I'm looking for historical evidence for
"Spuckies" for the next volume of the Dictionary of American Regional
English. Here are some more Boston terms (in a post I made to the
American Dialect Society):


WICKED GOOD GUIDE/BOSTON ENGLISH

More from the Wicked Good Guides/Boston English. Someone should do a
site
like this for New York.

Below are the selected food-related entries.

http://www.boston-online.com/glossary/ab/index.html

American chop suey
Has nothing to do with Chinese food (then again, only in Boston do
Chinese
restaurants serve French rolls): Macaroni with hamburg, a little
tomato sauce
and a bit of onion and green pepper.

B'daydas
You can serve them mashed, or whipped or boiled.

Bazo
Drunk, at least in Southie.
Jonathan E. Dyer

Bubbla
That's a water fountain to you, bub.

Bulkie roll
A soft, fluffy roll, you know, like a Kaiser roll. Only in Boston are
they
sometimes served at Chinese restaurants.
Kelly Holmes

Bundle
Grocery bag.

Chowdahead
Stupid person. The phrase has spread westa Wihsta, but it's definitely
of
local origins. Casserine Toussaint reports: "It comes from back when
people would
make a massive bucket of chowder and lay a clean rope in it so that
when they
put it into the unheated back room it would freeze solid and could be
hung
up. They'd slide off the bucket by putting a hot towel on it and
voila! Anyone
wanting a bowl of chowder went in and chipped off a piece to be warmed
up on
the stove. After a while the frozen block of chowder took on a round
shape, like
a head."

Coffee regulah
Coffee with some cream and two sugahs.

Dunkie's
A donut shop found roughly every 1/10th of a mile on every street in
greater
Boston.
Eric Vroom

Egg rolls
Large, fluffy rolls, a.k.a. kaiser rolls.
Reuven Brauner

Frankfurt
Hot dog. You can find them in the meat depahtment, neah the hamburg.
Served
on Massachusetts frankfurt buns, which are mostly white on the
outside.

Frappe
A milkshake or malted elsewhere, it's basically ice cream, milk and
chocolate
syrup blended together. The 'e' is silent. Despite the chocolate
syrup, it
actually comes in many flavors. "My favorite was a coffee frappe with
two scoops
of ice cream in Guild's Drug Store (pronounced like guile), which
stood on
Boylston and Exeter until this past year when they wrecked it,'' Dee
Burton
reported in 1997.

Fudicle
A Boston Fudgsicle.
netexpert

Gravy
Tomato sauce. Primarily heard in the over-40 set in East Boston.
KJMac

Green Death
Haffenreffer Private Stock Malt Liquor (refers primarily to the 16 oz.
bottles).
Michael Howell

Grinda
A sub or spuckie. Annette Leonard reports that in Saugus, it is
specifically
a toasted sub.

Half moon
Pastry known as "Black and Whites" elsewhere.
Reuven Brauner

Hamburg
Ground meat. Sometimes found near the frankfurts.

Hermits
Molasses cookies.
Jane Morris

Hoodsie
1. A small cup of ice cream, the kind that comes with a flat wooden
spoon
(from H.P. Hood, the dairy that sells them). KC Black reports: "Part
of their
charm was on finishing them you'd suck and then fold the wooden spoon
risking
splintahs from the folded wood." To which Dee Burton adds: "The lid
had a
brown-tone picture of a movie star covered by a thin layer of
protector paper that
you peeled off. Sure wish I'd kept those covers. Police used to give
us free
Hoodsies and free movies on the morning of July 4, in the days when
fireworks
were legal in Mass. (that's how far back I go!).''
2. Certain teen-aged girls, who, like the ice cream, are "short and
sweet and
good to eat." Jo Ann Kendricken recounts: "Growing up in Roslindale
(scooping
went on here and in W. Roxbury as well as Hyde Park), I was a hoodsie,
and
now when I tell people that, they automatically call me a 'Rozzie
chick/rat' and
say, 'So, you are a tough girl, aren't you? Better not mess with you!'
For
the record, I have never been in a fight, but it's nice to know that
no one will
mess witcha!'

