How do guys refer to other families?

[Grouchy Sinatra]

Another way to refer to the Families was like "the Gambinos" or "the Bonannos," and in Italian would have been the "borgata di Gambino" etc. Later the word borgata was Americanized to "brugad," so it would be "the Gambino brugad" ("borgata" means "borough" or "village"). There were/are local names for the Families outside New York City:
Chicago - The Outfit (several other cities also called their borgatas "the Outfit"); Giancana called it "the clique"
Buffalo - The Arm
New England - The Office

Were the street guys talking like this though? Using terms like "borgata?" Maybe the guys from Italy who transferred here, and some of the more Italian-centric bosses like Bonanno, Profaci and maybe Gambino. Guys like Gravano and Valachi didn't seem to talk like this.

[B.]

Borgata aka "brugad" was in common use among members on the street. Comes up on wiretaps through the 1980s at least.

[Antiliar]

Another way to refer to the Families was like "the Gambinos" or "the Bonannos," and in Italian would have been the "borgata di Gambino" etc. Later the word borgata was Americanized to "brugad," so it would be "the Gambino brugad" ("borgata" means "borough" or "village"). There were/are local names for the Families outside New York City:
Chicago - The Outfit (several other cities also called their borgatas "the Outfit"); Giancana called it "the clique"
Buffalo - The Arm
New England - The Office

Were the street guys talking like this though? Using terms like "borgata?" Maybe the guys from Italy who transferred here, and some of the more Italian-centric bosses like Bonanno, Profaci and maybe Gambino. Guys like Gravano and Valachi didn't seem to talk like this.

If you go to Mary Ferrell you'll see both terms come up a lot. Frank Bompensiero used "brugad" all the time and Magaddino used "borgata," so did Nick Gentile.

[PolackTony]

Sam DeCavalcante used "outfit" to refer to many Families on his tapes also.

Cleveland and Milwaukee used "outfit" heavily as well.

If I’m not mistaken, I recall seeing “outfit” used a couple of times from some of the documents on NY guys as well, though I don’t have a citation at hand (maybe I’m just confusing this with the DeCavalcante tapes). Doesn’t seem to have been common there, but wouldn’t shock me if it was used occasionally.

[PolackTony]

Borgata aka "brugad" was in common use among members on the street. Comes up on wiretaps through the 1980s at least.

Apart from Bompensiero, was there anyone else from outside of the NY fams (I’m including Magaddino here as “NY”) who was ever documented using the term borgata/brugad? I’ve never seen the term cited for Chicago, of course, though that isn’t proof that it wasn’t ever used there (just that we don’t have a basis to assert that it was). Bomp was obviously close to members from Chicago and other Midwest families, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the term were used in those circles as well.

[B.]

Sam DeCavalcante used "outfit" to refer to many Families on his tapes also.

Cleveland and Milwaukee used "outfit" heavily as well.

If I’m not mistaken, I recall seeing “outfit” used a couple of times from some of the documents on NY guys as well, though I don’t have a citation at hand (maybe I’m just confusing this with the DeCavalcante tapes). Doesn’t seem to have been common there, but wouldn’t shock me if it was used occasionally.

Outfit is a pretty obvious informal term, so not surprised it was used all over the country. You even see it in the Old West with outlaws. I remember Nick Caramandi saying Chucky Merlino used "outfit" just to refer to the crew of associates who were tasked with killing one of the Riccobenes.

Chicago Outfit to me is the same as the names like Bonanno, Colombo, etc. It was used casually like it was in the other midwest/western Families then got picked up in the media and the members themselves latched onto it just like members in NYC used "La Cosa Nostra" in later years. I think it's given ousiders the impression the "Outfit" means some completely distinct type of organization when it's not.

There's little evidence "mafia" was a term used by the organization itself in Sicily but when all of these plays and stories came up calling it that in 1800s Italy, you end up with the members themselves using it. Rocco Scafidi said when he was made it was called the mafia but when he got taken off the shelf they told him to call it Cosa Nostra. What's fascinating is Cosa Nostra became the main name in both US and Sicily around the same time.

I think it was Ed on here who once said human beings just have a need to name things even when they technically don't have a name. Even "Cosa Nostra" was a casual euphemism used in the absence of a formal name but it became a somewhat formal name as we now know it.

Borgata aka "brugad" was in common use among members on the street. Comes up on wiretaps through the 1980s at least.

Apart from Bompensiero, was there anyone else from outside of the NY fams (I’m including Magaddino here as “NY”) who was ever documented using the term borgata/brugad? I’ve never seen the term cited for Chicago, of course, though that isn’t proof that it wasn’t ever used there (just that we don’t have a basis to assert that it was). Bomp was obviously close to members from Chicago and other Midwest families, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the term were used in those circles as well.

