Cool! When I read the thread title I remembered hearing this word in my distant past, but just barely.
As soon as I saw the Michigan reference it all came back to me. Heard it in Ann Arbor all the time twenty years ago.
I’ve taken a leak off the Bogue Street Bridge several times in my college days when walking back to campus from the bars. Ah, the days of 18 year old drinking laws.
In my days at MSU in the middle 70s, “bogue” was a word used in the sense described and as I recall fairly common.
LOL
“Bogue”, “boo-gee”, “boogie” etc. is sinply ghetto slang for bourgeoise.
HA! I’ve actually had this exact discussion before, and the conclusion then was that this *has to be * a Detroit thing. I have several friends from/in Detroit area that use bogue (as described in the OP) and so far they’re the only ones I know of that do, apart from a couple that I know picked it up from a Michigander. I’ve also heard it to mean nasty as well.
Yes, although I don’t think it’s common nowadays.
I’m sure it doesn’t stem from “bourgeois”- I believe it comes from “bogus”.
At any rate, it’s nice to know others have heard this word and it’s not just me.
From The Deeper Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd (in other words, this is completely made up and completely unhelpful):
Are you saying it “boo-zhee”? Because it really does come from “bourgeois” if so, and the connotation of “bogus” is not out of the range of the uses to which I’ve seen it put.
Or is it “boag”?
Nope. Looks like someone either misspelled “vogue” or made up a stupid nickname for the word “bogus” - now I know it!
Definitely bogue - rhymes with rogue
To say it in the true Michigan fashion, you need to stretch it out a bit.
That’s sooooo Booooogue!
(an appropriate response after the teacher finished telling everyone that an additional essay was going to be assigned to the entire class after three kids were caught cheating).
Long o, silent u and e. Rhymes with vogue.
(I’m trying to picture the residents of The Thumb of Michigan insulting things with the term bougie or however it’s spelled- a term I’m familiar with- it ain’t happening.)
Thank you, minor7flat5.
Now, if everyone could go ahead and start saying this, taking it nationally, then I could honestly post in that other thread about sayings you made popular. That would be great, thanks.
West Bloomfield. Born early 1970s, lived in SE Michigan up to and through college.
Bogue was very common. Never occurred to me that it would be a regionalism, I thought everyone knew it.
Never saw it written until now though.
Totally bogue.
This one’s sending me back… Grew up in E. Lansing (not too far from Bogue St., actually). Bogue was definitely a word we used (I started high school in the early 70s and left Michigan in the mid-80s). Can’t remember whether it was a high school or college word. Never even missed it until just now. Guess I’ll have to re-add it to my vocabulary. 
GT
Michigan resident from '81-'89. Heard bogue frequently, meaning gross, nasty, squicky. Infrequently bogus, used as an intensified form of bogue.
After leaving Michigan, I now associate bogus only with its traditional universal meaning of phony or fraudulent. Bogue I don’t use at all.
It was slightly after “my time” (meaning just after I got out of college and was no longer exposed to hip people on a daily basis), but it was definitely “bogue,” to rhyme with rogue and vogue and it was definitely a shortened form of bogus.
(There were probably a few people who confused some of the peripheral meanings of bogus and bogart. Obviously, it was a BAD THING to hoard the joint (bogart) and things that were false or crude were BAD THINGS (bogus). But the meaning expressed by most speakers was a shortening of bogus.)
NTC’s Dictionary of American slang (1990) says: bogue: bogus, fake
I had no idea it’s so regional. :: points to her location info ::
Although I’ll say it seems to be older slang. I don’t really hear people say it anymore, but I have no doubt that if I said, “that’s so bogue!” that everyone would know what I meant.
Yup - Michigan again ( outskirts of Detroit ) and this was…hmmm…1978-1980? At any rate when I subsequently moved to California I was treated with some mild derision by my step-brothers for using the word. Definitely not a CA thing :D.
- Tamerlane
I’m from Minnesota, and that is the only way I’ve ever heard bogue used. “Don’t bogue the J dude”