Jimmies
Those little chocolate thingees you ask the guy at the ice-cream store
to put
on top of your cone. The multi-colored ones are "sprinkles."

Kegga
A beeah bash.

Live 'n' kickin'
The only kind of lobstahs you'll find at Boston deli countahs:

Milkshake
Milk with some flavored syrup, but NO ice cream.

Packie
A package store; wheah you buy beah.

Packie run
What you make when you go downna Mahty's, Blanchahd's oah some otha
packie to
pick up some beah for a kegga.

Penuche
The fudge equivalent of mystery meat.
Jane Morris

Rawregg
An uncooked egg.
Linda Petrous

Reefah
Refrigerator.


Roll
A bun stuffed with some sort of seafood salad, for example, a "lobsta
roll."
Often served on Massachusetts frankfurt buns, which look like they've
been
turned inside out (i.e., the outside of the bun is as white as the
inside).

Sangwich
Sandwich. Alicia from Meffid reports: "My Nonna used to say, "Take
your
sangwiches out on the piazza."

Scrod
A small, ambiguous piece of fish that never knows if it's cod or
haddock.
Some people claim that "scrod" is a young cod, while "schrod" is a
young haddock,
but, in fact, there's no difference - it's basically whatever's
cheaper at
the fish pier that day.

Spa
A luncheonette or ma-and-pop convenience store (e.g., the Palace Spa
in
Brighton). Store 24s are never spas.

Spider
A frying pan. Now largely obsolete; refers to old-style pans that had
legs to
keep them off the coals.
Connie Nowlan

Spuckie
Sometimes, spukie. What some Bostonians still call a sub or hero
(there's
even a sub shop in Dorchester called Spukies 'n Pizza). Some people
refuse to
believe it's real, but it must be, because the Middlesex News wrote
about it in
1993. From spucadella, a type of Italian sandwich roll you can still
buy at
some of the bakeries in the North End and Somerville.

David Keene reports: " 'Spuckie' is indeed a Boston word. It is not
used much
anymore, the older Italians used it. Growing up in Chelsea we alway
bought
'spuckies' at Gallo's market. My wife bought spuckies at the Italian
stores in
Eastie when she was a kid. The word is not used much anymore, because
there are
so few of us that know what it means." Richard Karasik, meanwhile,
recalls
that "Santarpio's pizza parlor (in Eastie) was the center of spuckie
heaven."

Squeet
"Let's go eat," at least in Lynn.
Paul Hebert

Suppa
Meal served around 6 p.m.
The Hudson family

Tonic
A carbonated beverage, you know, like Coke or Moxie. Oldtimers
remember
before the supamahket chains went all national and had "tonic" and
"diet tonic"
signs above their aisles.

(Barry Popik) writes:

>I'm looking for historical evidence for
>"Spuckies" for the next volume of the Dictionary of American Regional
>English. Here are some more Boston terms (in a post I made to the
>American Dialect Society):
>
>
>WICKED GOOD GUIDE/BOSTON ENGLISH
>
>More from the Wicked Good Guides/Boston English. Someone should do a
>site
>like this for New York.
>
>Below are the selected food-related entries.
>
>http://www.boston-online.com/glossary/ab/index.html

Even if you believe that the URL just referenced will always
be available, you would do well (and be both more scholarly and
more polite) to credit the author, Adam Gaffin, of the material
which you have quoted so extensively (deleted below). Since,
in fact, URLs cannot be guaranteed, you really *must* give
Adam credit (and I hope you will do so on the ADS list).

