# Gagoots



## csineedham

A guy on the Sopranos calls his son gagoots.. Maybe a nickname? I would like to know the translation to english because its quickly becoming my sons nickname


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## csineedham

I've also heard it used in a sentence "my boy gagoots" Facia brute" I understand translates to ugly face in english and I hope gagoots is not as mean


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## DareRyan

It's an Americanized rendition of an Italian side dish made with Zucchini, onions, and sautéed peppers. As far as I know this word means this alone although it may have other conotations as like may food items it has become a fairly common nickname (Pattatine etc.) In the U.S. for Italian-Americans.


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## MiaV

facia brute mean "ugly face" someone you call that you don't like


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## Drusillo

I am curious, what is the name of the "Italian side dish" that sounds similar to Gagoots? I can't find one.

Are you talking about "Ragù"?
thanks


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## Silvia

Drusillo said:
			
		

> I am curious, what is the name of the "Italian side dish" that sounds similar to Gagoots? I can't find one.


Maybe that dish was invented in the US and not imported from Italy, that would explain the name.


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## lsp

DareRyan said:
			
		

> It's an Americanized rendition of an Italian side dish made with Zucchini, onions, and sautéed peppers. As far as I know this word means this alone although it may have other conotations as like may food items it has become a fairly common nickname (Pattatine etc.) In the U.S. for Italian-Americans.


 At least in the NY-metro area, it is also the name of a kind of zucchine itself, which is rather larger than the usual kind.  An Italo-american friend from New Jersey told me her grandmother, who came from Sicily, used to grow them. I had never heard of them. The next day CBS news did a human-interest segment on them.


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## walnut

Coudln't it be "cucuzz" or "cocuzz"? My sicilian granmother used to call zucchine taht way, and pronounced the "c" very, very smoothly sounding, actually, like a sort of "goguzz".

There also was a nice expression: "Sempre cucuzza è!" meaning; now matter haw nicely you cook it, it's always zucchini = tasteless.

 W.


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## lsp

walnut said:
			
		

> Coudln't it be "cucuzz" or "cocuzz"? My sicilian granmother used to call zucchine taht way, and pronounced the "c" very, very smoothly sounding, actually, like a sort of "goguzz".
> 
> There also was a nice expression: "Sempre cucuzza è!" meaning; now matter haw nicely you cook it, it's always zucchini = tasteless.
> 
> W.


Yes, sure. I had never seen it written, nor had my friend, so I can only say how it sounded, which is as you described. The ones my friend described as well as the ones they showed on TV growing here happen to be enormous, and they were also growing "normal" zucchini.


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## You little ripper!

walnut said:
			
		

> Coudln't it be "cucuzz" or "cocuzz"? My sicilian granmother used to call zucchine taht way, and pronounced the "c" very, very smoothly sounding, actually, like a sort of "goguzz".
> 
> There also was a nice expression: "Sempre cucuzza è!" meaning; now matter haw nicely you cook it, it's always zucchini = tasteless.
> 
> W.


That's what I thought actually. The Sicilian word is cucuzza and means "pumpkin" (Could also mean zucchini?), so maybe he's calling his son "Pumpkin Head" or something like that.


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## winnie

i beg your (all) pardon but IMO zucchini is wrong.

zucchina is feminine so its plural form is zucchine


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## uinni

winnie said:
			
		

> i beg your (all) pardon but IMO zucchini is wrong.
> 
> zucchina is feminine so its plural form is zucchine


 
Of course, winnie, but they were referring to the English word (which is plural itself -although you may also find zucchinis!)

Uinni

EDIT. Ops. You can also find a corresponding masculine in dictionaries (- I have never heard it in Italy!)


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## winnie

uinni said:
			
		

> Of course, winnie, but they were referring to the English word (which is plural itself -although you may also find zucchinis!)
> 
> Uinni


 
oops! i did not realize that 

grazie Uinni


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## Don Zauker

winnie said:
			
		

> i beg your (all) pardon but IMO zucchini is wrong.
> 
> zucchina is feminine so its plural form is zucchine


On the other hand, it exist also Zucchino, that is masculine so Zucchini may be correct, after all.