I brought this up with CC a little while back to get his thoughts. Borgata technically means "township" but seems to be used to refer to neighborhoods as well, i.e. Palermo. I wouldn't be surprised if it was used mainly among the Palermo families originally which might be why we see it in NYC/NJ where Palermo was so dominant.

I wondered if the root of the word had any similarity with "borough" but couldn't find anything.

It's interesting Bompensiero used it so much considering NYC was the area he had the least amount of contact with during his national travels. But he was a protege of Jack Dragna who came up in East Harlem so maybe Dragna used it.

One of the names for a Family in Sicily that didn't become big here was "paese" (town/village/country, depending on context). Makes complete sense given the Sicilian roots of the organizations are through paesani from the same village/region. When the Sicilian emissary updated Paolo Violi on promotions in Agrigento he said "rappresentante di paese" and Violi was able to figure it out even though that term isn't common in N.America.

Always enjoy getting into the language stuff with you Tony -- cheers brother.

EDIT: Here is an older definition of borgata: "1920s (in sense ‘a district of improvised or poor quality residential housing’): Italian, ‘district, village’."

[Antiliar]

Borgata is related to burger, burgher, and bourgeoisie. "The Modern French word bourgeois (French: [buʁʒwa]; English: /ˈbʊərʒ.wɑː, ˌbʊərˈʒwɑː/) derived from the Old French burgeis (walled city), which derived from bourg (market town), from the Old Frankish burg (town); in other European languages, the etymologic derivations include the Middle English burgeis, the Middle Dutch burgher, the German Bürger, the Modern English burgess, the Spanish burgués, the Portuguese burguês, and the Polish burżuazja, which occasionally is synonymous with the "intelligentsia".[4] In its literal sense, bourgeois in Old French (burgeis, borjois) means "town dweller"." As for borough: "The word borough derives from the Old English word burg, burh, meaning a fortified settlement; the word appears as modern English bury, -brough, Scots burgh,[1] borg in Scandinavian languages, Burg in German. A number of other European languages have cognate words that were borrowed from the Germanic languages during the Middle Ages, including brog in Irish, bwr or bwrc, meaning "wall, rampart" in Welsh, bourg in French, burg in Catalan (in Catalonia there is a town named Burg), borgo in Italian, burgo in Portuguese and Castilian (hence the place-name Burgos), the -bork of Lębork and Malbork in Polish and the -bor of Maribor in Slovenian." So all the words have a common ancestor. [Citations from Wikipedia articles]

Getting back to "Outfit," Rockford, Madison, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City, and even Pittsburgh used the term. Cleveland seems to have used Outfit and Syndicate. In Detroit they used the Outfit, the Organization, the People, and the Syndicate. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, "outfit" is known to have meant "a group of people" since 1883. It was obviously used as a euphemism for "gang" and Fratellanza just like Cosa Nostra was. Even "fratellanza" is pretty generic since it means "brotherhood" or "fraternity." In its formative years, each borgata had its own name.

[SonnyBlackstein]

- Massino said they would call the Families the name of the current boss but would use the media/LE names as a buffer.

Can you expand on this please B, I dont quite follow.
Cheers

[SonnyBlackstein]

Borgata is related to burger, burgher, and bourgeoisie. "The Modern French word bourgeois (French: [buʁʒwa]; English: /ˈbʊərʒ.wɑː, ˌbʊərˈʒwɑː/) derived from the Old French burgeis (walled city), which derived from bourg (market town), from the Old Frankish burg (town); in other European languages, the etymologic derivations include the Middle English burgeis, the Middle Dutch burgher, the German Bürger, the Modern English burgess, the Spanish burgués, the Portuguese burguês, and the Polish burżuazja, which occasionally is synonymous with the "intelligentsia".[4] In its literal sense, bourgeois in Old French (burgeis, borjois) means "town dweller"." As for borough: "The word borough derives from the Old English word burg, burh, meaning a fortified settlement; the word appears as modern English bury, -brough, Scots burgh,[1] borg in Scandinavian languages, Burg in German. A number of other European languages have cognate words that were borrowed from the Germanic languages during the Middle Ages, including brog in Irish, bwr or bwrc, meaning "wall, rampart" in Welsh, bourg in French, burg in Catalan (in Catalonia there is a town named Burg), borgo in Italian, burgo in Portuguese and Castilian (hence the place-name Burgos), the -bork of Lębork and Malbork in Polish and the -bor of Maribor in Slovenian." So all the words have a common ancestor. [Citations from Wikipedia articles]

Good info. Cheers A.

[B.]

- Massino said they would call the Families the name of the current boss but would use the media/LE names as a buffer.

Can you expand on this please B, I dont quite follow.
Cheers

I posted part of his explanation above but basically they would tell members it was the Massino, Gotti, Gigante, etc. Family so people would know who the boss was, but they were encouraged to use the media/LE names when talking casually to protect the boss's name from LE, recordings, etc.