Lee Rudolph

> >http://www.boston-online.com/glossary/ab/index.html
>
> Even if you believe that the URL just referenced will always
> be available, you would do well (and be both more scholarly and
> more polite) to credit the author, Adam Gaffin, of the material
> which you have quoted so extensively (deleted below). Since,
> in fact, URLs cannot be guaranteed, you really *must* give
> Adam credit (and I hope you will do so on the ADS list).
>
> Lee Rudolph


Will do. I believe the URL will be available, though, and Adam Gaffin
is the compiler, not necessarily the author (as some entries make
clear).

I'm having some trouble finding historical "spuckies." No luck today
in the New York Public Library.

Barry Popik

FYI--Barry Popik


Subj: Spuckies (1985)
Date: 9/11/2004 8:53:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Bapopik
To:
Cc: ASmith1946

The good folks at rec.food.historic have pointed out that I should
have added that Adam Gaffin is the compiler of the Wicked Good
Guides/Boston English.

I've looked through the Proquest full-text of the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
MONITOR (Boston?), but no "spuckies."

No "spuckies" that I could see in THE REAL BOSTON UNDERGROUND DINING
(1973) by Jerome Rubin and Cynthia Rubin, or THE BOSTON PHOENIX'S
GUIDE TO CHEAP EATS (3rd ed., 1975) by Paul A. Silver, et al.

Here are results from the usual databases:


(PROQUEST NEWSPAPERS)
Ocean Beach Works to Erase the `OB Stigma'; [San Diego County Edition]
TOM GREELEY. Los Angeles Times (pre-1997 Fulltext). Los Angeles,
Calif.: Oct 6, 1985. pg. 1
(...)
[Illustration]
PHOTO: Larry DeRosbil, a 10-year resident of Ocean Beach, plays his
guitar on the seawall at the foot of Newport Avenue. A surfboard is
"parked" in a bike rack at a Newport Avenue bar in Ocean Beach. /
VINCE COMPAGNONE / Los Angeles Times June Mahoney sits on the patio in
front of the modern Sunset Strip shopping center where she opened
Spucky Sandwiches.


(FACTIVA)
WHERE'S BOSTON GLOSSARY
Tom Long, Globe Staff
442 words
17 September 1987
The Boston Globe
THIRD
11
English
(Copyright 1987)

He speaks like a native; it's the highest compliment you can offer to
a stranger in a strange land. Though radio and TV have homogenized our
language to a distressing degree, Boston's vernacular can trip up a
newcomer in less time than it takes to order a spucky and a tonic at
the local spa.
(...)
Tonic -- (TOHN-nik). Not a health food drink, as in spring tonic, but
tonic as in Coke is it . . . a generic term for soft drinks.
(...)
Quahog -- (KOE-hog). Not a football lineman or an individual member of
a tandem of swine, it's a large mollusk, or clam.

Bubbler -- (BUB-lah) Water fountain.

Spucky -- (SPUH-key). South Boston-Dorchester term for a submarine
sandwich, hero or grinder.

Spa -- (spah). Convenience store.
(...)
Frappe -- (Frap). No, not a French classical dance step, it's a milk
shake with ice cream.

Milk Shake -- (Milk Shayk). Milk with flavored syrup.

Jimmies -- (JIM-eez). Chocolate-flavored sprinkles on ice cream.



(PROQUEST NEWSPAPERS)
Leominster restaurant has flavor of North End
Anna L. Bisol, Staff Reporter. Telegram & Gazette. Worcester, Mass.:
Apr 14, 1996. pg. 10

LEOMINSTER - Spuckies on Main Street?

"I was surprised by the numbers of people who know what a spuckie is,"
Mark DiSessa, owner of Little Marko's Cafe Italiano, said.

For those who don't know what a spuckie is, it's on the menu at the
newly opened restaurant located at 41 Main St.

Like many of the other items on the menu, the spuckies are part of
DiSessa's childhood. "Growing up in the North End, my mother would
make us these sandwiches - subs that were made on a fresh baked
Italian roll. The roll was called a spuckie and that's what the
sandwiches are called as well," DiSessa said.

