Brooklynese

Brooklyn.

Just reading the name of this borough can conjure up a laundry list of dissenting opinions. You either love it or hate it. Live there or would never go. But something that is not up for debate is that this place is unique. By the title of this Substack you might be thinking…will this post have anything to do with the Chinese in Brooklyn? Or maybe the Chinese food? No, no it won’t. I wouldn’t know anything about the Chinese people or food in Brooklyn, nor do I care. I stay far away from Brooklyn. There’s a reason for that. A reason that might not be so obvious to the naked eye.

You might be thinking the reason I decide to steer clear of Brooklyn is the hipsters. It’s one of the reasons, but not the reason. When I think of a new Brooklynite I imagine a person whose profession is “cocktail engineer” or “latte artist”. If it’s a male they have the douchiest facial hair you could imagine. Muton chops or a pencil thin mustache or twirled whiskers as if they were plopped down into 2024 from the 1880’s. If it’s a female, well she may have the same. All of these people look like they smell. They could just have taken a shower and it wouldn’t change the fact that their clothes scream “BO and incense live here”. But the people that keep me far away from Brooklyn are the people who were born and raised there and the language they speak. Which I have named Brooklynese.

Natives of Brooklyn are a different breed. They can be mean, outspoken, and downright psychotic. And even if I live amongst these nut-jobs and can understand the accent clearly I always have trouble understanding what they’re saying. I’m not talking about slang. I’m talking about your everyday “English” – and I have plenty of proof.

I am married to the spawn of two born and bred Brookylners. My wife’s mother and father were both born there and lived there for over thirty years. My mother-in-law’s stories could keep me writing for years.

‘I’ll neva fahget the day I stabbed my brotha in the leg’.

This was the actual beginning of a story out of my mother-in-law’s mouth. Her brother races pigeons for fucks sake. One time he tried to get me to smuggle some special breed of pigeon into the country when he found out I was headed to Canada for a work trip. He told me I’d get a piece of the winnings. What did I marry into? I can only chuckle at the people on Instagram who live nowhere near Brooklyn, have never seen one of these Brooklyn bred creatures in the flesh, and want to talk about mob-aesthetic. My mother-in-law invented this. She has more furs than a taxidermist. She wears bedazzled cowboy boots. She’s never seen a cow. 

The story about my mother-in-law stabbing her brother in the leg doesn’t even scratch my top five when it comes to her stories. You would think Brooklyn in the 70’s was a dystopian nightmare, not a simple hour drive from my house in New Jersey. Each story is wildly different and terrifying but there is something similar to each one – they require a Websters Brooklynese Dictionary.

Here are just a few words and sayings I’ve heard in the past 6 months from my wife, sisters-in-law, and mother-in-law.

What was said: ‘He’s a one hand show.’

What was meant: He’s a one trick pony.

My mind went to a dark place on this one. Was she saying the guy liked to masturbate? Did he literally have one hand? This wouldn’t be shocking compared to some of her stories that include a cast of characters named ‘blind Jimmy’ or ‘halfa leg Fred’.

What was said: ‘Shut the light’

What was meant: Turn off the light.

I’m sorry. You shut the door. You turn off a light. 

What was said: ‘9 sheets to the wind’

What was meant: ???

This could have either been 3 sheets to the wind or dressed to the nines. I don’t know which would have worked because the story she was telling me was how a mob boss she knew in the neighborhood got shot in the head right in front of the place she was working. Was he 3 sheets to the wind when his head was blown off? Or was he dressed to the nines during the murder? I’ll never know.

What was said: Mulchrin

What was meant: Motrin

I thought my mother-in-law was talking about gardening. Like you take the plant and put it in mulch. Or maybe she was actively mulchring? I’m not the green thumb in my family, so maybe this was some term that all gardeners knew. Nope, she was telling my wife to take extra Motrin.

What was said: Been watched

What was meant: Binge watched

If I didn’t think my mother-in-law was hood before, this confirmed it. She been watched all of Yellowstone in a day. ‘Oh my gawd – that Kevin Caasssna is a real looka’

What was said: He thinks who the hell he is.

What was meant: This one is up for debate…

If you know people from Brooklyn then you know this saying. You might not know what it means but you’ve definitely heard it. What is inferred here is that a person is stuck up. They think who the hell they are. Who they think they are is unknown. I asked once, do you mean ‘who the hell does he think he is?’ I was shouted down – ‘no, he thinks who the hell he is’. That was the last time I argued about anything said in Brooklynese.

The moral of this story is that if you ever find yourself in conversation with someone from Brooklyn and you’re having trouble understanding what they’re saying, it’s not you – it’s them.

I have to end this post with a little anecdote. When my wife’s grandmother died, in Brooklyn of course, she left a few large pieces of furniture. My wife loved the old pieces, so we decided to take them. Luckily I had work the day they needed to be out, so my mother-in law asked two of her old friends sons to help with the move. The sons were born and bred in Brooklyn. So much so that when they entered my house three hours later than they were supposed to they explained they got lost.

           ‘Neva been outta Brooklyn before.’ Was the explanation. No bullshit. These guys had never left the borough. It’s like they had Stockholm Syndrome. Brooklyn had beaten them to a pulp but they couldn’t imagine leaving.

           If you think a southern accent might sound a little ignorant, wait until you hear someone who hasn’t left the same ten block Brooklyn radius. Neither of them had ever learned to read or write. They were like two Lennie’s from Of Mice and Men. If I had any rabbits they would surely tend them (and suffocate them). They chipped two out of three pieces of furniture, put holes in our walls, all while yelling incoherent babble at each other. By the end, one of them had the hiccups.

           ‘You got any, hup, suga, hup?’ he asked.

           ‘What?’

           ‘Hup, hup, you got any, hup, suga? Fa tha hiccups?’

           ‘What do you mean sugar for the hiccups?’ I asked.

           ‘A, hup, table spoon of, hup, suga, makes the, hup, hiccups, hup, go away.’

           I got the guy a spoonful of sugar.

           He took it from my hand and just started chewing it dry. My mother-in-law gave me his phone to type in his address on maps while he was busy choking on dry sugar. I typed it in, waited for him to stop chewing, when he asked…

           ‘How do I get home?’

           ‘The maps will tell you.’ I said, confused.

           ‘Oh, the phone can do that?’ he asked.

           It was like talking to a person who had been frozen in time.

           As these two guys got in their truck to leave I was flabbergasted at the sheer lack of brain cells between the two of them. They backed the truck out of the driveway and decided the best way to get out was to drive onto my lawn. As they finally drove away, I could hear the faint sound of unintelligible Brooklynese and hiccups. It’s possible they never made it back. When I walked back in the house my mother-in-law was in mid- conversation with my wife.

           “Yea, can ya believe the one with the hiccups is blind Jimmy’s kids? I heard he’s got lymphernomier. So sad. I feel so bad fa those two. I hope they have some mulchrin in the truck, they’re gonna be sore. You remember blind Jimmy right? From Bay Ridge. And his new wife – oh my gawd. Have you eva met ha? She really thinks who the hell she is.”

           I listened with my eyes glazed over, unable to understand a thing. It was all Brooklynese to me.

           PS - We got bills in the mail two months later from E-Z Pass and pictures of these two momo’s flying through the toll booth at 75 MPH.

           Honorable Brooklynese mentions:

           Jessicer (Jessica)

           NeckFlex (Netflix)

           Heimlich Remover (Heimlich Maneuver)

           Become a new leaf (Turn over a new leaf)

           Gahfahbid (God forbid)

           Galamad (Calamari)