[PolackTony]

Sam DeCavalcante used "outfit" to refer to many Families on his tapes also.

Cleveland and Milwaukee used "outfit" heavily as well.

If I’m not mistaken, I recall seeing “outfit” used a couple of times from some of the documents on NY guys as well, though I don’t have a citation at hand (maybe I’m just confusing this with the DeCavalcante tapes). Doesn’t seem to have been common there, but wouldn’t shock me if it was used occasionally.

Outfit is a pretty obvious informal term, so not surprised it was used all over the country. You even see it in the Old West with outlaws. I remember Nick Caramandi saying Chucky Merlino used "outfit" just to refer to the crew of associates who were tasked with killing one of the Riccobenes.

Chicago Outfit to me is the same as the names like Bonanno, Colombo, etc. It was used casually like it was in the other midwest/western Families then got picked up in the media and the members themselves latched onto it just like members in NYC used "La Cosa Nostra" in later years. I think it's given ousiders the impression the "Outfit" means some completely distinct type of organization when it's not.

100% agreed.

There's little evidence "mafia" was a term used by the organization itself in Sicily but when all of these plays and stories came up calling it that in 1800s Italy, you end up with the members themselves using it. Rocco Scafidi said when he was made it was called the mafia but when he got taken off the shelf they told him to call it Cosa Nostra. What's fascinating is Cosa Nostra became the main name in both US and Sicily around the same time.

Needles Gianola also stated that the Chicago family was referred to as “the mafia” back in the day and that later “outfit” supplanted it as the popular usage. Given that Louie Bombacino claimed that “Black Hand” was also used in Chicago, one might assume this was another likely case of a term popularized by LE and the media that became adopted by the actual organization (possibly trading in the currency of the term to invoke the terroristic nature of the old “black hand” lore as a way of building up a mythos around the mob. But, for all we know, it’s even possible that the mafia in Chicago in the early 20th century already called itself the “black hand/Mano nera”. We don’t know how they referred to themselves back then. FWIW, Frank Cullotta also claimed that before it was called the “outfit” it was called the “black hand”, in the context of his father dealing with an extortionist on Grand Ave back in the 30s).

Regarding the near-simultaneity of the emergence of “Cosa nostra” in both NYC and Sicily — given the apparent likelihood that the usage was first popularized by the Mangano fam, I think this speaks to the closeness of the NYC-Palermo network and its resurgence/restrengthening in the years immediately after WW2 and the reconstruction of Italy.

I think it was Ed on here who once said human beings just have a need to name things even when they technically don't have a name. Even "Cosa Nostra" was a casual euphemism used in the absence of a formal name but it became a somewhat formal name as we now know it.

There’s a whole postmodern/post-structuralist philosophy dissertation that never happened there, lol.

I brought this up with CC a little while back to get his thoughts. Borgata technically means "township" but seems to be used to refer to neighborhoods as well, i.e. Palermo. I wouldn't be surprised if it was used mainly among the Palermo families originally which might be why we see it in NYC/NJ where Palermo was so dominant.

It's interesting Bompensiero used it so much considering NYC was the area he had the least amount of contact with during his national travels. But he was a protege of Jack Dragna who came up in East Harlem so maybe Dragna used it.

That’s a reasonable hypothesis and good point on the Palermitani context.

Always enjoy getting into the language stuff with you Tony -- cheers brother.

Same here, bro. Na zdrowie

[B.]

Rocco Scafidi, Michael DiLeonardo, Greg Scarpa and others called the early organization the "Black Hand" also. DiLeonardo is well aware of it being the same thing as Cosa Nostra and Greg Scarpa was also. Scarpa said it was just the name for the Sicilian organization at the time because of their Black Hand letters (his mentor was LoCicero so he may have heard about it from him). Scafidi seemed kind of ignorant about the real history, but his relatives were definitely Cosa Nostra back then whether he understood that or not.

I think Black Hand was just the term in the media so members and their descendents may have latched onto it like they did later terms. As CC could explain better, "Black Hand" was a specific activity not an organization. It would be like calling the mafia "the Italian Bootleggers" as a formal name. Kind of like a more specific version of calling them the "criminal syndicate" (a term I hate). It's like how Joe Bonanno said mafioso was an adjective meaning bravado (which an 1868 Italian linguist said too) and it became a semi-formal term, "Black Hand" was accepted for a time as a convenient way to refer to the org even though it referred to one activity/process.