"I loved those sandwiches and continued to make them even after I
moved out of the North End whenever I could get the bread," DiSessa
said.
(...)


(PROQUEST NEWSPAPERS)
FRESH BREAD FOUND HERE; [THIRD Edition]
SACHA PFEIFFER. Boston Globe. Boston, Mass.: Jan 19, 2003. pg. 2
(...)
Meet the Cooch brothers: Richie, Sonny, Cookie, and Michael. This
born-and-raised Eastie foursome has been baking excellent breads,
pies, cookies, pastries, and pizza since the 1960s, and the brothers'
stripped-down bakery near Day Square, with its antique slicing machine
and stacked sacks of flour, is a step back in time. Italian bread,
fresh-baked seven days a week, is the specialty here, including scali,
spuckies, French twist rolls, and finger rolls.


(PROQUEST NEWSPAPERS)
Be afraid - there's a spucky out there with your name on it; [All
Editions]
PETER GELZINIS. Boston Herald. Boston, Mass.: Jun 30, 2004. p. 008

> >http://www.boston-online.com/glossary/ab/index.html
>
> Even if you believe that the URL just referenced will always
> be available, you would do well (and be both more scholarly and
> more polite) to credit the author, Adam Gaffin, of the material
> which you have quoted so extensively (deleted below). Since,
> in fact, URLs cannot be guaranteed, you really *must* give
> Adam credit (and I hope you will do so on the ADS list).
>
> Lee Rudolph


Will do. I believe the URL will be available, though, and Adam Gaffin
is the compiler, not necessarily the author (as some entries make
clear).

I'm having some trouble finding historical "spuckies." No luck today
in the New York Public Library.

Barry Popik

(Barry Popik) wrote in news:84b64385.0409110538.6d9b55e1
@posting.google.com:
<snip>

>
> Green Death
> Haffenreffer Private Stock Malt Liquor (refers primarily to the 16 oz.
> bottles).
> Michael Howell
>

Rainier Ale, in Seattle, also known as Green Death. Especially the
"torpedo" bottles. I can't vouch for it (!)

>
> Jimmies
> Those little chocolate thingees you ask the guy at the ice-cream store
> to put
> on top of your cone. The multi-colored ones are "sprinkles."
>
>

Hardly unique to Boston. Common in Pittsburgh.

You might find some interesting regionalisms he
http://hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/maps.php

Note - not all food-related...but interesting none the less...

d;D

(Barry Popik) writes:

>I'm looking for historical evidence for
>"Spuckies" for the next volume of the Dictionary of American Regional
>English. Here are some more Boston terms (in a post I made to the
>American Dialect Society):
>
>
>WICKED GOOD GUIDE/BOSTON ENGLISH
>
>More from the Wicked Good Guides/Boston English. Someone should do a
>site
>like this for New York.
>
>Below are the selected food-related entries.
>
>http://www.boston-online.com/glossary/ab/index.html

Even if you believe that the URL just referenced will always
be available, you would do well (and be both more scholarly and
more polite) to credit the author, Adam Gaffin, of the material
which you have quoted so extensively (deleted below). Since,
in fact, URLs cannot be guaranteed, you really *must* give
Adam credit (and I hope you will do so on the ADS list).

Lee Rudolph

Barry -- I know Adam Gaffin and he is an honest and clever fellow, well
worth talking to about language.

Spuckies derives from a pointy roll called a spuccadella, and is used mostly
in East Boston and by older people. By analogy, see "speedies" for skewers
(spiedini in Italian).

Bulkie roll, by the way, is pronounced Bool-key.

"American Chop Suey" is a recipe in the Inglenook Cook Book from 1911, but
that was a recipe for "real" chop suey. The macaroni kind is much later,
although I would date the general concept of non-Chinese chop suey from the
1916 *Manual for Army Cooks* which has a recipe for chop suey stew that I
used in my history cookbook.


