How are we spelling zhuzh?
As someone who primarily writes for a living, there are a few things that will always plague me, no matter how many times I use them. That there’s no ‘x’ in eczema, for example. That you can’t change your default language on Google Docs to English (UK), so you have to manually do it every time you open a new document. And how the hell we’re supposed to spell zhuzh.
Shujzh.
Zsoosh.
Jeuje.
You know the one I mean. This one:
“to make (something) more lively and interesting, stylish, or appealing, as by a small change or addition (usually followed by up)”
These problems all come up with similar familiarity. I use Google Docs every day; I have eczema near enough every day; and as an enthusiast, I talk about zhuzjing things up pretty much every day too. It’s just a great word that exactly encapsulates the energy it's supposed to, plus it’s fun to say too.
So how is it spelled? One way to answer this is to look at it’s origins – but these are intriguingly opaque. One of the leading theories is that it's onomatopoeic, derived from the sound of people and things rushing around: almost like a buzz and a whoosh combined. (Fun fact, though: the onomatopeiac spelling of a word depends on where you are in the country. In England, cats meow, but in Japan they nyan. Over here, pigs oink – but in France, they groin groin.)
Another leading theory is that it comes from Polari, a language variety that originated amongst sailors in the 18th century but flourished in the 20th century as a secret language used by gay men (In the glossary to his book Polari, Paul Baker spells it ‘zhoosh’ or ‘jhoosh’.)
Polari borrowed from a lot of Italianate and Romany words, and that leads us to another popular theory: that it's a version of the Romani word zhouzhou, clean/neat.
Hop forward slightly to 2003, and the original Queer Eye (For The Straight Guy) is often credited with bringing zhuzh to the mainstream. As the fashion fifth, Carson Kressley often used the word – interestingly, he says he got the phrase from Ralph Lauren. Either way, he spells it tszuj (Carson, that is, not Ralph) because he assumed it was a Yiddish word. According to that article, that spelling is problematic because it has two different consonant groups to spell the same sound — but we all contain multitudes, Macquarie!!!
And if that’s not enough for you, you could consider the individual sounds and add more to the pile of potentials. For example, the zsh sound is the same as in beige, and garage, so why don’t we spell it geuge? (Maybe because I see that written down and think of George in an Essex accent.) Or the same as in Asia, so why not go for sioosu — just for good measure?
I’ve also got one more to throw into the mix, just because I can: Mariah Carey spells it jjuj, and I really feel like she would know.
(For more Mariah enthusiasm, listen to the podcast episode I recorded with Olive Pometsey, where she professed her Mariah love.)
It seems to me, in my highly scientific investigation (read: obsessive internet rabbithole journey), that zhuzh is the frontrunner, so if you actually came to this article for an answer — and you haven’t yet been put off by my obvious lack of care for one — that’s what I’d go with. Though energetically, it’s crying out for a j in my eyes…just, you know, to zhu(j)zh it up a bit
This blog also featured on my substack Pep Talk — why not come and join me over there?