A chickenswinger is the ritual guide who performs a symbolic ceremony that helps a person release their mistakes and begin again. In the ancient Kaparot ritual, the guide swings a chicken in a circular motion while prayers are spoken, representing the transfer of burdens away from the person. The act is less about the chicken itself and more about the human need to let go, reflect, and start fresh.
In the ceremony, the chickenswinger acts as the ritual guide, performing the symbolic motion that represents the transfer of a person's mistakes before Yom Kippur.
Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!
You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. PenguinBooks,1992. p. 38)