It's an ethnic slur for a black
person, seemingly
common for Italian-Americans. As User says, it comes from the Southern Italian mulignana, meaning
eggplant, though most sources listed it as Sicilian.
Tony Soprano: What I
mean is we'
re Italian?
Noah Tannenbaum: Oh, my
dad is Jewish and my mother's family is African American.
Tony Soprano: Tanenbaum. Right. But on your application to Columbia, you didn'
t check Jewish did you?
Noah Tannenbaum: No. They can'
t ask about religious affiliation.
Tony Soprano: Oh, right...right...o' course. What'd you
check?
Noah Tannenbaum: African American.
Tony Soprano: So we do understand each other; you'
re a ditsoon.
Noah Tannenbaum: Excuse me?
Tony Soprano: Charcoal Briquette...a mulignan.
Noah Tannenbaum: What's your problem?
Tony Soprano: I think you know what my problem is. You see your little friend up there. She didn'
t do you any favors bringing you into this house. Now I dunno what the fuck she was thinkin', we'll get to that later. See I got business associates who are
black and they don'
t want my son with their daughters and I don'
t want their sons with mine.
Noah Tannenbaum: Fuck you!
Tony Soprano: See, that's the kind o' thing I'm hopin' to avoid. So when my little girl comes down the stairs, you'
re gonna say how nice it was to meet me, then you're gonna go drop her off at school and you're gonna say Goodbye.
