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![]() Speaking of Donnie Brasco, the book “Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia”, the book upon which the aforementioned film was based on, was one of the first times the term appeared in print. Obviously, Ruggiero is livid once he learns this piece of information and decides to go back to the individual who sold him the ring, and the film picks up from there, following Ruggiero’s character along with another character named “Donnie Brasco,” played by Johnny Depp. It can be used to refer to either an object or a person, an individual who pretends to be something he isn’t.įor instance, in the movie Donnie Brasco, a Mafioso named Lefty Ruggiero, played by the ever-talented Al Pacino, approaches a character named “Don da Jeweler.” Ruggiero wants to sell a stolen diamond ring, but the problem is, upon inspection, the ring was declared “a fugazi,” a fake. The simplest definition of a fugazi is a fake. Let’s look at both meanings of Fugazi, followed by how this peculiar word infiltrated pop culture. Additionally, Fugazi is the name of a popular theater and nightclub in San Francisco, one that has been around for more than a century. Interestingly, this latter meaning was how the word made into both the music scene and pop culture: Fugazi was the name of a music band as well as the name of an album by a different band. On the other hand, it is used to refer to a messed up situation, one that has deteriorated quickly. On the one hand, fugazi can mean fake, in which case it is used to refer to something inauthentic. This is certainly the case with our word today:Fugazi. And, this process of enrichment breeds new words. It is often the case that not only does a particular language influence another, different language, but that an entire culture also enriches another culture. However, this interplay goes beyond a culture and its language. We also get to see how language shapes culture, how it is used to convey new ideas and, and how it becomes central to empowering entire movements. Every time we explore the definition of a new word, we inevitably look into the interplay of language and culture: We learn how culture gives birth to new words, like YOLO, Poggers and oof, but let others fade into oblivion, only to be found in our history books (seriously, when was the last time you heard someone say “groak” or “apricity” in a sentence?).
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