OK, people, help me out here. I'm gonna try to step in and fix this shit. Because apparently the street's understanding of its own heritage is getting sadly confused, and I hate to see that happen. It makes me want to weep.
Here's the deal. I look up "booshwa" on
Urban Dictionary, hoping for an entertaining, irreverent, saucy explanation of how it's street for "Bourgeois," a
French word describing happily domesticated, clueless white people who buy what they're sold, do what they're told, and have no idea what a bunch of sheep they are.
Instead, the top rated definition (which still has 25 down-votes to only 64 up; not a ringing endorsement of its accuracy) is that it just means "
bullshit."
Now, I know how this happens. People who actually know what it means use it right. It gets overheard by people who only pick up that whatever it is, it's bad and
dumb. And they go write
Urban Dictionary definitions.
That is not "booshwa." That, actually, is
bullshit.
"Booshwa" is for when you ain't pretentious enough to use a French word, but you need to convey your disdain for how domesticated and clueless somebody is.
Here, for the record, is Merriam-Webster's definition of "Bourgeois," Booshwa's proper, upscale sibling:
1: of, relating to, or characteristic of the social middle class
2: marked by a concern for material interests and respectability and a tendency toward mediocrity
3: dominated by commercial and industrial interests : capitalistic
Chet: I'm glad the FCC is fining Janet
Jackson for her shameful exhibitionism during the Super Bowl half-time show. I just
don't know if I can feel safe allowing my children to watch the NFL if they're at risk of seeing that kind of thing. Hey, here's a list of supplies we could use if you want to contribute to care packages for our troops!
Jamal: Man, will you give it a rest with your tired booshwa so-called "family values" and patriotism?