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## uinni

Don Zauker said:
			
		

> On the other hand, Zucchino exists as well, which is masculine so Zucchini may be correct, after all.


 
Usate la forma maschile in Toscana?

Uinni


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## winnie

Don Zauker said:
			
		

> On the other hand, it exist also Zucchino, that is masculine so Zucchini may be correct, after all.


 
my dic. reports only the feminine. a quick 'google' research found both. you say the masculine exist... well the debate is opened


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## Don Zauker

Dipende dai posti, anzi dalle persone... 

Io personalmente uso la forma maschile ma si usa comunemente anche quella femminile.

Debbo dire, pensandoci bene, che forse una regola sepolta nella mia memoria dice di usare la forma maschile per la pianta e quella femminile per il frutto (arancio/arancia) ma non so se funziona sempre (ad esempio con il fico...  )


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## uinni

winnie said:
			
		

> my dic. reports only the feminine. a quick 'google' research found both. you say the masculine exist... well the debate is opened


 
I found in DeMauro's and in Garzanti's that the masculine variant does exist, but as I have already said, I have never heard it.

Uinni


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## uinni

Don Zauker said:
			
		

> Dipende dai posti, anzi dalle persone...
> 
> Io personalmente uso la forma maschile ma si usa comunemente anche quella femminile.
> 
> Debbo dire, pensandoci bene, che forse una regola sepolta nella mia memoria dice di usare la forma maschile per la pianta e quella femminile per il frutto (arancio/arancia) ma non so se funziona sempre (ad esempio con il fico...  )


 
Penso che tale regola di massima valga per gli alberi (o gli arbusti), non per gli ortaggi...

Uinni


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## walnut

Charles Costante said:
			
		

> The Sicilian word is cucuzza and means "pumpkin" (Could also mean zucchini?)


 Yes, personally I only heard it used meaning "zucchini".


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## ElaineG

When I lived in Sicily (a few years ago), cucuzza was a zucchini (English mutilation of an Italian word!), while a pumpkin was a "zucca di Halloween"  (certainly a neologism!).


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## mzsweeett

For my small contribution....

I agree that the AE translation is zucchini.... we Americans tend to butcher foreign languages to suit our lack of ability to pronounce things correctly and tend to be too lazy to try to .... ah well. If the guy from Sopranos was saying to his son.... IMHO.... he is covertly saying his son lacks brains.... don't we say when people tend to lack common sense that they are vegetables or fruit cakes?? LOL I don't think I'd call any of my kids that unless they were perhaps very skinny...and a tad dim... 

I never heard this term before being introduced to my in-laws. I thought at first they were making fun of how I say some words but then I was shown what it was.... a zucchini!! I beg to differ on the opinion that they are tasteless though.... I find them delicious... if you got a bland one I'm so sorry you missed out on the flavor. The yellow variety tend to have less flavor then the green... perhaps this is where you went amiss???

Thanks also for giving the insight on using the term as a way to say pumpkin too. Pumpkins are in the squash family so it does make sense to render it that way.... I shall better understand my Sicilian relations!!


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## Silvia

There's a whole thread devoted to the words zucchini/zucchine, you'd better discuss the masculine/feminine gender there.


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## DareRyan

mzsweeett said:
			
		

> For my small contribution....
> 
> I agree that the AE translation is zucchini.... we Americans tend to butcher foreign languages to suit our lack of ability to pronounce things correctly and tend to be too lazy to try to .... ah well. If the guy from Sopranos was saying to his son.... IMHO.... he is covertly saying his son lacks brains.... don't we say when people tend to lack common sense that they are vegetables or fruit cakes?? LOL I don't think I'd call any of my kids that unless they were perhaps very skinny...and a tad dim...
> 
> I never heard this term before being introduced to my in-laws. I thought at first they were making fun of how I say some words but then I was shown what it was.... a zucchini!! I beg to differ on the opinion that they are tasteless though.... I find them delicious... if you got a bland one I'm so sorry you missed out on the flavor. The yellow variety tend to have less flavor then the green... perhaps this is where you went amiss???
> 
> Thanks also for giving the insight on using the term as a way to say pumpkin too. Pumpkins are in the squash family so it does make sense to render it that way.... I shall better understand my Sicilian relations!!