--
-Mark H. Zanger
author, The American History Cookbook, The American Ethnic Cookbook for
Students
www.ethnicook.com
www.historycook.com


"Barry Popik" > wrote in message
om...
> I'm looking for historical evidence for
> "Spuckies" for the next volume of the Dictionary of American Regional
> English. Here are some more Boston terms (in a post I made to the
> American Dialect Society):
>
>
> WICKED GOOD GUIDE/BOSTON ENGLISH
>
> More from the Wicked Good Guides/Boston English. Someone should do a
> site
> like this for New York.
>
> Below are the selected food-related entries.
>
> http://www.boston-online.com/glossary/ab/index.html
>
> American chop suey
> Has nothing to do with Chinese food (then again, only in Boston do
> Chinese
> restaurants serve French rolls): Macaroni with hamburg, a little
> tomato sauce
> and a bit of onion and green pepper.
>
> B'daydas
> You can serve them mashed, or whipped or boiled.
>
> Bazo
> Drunk, at least in Southie.
> Jonathan E. Dyer
>
> Bubbla
> That's a water fountain to you, bub.
>
> Bulkie roll
> A soft, fluffy roll, you know, like a Kaiser roll. Only in Boston are
> they
> sometimes served at Chinese restaurants.
> Kelly Holmes
>
> Bundle
> Grocery bag.
>
> Chowdahead
> Stupid person. The phrase has spread westa Wihsta, but it's definitely
> of
> local origins. Casserine Toussaint reports: "It comes from back when
> people would
> make a massive bucket of chowder and lay a clean rope in it so that
> when they
> put it into the unheated back room it would freeze solid and could be
> hung
> up. They'd slide off the bucket by putting a hot towel on it and
> voila! Anyone
> wanting a bowl of chowder went in and chipped off a piece to be warmed
> up on
> the stove. After a while the frozen block of chowder took on a round
> shape, like
> a head."
>
> Coffee regulah
> Coffee with some cream and two sugahs.
>
> Dunkie's
> A donut shop found roughly every 1/10th of a mile on every street in
> greater
> Boston.
> Eric Vroom
>
> Egg rolls
> Large, fluffy rolls, a.k.a. kaiser rolls.
> Reuven Brauner
>
> Frankfurt
> Hot dog. You can find them in the meat depahtment, neah the hamburg.
> Served
> on Massachusetts frankfurt buns, which are mostly white on the
> outside.
>
> Frappe
> A milkshake or malted elsewhere, it's basically ice cream, milk and
> chocolate
> syrup blended together. The 'e' is silent. Despite the chocolate
> syrup, it
> actually comes in many flavors. "My favorite was a coffee frappe with
> two scoops
> of ice cream in Guild's Drug Store (pronounced like guile), which
> stood on
> Boylston and Exeter until this past year when they wrecked it,'' Dee
> Burton
> reported in 1997.
>
> Fudicle
> A Boston Fudgsicle.
> netexpert
>
> Gravy
> Tomato sauce. Primarily heard in the over-40 set in East Boston.
> KJMac
>
> Green Death
> Haffenreffer Private Stock Malt Liquor (refers primarily to the 16 oz.
> bottles).
> Michael Howell
>
> Grinda
> A sub or spuckie. Annette Leonard reports that in Saugus, it is
> specifically
> a toasted sub.
>
> Half moon
> Pastry known as "Black and Whites" elsewhere.
> Reuven Brauner
>
> Hamburg
> Ground meat. Sometimes found near the frankfurts.
>
> Hermits
> Molasses cookies.
> Jane Morris
>
> Hoodsie
> 1. A small cup of ice cream, the kind that comes with a flat wooden
> spoon
> (from H.P. Hood, the dairy that sells them). KC Black reports: "Part
> of their
> charm was on finishing them you'd suck and then fold the wooden spoon
> risking
> splintahs from the folded wood." To which Dee Burton adds: "The lid
> had a
> brown-tone picture of a movie star covered by a thin layer of