[PolackTony]

Borgata is related to burger, burgher, and bourgeoisie. "The Modern French word bourgeois (French: [buʁʒwa]; English: /ˈbʊərʒ.wɑː, ˌbʊərˈʒwɑː/) derived from the Old French burgeis (walled city), which derived from bourg (market town), from the Old Frankish burg (town); in other European languages, the etymologic derivations include the Middle English burgeis, the Middle Dutch burgher, the German Bürger, the Modern English burgess, the Spanish burgués, the Portuguese burguês, and the Polish burżuazja, which occasionally is synonymous with the "intelligentsia".[4] In its literal sense, bourgeois in Old French (burgeis, borjois) means "town dweller"." As for borough: "The word borough derives from the Old English word burg, burh, meaning a fortified settlement; the word appears as modern English bury, -brough, Scots burgh,[1] borg in Scandinavian languages, Burg in German. A number of other European languages have cognate words that were borrowed from the Germanic languages during the Middle Ages, including brog in Irish, bwr or bwrc, meaning "wall, rampart" in Welsh, bourg in French, burg in Catalan (in Catalonia there is a town named Burg), borgo in Italian, burgo in Portuguese and Castilian (hence the place-name Burgos), the -bork of Lębork and Malbork in Polish and the -bor of Maribor in Slovenian." So all the words have a common ancestor. [Citations from Wikipedia articles]

Good overview. My understanding is that the old Frankish usage is thought to trace back (via proto-Germanic) to a postulated proto-Indo-European root referring to a fortified/elevated place (hills obviously being advantageous for a fortified settlement). The modern sense of “bourgeoisie” as referring to the capitalist class derives from medieval and early modern usages where “town-dweller” was synonymous with the merchant class as a protected group outside of the dominant class system based on feudal landholdings. This merchant class was the foundation, of course, for the emergence of a new system of production and production relations that displaced and abolished the various forms of feudal production.

Getting back to "Outfit," Rockford, Madison, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City, and even Pittsburgh used the term. Cleveland seems to have used Outfit and Syndicate. In Detroit they used the Outfit, the Organization, the People, and the Syndicate. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, "outfit" is known to have meant "a group of people" since 1883. It was obviously used as a euphemism for "gang" and Fratellanza just like Cosa Nostra was. Even "fratellanza" is pretty generic since it means "brotherhood" or "fraternity." In its formative years, each borgata had its own name.

It seems to me that, at least up until more recent decades, “syndicate” was probably the most universally used euphemism for the US mafia, given that “cosa nostra” was not in general use outside of the East Coast. Probably another example of an etic (outsider) term becoming popularized via LE and the media and then in turn becoming adopted by the organization itself. Like “outfit”, “syndicate” wad used to refer to both/either a specific family as well as the broader national LCN organization.

[B.]

I'd be interested in knowing which made members used the term "syndicate".

One important thing is differentiating between what member sources said vs. associates or other outsiders. Would be curious which actual members used syndicate, as that term was most heavily used by the media, LE, and non-members.

Most non-member sources are less relevant to this conversation in my opinion. It's like when Gene Borello tried to say nobody uses the term capodecina/caporegime anymore and got smacked back down to earth by Pennisi and Franzese.

[PolackTony]

Rocco Scafidi, Michael DiLeonardo, Greg Scarpa and others called the early organization the "Black Hand" also. DiLeonardo is well aware of it being the same thing as Cosa Nostra and Greg Scarpa was also. Scarpa said it was just the name for the Sicilian organization at the time because of their Black Hand letters (his mentor was LoCicero so he may have heard about it from him). Scafidi seemed kind of ignorant about the real history, but his relatives were definitely Cosa Nostra back then whether he understood that or not.

I think Black Hand was just the term in the media so members and their descendents may have latched onto it like they did later terms. As CC could explain better, "Black Hand" was a specific activity not an organization. It would be like calling the mafia "the Italian Bootleggers" as a formal name. Kind of like a more specific version of calling them the "criminal syndicate" (a term I hate). Kind of like Joe Bonanno saying mafioso was an adjective (which an 1868 Italian linguist said too) and it became a semi-formal term, "Black Hand" was accepted for a time as a convenient way to refer to the org even though it referred to one activity.

Sure, this is an example of a more general process where something that is a process or action is “objectified” and turned into a “thing” conceptually.

Another thing that might be important when it comes to “Black Hand” being adopted by the mafia, is that a major part of the currency of the mafia is fear. An economy of fear and acquiescence to their activities within specific social spheres/networks. As we all know, anxiety over the actions (real or imagined) of “Black Hand” extortionists amounted to a moral panic in US cities in the early 20th century. While this circulated widely among LE and the press in part due to nativist — and specifically anti-Southern/Eastern European — sentiment, it was a major cultural phenomenon within Italian immigrant communities at the time as well (e.g., the formation of the “White Hand” organization in Chicago). Apart from the widespread visibility of the term and the actual engagement of mafioso in black hand-style extortion rackets, “Black Hand” would be been a useful moniker for the mafia to adopt to “cash in” on the notoriety and fear that the term connoted.