazi” is not an Italian word; it is a slang term, likely with an Italian-American origin, meaning fake, bogus, or counterfeit.
“Fangool” is not an Italian word; it is a mispronunciation of the slang term “va-fa-gool” or “va-fancul,” which is a vulgar expression meaning “go to hell” or “get lost.”
“Goomah” (plural goomahs) (Italian-American slang) A mistress.
“Chooch” is an Italian-American slang term for a foolish or incompetent person, derived from the Italian word “ciuccio” or “ciuco,” which means donkey. It’s used to describe someone who is a jackass, a “half-ass,” or has low morals. The term likely entered American English through immigrants from southern Italian dialects and became widespread in the northeastern United States.