Bougie, bespoke and artisanal?

[Teaching3bears]

Are these words used interchangeably?  What is the correct way to use each?  Are they all new words, or would you say, at least, that they have become more popular recently?

[73349]

Bougie is from bourgeois (French). It suggests that someone/something would be associated with trying to create the appearance of comfortable middle- or upper-middle-class values.

Artisanal would be about the way goods are produced (small batch/expert work rather than factory production), and bespoke is about for whom (a custom order). Bespoke items would be artisanal but not necessarily the other way around.

Edited November 29, 2019 by whitehawk

[Pen]

Bespoke = “custom made”, “made to order”  (furniture, clothes, etc) 

Artisanal = along lines of handmade (like bread) by an artisan

Bougie = a slur, someone snobbish or snobbish articles, or trying to appear more than they are

[Selkie]

Agreeing with previous posters on the definitions of bespoke and artisanal. I would say both those words have become more frequently used over the past ten years or so.

I've only ever heard a couple people use the word bougie, and they were both women in the 40-50 y.o. age range.

[gardenmom5]

Absolutely NOT "interchangeable".

'Bougie' (pronounced boo'-she)

NOUN

medicine

1. a thin, flexible surgical instrument for exploring or dilating a passage of the body.

    

   it is also a hacked truncation of the word Bourgeoisie, which refers to the middle-class in Europe, but refers to a more affluent class level in the United States.

    

   bespoke

    

   ADJECTIVE

   BRITISH

   1. made for a particular customer or user.  usually clothing.

   artisanal  relating to or characteristic of an artisan.

   (of a product, especially food or drink) made in a traditional or non-mechanized way.

   • "artisanal cheeses"

[Jean in Newcastle]

“Artisanal” has been in use since the middle of the 16th cenury. 
 

“Bespoke” has been in use since the mid 18th century. 
 

Not exactly new words. 
Bougie is slang but of course “bourgeois “ has been around a long time. 

[Ellie]

I have never heard any of those, except recently I heard "bespoke" used on a British decorating show. But the other two...nope. Never.

[Guest]

My teens and young adults use bougie a lot, and I have picked it up, too. I hear it as slang, but not really a slur. It could be a mild insult, like saying someone is “extra” because, say, they order coffee out in a super-particular way. But basically, just a slang way of saying something is upper-middle class and possibly more ostentatious than necessary. 

 

[Tanaqui]

Bespoke is a Britishism meaning "custom-made". It's possible that, as it gets ported over to the US, the  meaning is changing here. I'll keep an eye out at Not One Off Britishisms.

Artisanal means something (mostly food) made in a traditional way - by hand, slowly, in small batches, often using old recipes. Of course it's more expensive than mass-production, and often the implication is the workers are also paid fairly.

Bougie is an abbreviation of "bourgeoisie". Whether the shortening signifies a shift in meaning is hard to say, but it's a bit pejorative.

[Farrar]

I agree that bougie is pejorative... but I often hear it (and have said it myself) in a sort of self-deprecating way. Like, saying you enjoy something that you know is unnecessarily pricey or is very middle class cookie cutter, but you enjoy/are a part of it/participate in it anyway. Like, I’ve known people who live in McMansion neighborhoods call them bougie, which they totally are, but obviously these folks also bought homes in them, so... Or saying you’re going to get something from an upscale clothing store that you know is sort of overpriced but it’s the thing you want. Or it can be applied to something that is trying to market to upper middle class folks... like calling Target “Tar-zhay.” Of course, it can also just be an insult. Like a decade or so ago, I heard it that way from working and poorer young people in my neighborhood.

Until very recently, I had not heard bespoke outside British TV or people. It does seem to have crossed the pond recently.

[Ellie]

34 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Until very recently, I had not heard bespoke outside British TV or people. It does seem to have crossed the pond recently.

It hasn't made it to Texas yet, or to California. 🙂

How do you even pronounce "bougie "?

[Farrar]

15 minutes ago, Ellie said:

It hasn't made it to Texas yet, or to California. 🙂

How do you even pronounce "bougie "?

