the.com/boogie
a word that means dance, snot, alarm, and flee — pure linguistic chaos with rhythm
means To dance energetically (especially to lively pop, funk, or disco), or as a noun, the dance or music itself — though it doubles as slang for a piece of nasal mucus and, as 'bogey,' an enemy aircraft on radar.
from The dancing 'boogie' comes from 'boogie-woogie,' an early-20th-century African American style of fast blues piano whose origins are murky — the word may echo earlier slang where 'boogie' meant a rowdy party or a Black person (often offensively). The unrelated military 'bogey' for an enemy plane, and the snot 'bogey,' both likely trace back to 'bogey' or 'boggart,' a goblin or ghost — a cousin of the 'bogeyman' who haunted nurseries. Three separate hauntings, one tangled sound.
- war slang
- WWII pilots called enemy aircraft bogies
- the boogeyman
- likely shares roots with bogie and bug
- woogie attached
- boogie-woogie is a fast blues piano style
- verb mode
- to boogie can simply mean to leave fast
boogie-woogie — blues piano style with repetitive bass patterns, popularized in the 1920s-30s by pianists like albert ammons
boogie nights — 1997 paul thomas anderson film about the 1970s-80s porn industry in los angeles
boogie down productions — hip-hop group formed by krs-one in the bronx in 1987