I'm not so sure I'd agree about the negative conotations. I mean I have seen some endearing Italian nicknames that would make me want to punch the person in the face if I was called their literal translation. I think food, vegetables especially tend to become nicknames endearing ones at that. Again, look at potato. I don't know about you other AE speakers but I would reallly rather not be called Potato. however from what I have seen it is just an endearing name.


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## uinni

csineedham said:
			
		

> A guy on the Sopranos calls his son gagoots.. Maybe a nickname? I would like to know the translation to english because its quickly becoming my sons nickname


 
I realized that at the bottom of all this discussion actually there was this csineedham's question.

Thanks to walnut's intuition we can draw this term to the word "zucca" (as it is quite clear that gagoots reproduces southern pronounce of cucuzza=zucca) and in Italy you call a "zucca" the head, especially when you want to mean a "dumb/silly head"="zucca vuota" (but also to mean an obstinate one) = [simply] zucca or "zucca dura"...
Dumb/silly people are referred to as zucconi (rather than zucche, anyway not zucchini/e), and parents call (more than  ) sometimes their children zucconi as a joke.

Uinni


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## Stevedis

Found this thread on a Google search; I see it's from last year, but I got a kick out of it and just had to reply.  In my experience, there is no negative connotations for this word at all!!  My grandma was Sicilian, from the old country.  She could barely string together a few English words, but did so for my benefit whenever possible, because my parents did not speak Italian to me.  Whenever she saw me, she would say "OHH, my little gagoots!!!" and give me a big hug.  She loved us kids to pieces.  It's a term of endearment, folks!  Although, on the Sopranos, anything is possbile, and they do play VERY loosely with a lot of Italian traditions.  Just my two cents!!


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## skanner62

Esiste la zucca e di conseguenza la zucchina. Lo zucco non esiste, ma esiste lo zuccone che, quando e' piccolo e gli si vuole anche un po' di bene, diventa "zucchino". :-D

Skanner


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## BillyIdle

Many Italian American Families know what this means.
It means a DICK HEAD - or more politely a SQUASH HEAD or Zucinni Head.  An idiot.

Now ask me about " Moolie ".

_" moolie_ - Italian slang for a black person. Short for "moulinyan," Italian dialect for "eggplant". "

In Mob parlayance Moolie means a Black clown.  Not a serious person.  A joke.  THERE IS NO TRANSLATION.  It is a bastardization of moulinyan.  Spike Lee once asked on a late night talk show, "What's a moolie?"  Being from NYC he knew it was not good.

This is way past being called an idiomatic expression.  Call it the Italian-American equivalent of Gangsta rap.  Strictly slang.


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## BillyIdle

Many Italian American Families know what this means.   It is as American as pizza.   It is an Italian-American _coloquialism.  When the Italians came to America, most came from Sicily, Naples and Southern Italy.  When they came they shared two cultures._


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## angeljorlando

csineedham said:


> A guy on the Sopranos calls his son gagoots.. Maybe a nickname? I would like to know the translation to english because its quickly becoming my sons nickname



So my father and his family were from Siciliy and ever since I was a child he called me googootza and I called him the same.  It is a zucchini but also used as a term of endearment from father to son and son to father I don’t know the female equivalent for daughters.  Just as an FYI I was born about 20 years before the Sopranos aired.


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## Pietruzzo

angeljorlando said:


> since I was a child he called me googootza and I called him the same. It is a zucchini but also used as a term of endearment


Well, the right spelling is "cucuzza", as others have said, and it wouldn't be used as a term of endearment in Italy (at least I wouldn't). In any case, " cucuzza" is a feminine noun.


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