Tell them it’s called the Garden State because
so many wiseguys are pushing up daisies there.
Dear Word Detective: Being from New Jersey and growing up in the 1950′s and 60′s, it seems like the only people who have heard the term “cutting a chogie” are also from N.J. I now live in Georgia and am often ridiculed when using the term to mean “moving fast.” Sometimes it is used facetiously to refer to someone with an unusual gait while walking. I have found a few references from the Vietnam war and some go back to the Korean war and both seem to refer to “moving out fast” but I am unsure of the origin. Can you shed any light on this? — Gordon.
Making fun of people from New Jersey, eh? Haven’t those clowns seen The Sopranos? I was born in New Jersey, as it happens, and I have a foolproof non-violent revenge for such disrespect of the Garden State as you describe. I just quietly meditate on the fact that residents of Podunk (or Georgia, whatever) will never, ever, know what real pizza tastes like.
Although I grew up during the same period as you did, my adolescence was spent in Connecticut, and I never, as far as I can recall, encountered “Cutting a chogie.” Of course, even if I had, that wouldn’t guarantee success on the question of its origin. I’ve been searching for the story behind “pediddle” (or “perdiddle” or “padiddle”), slang for a car with only one working headlight, since I was about 15 years old. No one, as yet, has come up with an even vaguely plausible source for that one.
In the case of “chogie,” fortunately, we have a fairly clear source, the Korean War. Apparently the Korean word rendered in English as “chogie” meant a Korean laborer in the service of the US or UN armed forces, either utilized as part of the supply chain (to carry food and ammunition, etc.) or as a personal attendant (“chogie boys”) to US troops. I don’t speak Korean, but apparently the term was drawn from a phrase, something along the lines of “kara chogi,” meaning “go there,” making “chogie” the rough equivalent of the English “gofer” (an assistant who fetches, “goes for,” various things). The wars in Korea and Vietnam were close enough chronologically that some personnel served in both, so “chogie” also turns up in glossaries of Vietnam-era services slang. According to my son, who served with the U.S. Army in Korea in the early 1990s, the term is still used among US troops in that country to mean “over there” when pointing.
With the root meaning “go there,” it was logical that GIs would also use “chogie” to mean “leave” or “move quickly,” which apparently came home, at least to New Jersey, in the form “cut a chogie.”
can you tell me where I can find info on “Doobie Round eyes” a cartoon during the thirties or forties. My father in law got his nickname from him and I would like to surprise my husband with a picture of it. No one has been able to find anything. Thanks in advance for any help.
He was also the only person who used cut a chogie and I never knew what it meant. thanks. I printed this for my husband and he had me make copies for his brother. I also put it in my children’s scrapbooks
We also put it in my children’s scrapbooks.
thanks,
Max
thanks. I had printed this for my friends.
My father always says “kipe a chogie” I would assume it means the same thing. Ever heard that one?
Hmmm.. that’s interesting about the padiddle thing. In high school I used to be in drumline. One of the rudiments they teach you was called a paradiddle. When my friends would play this game in the car (ones that were not in drumline) they would tap their hand between the window and dashboard making a paradiddle. I always assumed that was why they called it a padiddle.
http://www.vicfirth.com/education/rudiments/16singleparadiddle.html
You are correct — chogi is the Korean term, and “cut a chogey” was common slang in the army in Korean war days. In trench warfare, the communications trench was called the “chogi trench.” Its usual use was “move quickly.” Kara chogi — go there.
My father used this term “choagie” as well. He was in the Marines during the Vietnam conflict, he was luckily in the half that did not have to go. Anywho, he used it in the sense that to “cut a choagie” is to go to the restroom, implying that “choagie” is another word for poop, turd, etc.
My gandad was in the Vietnam War. He and myself now live in Texas and he uses the term “cuttin’ a chogie” quite often. Today he was mowed the yard and my Granny said told him “I think you got some sunburn on your legs from mowing”. He said “No, that’s prolly windburn. I was cuttin a chogie”.
I may be able to offer you a possible alternate explaination.
In the British army, the term Chogie has been used since the British occupation of India, where a Chogie was typically a locally employed civilian, typically Indian who would cook, clean and do whatever else.
As the troops fought together in the Korean war (indeed more integrated AFAIK then in WW2) it is entrely possible that the Americans simply picked up the word from the British.
My Daddy has used the phrase “cutting a chogie” to refer to someone going fast, ever since I can remember. I am glad to finally know the origin on the phrase.
Addendum to my previous post: my Daddy was in the Korean War.
“Cut a chogey” was in common use as GI slang during and just after the Korean war. If someone said, “I’ve got to cut a chogey over to battallion,” you knew what he meant. Also, short timers spoke of “going to chogey on out of here.”
Many people also wonder about the Japanese terms used in Korea and Vietnam. In 1945, when American troops were ordered to Korea for occupation duty, many had been trained to speak Japanese (what they expected to speak to Japanese POWs or in occupation of japan) but going to Korea mainly to accept surrender of Japanese troops. When our troops got to japan, they had almost no Korean speakers — but many Koreans understood japanese due to having been occupied by the Japanese for 35 years. So terms “Hootch” (Japanese UCHI for house) and “Moose” (mistress) from Japanese “musume” which meant “little wife.” Since we would be close to the Japanese for decades, and employed many of them on bases, many GIs picked up the Japanese. Marines on duty on Okinawa during Korea and Vietnam learned japanese phrases and expressions there — thus language migrated in the form of slang to Korea and Vietnam.
I’m a Koean vet and have used the term “cut a chogey” since that time. Not many people in the area that I live in now (I have to protect the innocent, so you will have to guess where the “area” is) have ever heard of the phrase and it is fun to see their expression when I use it (like Ah, what?).