Remembering the 60's - the evolution of language

[Jolly Blue Giant]

I was thinking about it the other day after talking with one of my granddaughters, that she has no idea how kids talked in the 60's. They have their own language that I have to learn to keep up. I doubt she'll ever know the slang we used in the 60's though. I think about the only words that came about in the 60's that managed to remain colloquial terms today are: "cool" (which I think will stay for many generations), "bummer", calling "shotgun" to get the front seat, "making out"..oh how my mother hated that term...she thought it meant prepping for coitus...lol, and maybe calling "dibs" on something, "redneck" (that one will stick forever...I think), etc.

It amazes me how many terms were used in the 60's that no longer have any meaning to the next generations...yet they were standard terms when I was a teen. Words like "square" (opposite of cool), "groovy", "far out", "hippie", "flower power", "bippy", "heavy", "mellow", "horn" (phone), "what a gas", "righteous" (as in good weed), "moo juice", "boob tube" (my girlfriend hates it when I say I'm going to watch the boob tube. She always responds, "will you just call it a TV"..lol), "outa sight", and the many terms we used for money like "scratch", "dough", "bread", "cabbage", etc. We called the police the "fuzz" or "the heat"...when was the last time you heard that one used. Now it's the "poe poe". Do you think any kid today would know what a "suicide knob" was (that handy ball on the steering wheel so you could keep your arm around the girl while driving with one hand)? How bout "teeny bopper" (young girls who always listen to music and bob as they do), or "ankle biter" for toddlers? and instead of high-fiving, we'd say, "gimmee skin". When I was a teen, everyone knew what Haight-Ashbury was as it was the focal point of the counterrevolution overtaking the country. Talk about a let down...I was killing some time in San Francisco back in the 90's and decided to go to Haight-Ashbury to check it out. I was actually excited about seeing it for the first time. Damn, it looked like any other corner of a street in any other city. No hippies, no panty-less flower children floating around in wispy flocks and smokin pot 



Anyway, I'm sure every generation develops their own language and only a few continue on over the years. I know my parents said things like, "that's the bee's knees", or the "cat's ass", etc. My dad used to call lazy teens, "beatniks" and call rednecks, "hillbillies" or kids getting "their freak on" (as we would say in the 60's), but my father would call that, "raising cane" (which makes no sense to me). Things change, colloquial language evolves with every generation. I get a kick out of hearing my grandkids say, "peace out" instead of "bye" or as we used to say, "gonna bug"

One of the things I like about classic music (as in the late 50's through early 70's) is that you still hear the language of my youth. Mostly anti-war and anti-establisment lyrics, but still a lot about the hippie generation...like the Mindbenders with "we gotta groovy kind of love", or Jagger and Jumpin Jack Flash"is a "gas, gas, gas" or Donovan singing "Mellow Yellow", or the Mamas and the Papas when they sang "young girls are coming to the canyon" (which was Laurel Canyon, the mountainous fields near Los Angeles where free love and flower power reigned)

[Jolly Blue Giant]

Feeling nostalgic today I guess. I have 60's music playing as I am overhauling my living room (paingint walls and trim before new carpet comes). Heard this and thought I'd share

[LennG]

Ric

Now you are talking my kind of talk. I do go back a bit further, to the '50s, and remember so much about that, but in reality, I was a teenage during the '60s and have vivid memories of many things. In fact, some of them still fit me today.

Since I watch a LOT of movies, many from that time frame, many of the words, or expressions that you say are passe, and probably are, still, ring true to me since many of the movies from that time eras contain most of them.

I still get a kick out of watching reruns of Laugh-In which brought so many new terms to the English language.

And speaking of movies, I'm sure people who lived during the '40s, especially during the war years had their own language also.

Here is a list I copied

Take a powder – to leave

Fuddy-Duddy – old-fashioned person

Gobbledygook – double talk, long speech

Fat-head – stupid or foolish person

Chrome-dome – word for a bald headed man

Eager beaver – enthusiastic helper

Armored heifer – canned milk

In cahoots with – conspiring with

Snap your cap – get angry

Active duty – sexually promiscuous boy

Share crop – sexually promiscuous girl

Doll dizzy – girl crazy

Ducky shincracker - a good dancer

Above my pay grade – don't ask me

Cook with gas – to do something right

Killer-diller – good stuff

Hi sugar, are you rationed? – are you going steady?

Stompers – shoes

Flip your wig – to lose control of yourself

Dead hoofer – poor dancer

Bathtub – motorcycle sidecar

Pennies from heaven – easy money

Ameche – to telephone

Gone with the wind – run off (with the money)

Lettuce - money

Gas - either a good time or something that was really funny

Grandstand – to show off

Brainchild – someone's creative idea

What's buzzin', cousin? – how's it going?

Khaki wacky – boy crazy

Hen fruit – eggs

Hi-de-ho - hello

Pass the buck – pass responsibility for

Motorized freckles – insects

[LennG]

 I mentioned Laugh In.

Some of their more famous quotes went on to become part of that generation

Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls!
You bet your sweet bippy!
One ringy-dingy...two ringy-dingies...
Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?
I just wanna swing!
Is that a chicken joke?
Sock it to me!
Blow in my ear and I'll follow you anywhere.
Now, that's a no-no!
Want a Walnetto?
Here come da Judge!
Verrry Interesting!
And that's the truth - PFFFFT!
He pushed me!
Well, I'll drink to that!
I did not know that!
That's funny, so did she!


https://youtu.be/GlsQFUtMDvI

[Jolly Blue Giant]

Laugh-in brought a lot of new lingo to the 60's. I still tell my kids to look it up in your Funk and Wagnell. They look at me like I'm from outerspace. And of course, when Aaron Judge comes to the plate, I say, "here comes the judge, here comes the judge". I took my grandson to a Yankee game and said it the way it was said on Laugh-In and he said, "whaaatt are you saying grampa"...LOL

Best part of the show though will always be Goldie to me. Man, when I was a teenager, she was my dream girl. My heart throb - my go to girl in my dreams... Not so much anymore, but in her day she was fine, fine, fine. Always had a huge smile on her face and giggling like life was a ball

I laugh at some of the old videos of her dancing while "Paul Revere and the Raiders" were playing "Kicks". She shows up around the 50 second mark. Makes me laugh - silly and very sexy in her day...despite a bee hive hairdo that would make Marge Simpson jealous...LOL pretty sure this video was shot from American Bandstand on Saturday. Horrible graphics, but you can see her dancing and windmilling that arm of hers...and of course, grinning like a Cheshire Cat all the time

She started out as a dancer in NYC night clubs when Sammy Davis Jr. discovered her and took her to Hollywood where she blossomed

A little tribute to Goldie

[LennG]

I was in the service in Germany when Laugh-In started. We used to watch it on the Armed Forces Network and it was an instant hit with everyone. We didn't get many American TV shows as we had, I believe, 3 channels, but shows like Laugh-In and Mission Impossible were huge hits with the servicemen. And like you, Goldie was the lady everyone adored.