Has anyone ever heard this expression?

As a nation state, Italy has emerged only in 1871. Until then the country was politically divided into a large number of independant cities, provinces and islands. The currently available evidences point out to a dominant Etruscan, Greek and Roman cultural influence on today's Italians.
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Julo
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

Post by Julo »

I still don't know who this Botchgalup is supposed to be, I'm not into TV much but I can tell you that there was a famous Bacigalupo in Italy, he was a soccer player of the famous Torino team. In the year 1949 a plane crash took the lives of all the team's players.
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eyetalgal
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

Post by eyetalgal »

I think you may be referring to the surname Bacigalupo. I knew a family with that name in Brooklyn, they were from Genoa.
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

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eyetalgal wrote:I think you may be referring to the surname Bacigalupo. I knew a family with that name in Brooklyn, they were from Genoa.
Oh, no :lol:

Sorry for the confusion! Sophia Petrillo is a TV character from the 80's who referred to people as "dumb botchagaloops". It was clearly supposed to be a corruption of some Italian term.
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choprjohn
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

Post by choprjohn »

I always thought botchagaloop meant kiss my a**
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

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choprjohn wrote:I always thought botchagaloop meant kiss my a**
Not to my knowledge.
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misbris
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

Post by misbris »

Mr. Bacigalupo was a character on the old Abbott and Costello TV show. It is very possible Lou Costello took the name from the soccer player or from a family he knew in NJ. It is a funny name and Abbott and Costello used wordplay a lot in their comedy.

I think the word became popular from the tv show and entered American slang as a name for a kind of bumbling person. This explains Sophia's use of it on the Golden Girls. I can remember my Nonno and uncles using the phrase "What a Bagagaloop" (in dialect) as a mild insult.
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Julo
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

Post by Julo »

I think that this word, in some way got mixed up with the other italian insult:
MAMMALUCCO, which means stupid.
Bacigalupo is only a last name which many took as meaning something insulting. :?
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

Post by wldspirit »

I always thought botchagaloop meant kiss my a**
I remember something similar, sounded like botchamacula.....and I understood the translation as kiss my a**....... :P
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

Post by Squigy »

wldspirit wrote:
I always thought botchagaloop meant kiss my a**
I remember something similar, sounded like botchamacula.....and I understood the translation as kiss my a**....... :P
This conversation is degenerating fast, isn't it? :lol: :lol:
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Julo
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

Post by Julo »

wldspirit wrote:
I always thought botchagaloop meant kiss my a**
I remember something similar, sounded like botchamacula.....and I understood the translation as kiss my a**....... :P
In Italy there's no such expression, which is typical american, but in Italy there are more colorful ones. :oops:
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

Post by redchief777 »

Alright I'll add my own Italian descriptive terms I recall hearing relatives say during my childhood.

Jamoke [sp?] , I was never entirely sure what this meant. I thought fool.

Mittaganach [sp?] which may have loosely translated into "those darn Americans?"

My family was from Abruzzo

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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

Post by Squigy »

There's another phrase I heard a lot, Caca. It was used for something gross, or something you shouldn't touch (like, "don't touch that, it's caca").

Anyone ever hear this one?
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

Post by donnawright »

Funny... Jamoke and caca were both used in my house. Jamoke was not flattering in any way, and caca referred to poopies.
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

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donnawright wrote:Funny... Jamoke and caca were both used in my house. Jamoke was not flattering in any way, and caca referred to poopies.
:lol:

Makes sense, my mother said her grandmother used to say "do you have to caca" when asking somebody if they had to go to the bathroom.

As for Jamoke, I don't recall ever hearing that one.
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Re: Has anyone ever heard this expression?

Post by donnawright »

My mother is the one who used to say it. She was one of 6....3 born in Calabria and 3 in USA. She was born USA. I heard her mother say it, and she also said it. My dad's people came from Grosseto/Tuscany, and I never heard it from any of them. I sort of think Jamoke referred to calling someone a jackass.
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