> protector paper that
> you peeled off. Sure wish I'd kept those covers. Police used to give
> us free
> Hoodsies and free movies on the morning of July 4, in the days when
> fireworks
> were legal in Mass. (that's how far back I go!).''
> 2. Certain teen-aged girls, who, like the ice cream, are "short and
> sweet and
> good to eat." Jo Ann Kendricken recounts: "Growing up in Roslindale
> (scooping
> went on here and in W. Roxbury as well as Hyde Park), I was a hoodsie,
> and
> now when I tell people that, they automatically call me a 'Rozzie
> chick/rat' and
> say, 'So, you are a tough girl, aren't you? Better not mess with you!'
> For
> the record, I have never been in a fight, but it's nice to know that
> no one will
> mess witcha!'
>
> Jimmies
> Those little chocolate thingees you ask the guy at the ice-cream store
> to put
> on top of your cone. The multi-colored ones are "sprinkles."
>
> Kegga
> A beeah bash.
>
> Live 'n' kickin'
> The only kind of lobstahs you'll find at Boston deli countahs:
>
> Milkshake
> Milk with some flavored syrup, but NO ice cream.
>
> Packie
> A package store; wheah you buy beah.
>
> Packie run
> What you make when you go downna Mahty's, Blanchahd's oah some otha
> packie to
> pick up some beah for a kegga.
>
> Penuche
> The fudge equivalent of mystery meat.
> Jane Morris
>
> Rawregg
> An uncooked egg.
> Linda Petrous
>
> Reefah
> Refrigerator.
>
>
> Roll
> A bun stuffed with some sort of seafood salad, for example, a "lobsta
> roll."
> Often served on Massachusetts frankfurt buns, which look like they've
> been
> turned inside out (i.e., the outside of the bun is as white as the
> inside).
>
> Sangwich
> Sandwich. Alicia from Meffid reports: "My Nonna used to say, "Take
> your
> sangwiches out on the piazza."
>
> Scrod
> A small, ambiguous piece of fish that never knows if it's cod or
> haddock.
> Some people claim that "scrod" is a young cod, while "schrod" is a
> young haddock,
> but, in fact, there's no difference - it's basically whatever's
> cheaper at
> the fish pier that day.
>
> Spa
> A luncheonette or ma-and-pop convenience store (e.g., the Palace Spa
> in
> Brighton). Store 24s are never spas.
>
> Spider
> A frying pan. Now largely obsolete; refers to old-style pans that had
> legs to
> keep them off the coals.
> Connie Nowlan
>
> Spuckie
> Sometimes, spukie. What some Bostonians still call a sub or hero
> (there's
> even a sub shop in Dorchester called Spukies 'n Pizza). Some people
> refuse to
> believe it's real, but it must be, because the Middlesex News wrote
> about it in
> 1993. From spucadella, a type of Italian sandwich roll you can still
> buy at
> some of the bakeries in the North End and Somerville.
>
> David Keene reports: " 'Spuckie' is indeed a Boston word. It is not
> used much
> anymore, the older Italians used it. Growing up in Chelsea we alway
> bought
> 'spuckies' at Gallo's market. My wife bought spuckies at the Italian
> stores in
> Eastie when she was a kid. The word is not used much anymore, because
> there are
> so few of us that know what it means." Richard Karasik, meanwhile,
> recalls
> that "Santarpio's pizza parlor (in Eastie) was the center of spuckie
> heaven."
>
> Squeet
> "Let's go eat," at least in Lynn.
> Paul Hebert
>
> Suppa
> Meal served around 6 p.m.
> The Hudson family
>
> Tonic
> A carbonated beverage, you know, like Coke or Moxie. Oldtimers
> remember
> before the supamahket chains went all national and had "tonic" and
> "diet tonic"
> signs above their aisles.

Tele
What the old timers from Southie used to call the television.