“Boo-gee” or “boo-zhee” - I feel like it was a much bigger word fifteen years ago or so.

Bespoke being used here is definitely very recent. I assume it’s the product of lots of BBC.

[Selkie]

I've mostly seen the word bespoke in the Wall Street Journal. It has been used pretty often in their articles for the past decade or so.

[Sneezyone]

Boujee defined...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiBu8rV3o_mAhVhh-AKHTl4AtEQtwIIODAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FblackishABC%2Fvideos%2Fdefine-boujee-sips-chamomile-tea%2F2440947406118227%2F&usg=AOvVaw0bXCrELg3PVCqVtjdFnr3v

FTR- My kids absolutely embrace the term.

[Farrar]

1 hour ago, Sneezyone said:

Boujee defined...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiBu8rV3o_mAhVhh-AKHTl4AtEQtwIIODAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FblackishABC%2Fvideos%2Fdefine-boujee-sips-chamomile-tea%2F2440947406118227%2F&usg=AOvVaw0bXCrELg3PVCqVtjdFnr3v

FTR- My kids absolutely embrace the term.

That was interesting. I feel like around me, white and black folks use it... but that I don't hear it so much from white folks the way I did a decade or so ago, like when I was teaching. And I felt like I was hearing it being used differently by different groups, but it was hard to say exactly how. Trust Blackish to clarify. Lol. I have heard hood rich, but didn't think of them as connected that way.

My first thought with this thread was actually that the ways that white kids I taught used bougie a decade or more ago to apply to some things (it's a little different, but there's overlap) that my kids and their white friends would say today is just "white." Also in that sort of eyeroll, this is so unbelievably dull and middle class and out of touch, but also, maybe applies a little bit to me too. There's more to each term... but I don't hear bougie from white kids so much anymore.

[justasque]

It is used in my community of frends, but not pejoritive at all, and usually in a gently teasing way from one bougie person to another.  ("Gurl, how can you be not bougee?  You go to a private school! <laughs>". "Yeah, I am pretty bougee, aren't I? <laughs>")  (ETA:  Mostly used in groups of people who have one foot in "bougee" and one in "not bougee", who code switch between the two.)  Spelling, by the way, is all over the map online.  That said, I don't remember ever hearing it from white folks, except as part of a conversation with black folks.

 

Edited November 29, 2019 by justasque

[Sneezyone]

17 minutes ago, Farrar said:

That was interesting. I feel like around me, white and black folks use it... but that I don't hear it so much from white folks the way I did a decade or so ago, like when I was teaching. And I felt like I was hearing it being used differently by different groups, but it was hard to say exactly how. Trust Blackish to clarify. Lol. I have heard hood rich, but didn't think of them as connected that way.

My first thought with this thread was actually that the ways that white kids I taught used bougie a decade or more ago to apply to some things (it's a little different, but there's overlap) that my kids and their white friends would say today is just "white." Also in that sort of eyeroll, this is so unbelievably dull and middle class and out of touch, but also, maybe applies a little bit to me too. There's more to each term... but I don't hear bougie from white kids so much anymore.

 

I feel like it was more frequently used in the 90s (when Living Single was on TV) as a way to explain the antics of the "Regine" character. LOL.

Edited November 29, 2019 by Sneezyone

[Pen]

Apparently boogie has a lot of meanings, plus new one from current popular (with teens ish) music Urban dictionary

[Sneezyone]

2 hours ago, Pen said:

Apparently boogie has a lot of meanings, plus new one from current popular (with teens ish) music Urban dictionary

 

This has always been the meaning in my neck of the woods but the character, "Andre (Dre)", took it as an insult because he clings to his 'hood' roots. ETA: Urban dictionary may show a lot of 'definitions' but it allows people to rate them so you can better ascertain the actual common usage. Most of those definitions are not recognized.

Edited November 29, 2019 by Sneezyone

[Teaching3bears]

1 hour ago, Pen said:

Apparently boogie has a lot of meanings, plus new one from current popular (with teens ish) music Urban dictionary

Yes!  This is what I have been hearing (from young people).  Boogie to describe cute Christmas gifts in a positive way.  I have only heard the word in the past couple of years and never used it myself.  Previously I had only heard “bourgeois” and bourgeoisie.  I was used to hearing artisanal you describe bread for a long time but recently started hearing it to describe non-food gifts.  I thought bespoke was mostly British and the posts are confirming this.

 

[Matryoshka]

3 hours ago, Pen said:

Apparently boogie has a lot of meanings, plus new one from current popular (with teens ish) music Urban dictionary

I'm guessing that's a typo or autocorrect, cause boogie (as in b.fever, b.nights and let's b.) definitely means something very different than bougie! 😂

Edited November 29, 2019 by Matryoshka
Corrected my own typo...

[Pen]

10 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

I'm guess that's a typo or autocorrect, cause boogie (as in b.fever, b.nights and let's b.) definitely means something very different than bougie! 😂

 

Yep. Autocorrect keeps changing what I try to write!  I’m on my phone.  There’s probably a way to turn it off—but I don’t know how 🤷‍♀️ 

I sometimes dictate to it and get all sorts of odd words I didn’t intend? 

[RootAnn]

Is "bespoke" pronounced /bee/ /spOk/?

See, without the hive, I'd always thought that was what a claimed item was called, including an engaged person. You know, its be-spoked or she's be-spoken for. Like, a take off/slang of spoken for. ;)

[Pen]

1 hour ago, RootAnn said:

Is "bespoke" pronounced /bee/ /spOk/?

See, without the hive, I'd always thought that was what a claimed item was called, including an engaged person. You know, its be-spoked or she's be-spoken for. Like, a take off/slang of spoken for. 😉

 

I think it does come from a root of something that is spoken for.  My recollection is that I had a similar idea of meaning to you when I first heard it, but then it came in a context that couldn’t work, so I looked it up.  

Here and when I was in UK iirc, it is said  be SPOKE  — accent second syllable, both vowels long. 

[LMD]

Dh and I giggle about warehouses being built near somewhere we often travel to. The sales sign says 'bespoke' warehouses! We think that word does not mean what they think it means! Identical concrete warehouses are not at all individually designed 😄

Artisinal is more akin to master crafted. It is made by an artisan - someone skilled in the craft, as opposed to mass produced. Similar to bespoke but more focus on the producer/production, whereas bespoke is more on the uniqueness of the product.

[Sneezyone]

12 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

I think it does come from a root of something that is spoken for.  My recollection is that I had a similar idea of meaning to you when I first heard it, but then it came in a context that couldn’t work, so I looked it up.  

Here and when I was in UK iirc, it is said  be SPOKE  — accent second syllable, both vowels long. 

 

Yeah, I think it comes from an item that's been spoken for...something that's already claimed. It just sounded funny to see it written as 'she be spoken for'. It's like something someone would say on the prairie WRT a mail order bride.

Edited November 29, 2019 by Sneezyone

[Pen]

1 minute ago, Sneezyone said:

 

Yeah, I think it comes from an item that been spoken for...something that's already claimed. It just sounded funny to see it written as 'she be spoken for'. It's like something someone would say on the prairie WRT a mail order bride.

 

Or spoken for in sense of the desired specifications have been given given.  

[Corraleno]

1 hour ago, RootAnn said:

Is "bespoke" pronounced /bee/ /spOk/?

See, without the hive, I'd always thought that was what a claimed item was called, including an engaged person. You know, its be-spoked or she's be-spoken for. Like, a take off/slang of spoken for. 😉

In the UK I always heard it pronounced with more of a schwa sound in the first syllable and accent on the second, almost like "b'spoke." Mostly used for custom-made clothes and kitchens.

[AngieW in Texas]

I teach high school. Bougie is used all the time by my students.

[LMD]

'Bougie' just screams middle class kids who don't actually know what Marxism is...

[Sneezyone]

The slang usage of bougie/boujee is at least 40 years old and still in rotation among teens AND their parents. I’ve never heard one of my peers say ok boomer. Many of those who use the term, like my brother, are late boomers themselves.