The Uses of Sixties Slang @ AMERICAN DIGEST

June 1, 2012

The Uses of Sixties Slang

Long ago when the Web was the Net and Social Media was Usenet, I spent some years at a watering hole called The Well. From my own personal collection of lists made in those years, I came across this small selection of Sixties slang in the context it was used that I think I made around 1989.

Additions and corrections gratefully accepted.

ACED:"We aced him out!"
AX:"He blows a bad ax."
BAAAD:"Hey, I checked out yer old lady today.She's baaad,man."
BARF:"You barf after the peyote milkshakes, bro, but, hey, it's beautiful."
BALLSY:"She is one ballsy chick."
BALLING:"So we smoked some righteous reefer and spent the afternoon balling our brains out."
BLOW YOUR COOL:"What ever you do, don't blow your cool."
BLEW HIM AWAY:"The pigs just blew him away with their shotguns."
BOONDOCKS:"Let's make it to this pad I scammed out in the boondocks."
BREAD:"Dope will get you through times without bread better than bread will get you through times without dope."
BRING DOWN: “No, oh no!, don’t bring me down. No, no, no, no, no…”
BUMMER:"Bummmmmmmmmer!"
BUBBLEGUM MUSIC:"Scott McKenzie, my ass! He's the king of teenyboppers and bubblegum music."
CATCH SOME RAYS:"You've caught enuf zzz's, let's hit the beach and catch some rays."
CLICK:"That town's about 50 clicks back in the boondocks."
COPE:"I've got no dope and cannot cope."
CRASH:"I just wanna flash before I crash."
CRASH PAD:"Flash runs a shooting parlor and crash pad for teenyboppers in the Haight."
DINKS:"When I was in Nam we used to waste dinks just to pass the time."
DING A LING:"He's a star-class ding-a-ling."
DO YOUR THING:"I do my thing and you do your thing and if by chance they meet, hey, it's yabyum."

DOWNER:"Life's such a downer let's do some downers."
DROPOUT:"Just another weekend dropout."
DUDE:"Now that is one cool dude."
FAB:"Strickly fab, dad."
FAT CITY:"If the pig doesn't twig to the fifty keys behind the seat, we'll be in fat city tonight."
FLOWER POWER:"Flower power is not healthy for Pentagons and other corporate things."
FLAKY:"Very flaky freak out going down here."
FLAKE OFF:"I told that pig to flake off."
FLAK:"Of course, that pig made me take a lot of flak for that remark."
FOXY:"Now that is the most foxy chick this dude has ever enorbed."
FREAKED OUT:"She's so foxy, I'm totally freaked out."
GIVING HEAD:"Not only that she gives great head."
GO-GO:"When not going to a go-go, mind you."
GROUPIE:"Whatever happened to those groupies, the Plaster Casters?"
GRUNTS:"Just a bunch of grunts at Khe Sahn. How come we don't get no Plaster Casters out here?"
GURU:"I'm Timmy. Your guru for tonight. Fly me."
HACK IT:"I tried a straight job down at the post office but I couldn't hack it."
HANG A LOOIE:"If you hang a looie at the next light, we'll lose them."
HAPPENING: “Let’s check out the demonstration and see what’s happening.”
HIP CAPITALIST:"Yeah? Well, if Wenner wasn't a hip capitalist he'd turn the Stone over to the people."
HUNG UP:"I'm really hung up about money."
HUSTLE:"Are you on some kind of hustle or what."
INTO:"I'm Charlie and I'm into helter skelter."
MATCHBOX:"I'm sittin' here a wonderin' if a matchbox'll hold my clothes."
MELLOW:"Let's smoke some joints, skin pop some speed, drop three ludes, do a few lines,have some Cribari and get mellow."
MINDBENDING:"You know, this draft notice is real mindbending."
NARCS:"He's either a narc or with the Hare Krishna's."
NO WAY:"Like NO WAY."
NOW:"The time is exactly now."
OFF THE WALL:"Nixon's freaking and Kissinger's off the wall."
PEACENIK:"Yep, neither of 'em are real peaceniks, ya know."
PITS:"This is just the pits."
PURE CRYSTAL:"You bet its pure crystal. I made it myself. Would I fake you out?”
RIPOFF:"We're brothers, man, you don't rip off a brother.
RIGHT ON!:"Your argument for a Marxian interpretation of Baskin and Robbins is right on."
ROADIE:"So this roadie had tee-shirts made up that said, No head -- No Backstage Pass....and it worked."
SCORE:"Hey, bros, I just made the scene. Know where I can score a lid?"
TEENYBOPPER:"Teenyboppers are real overrated man. I know."
THE MAN:"Split, it's the man."
TOKE:"Well,lets have one last toke then, we'll need it."
UNDERGROUND:"He's in the underground."
UNREAL:"It was so great it was unreal."
UNCOOL:Very uncool to blow away people just because you don't like short hair."
UPTIGHT:"I'm very uptight around guns in the hands of heads, Fred."
UP AGAINST THE WALL: See “Mc5” not McD.
VIBES:"Hey, bad vibes."
WASTED:"So wasted."

Posted by Vanderleun at June 1, 2012 11:25 PM

Comments:

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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

"groovy".

I can't believe you missed this one.

What's odd is that I never used it in the 60's, but use it now. usually ironically, I'll admit.

Posted by: Charlie (Colorado) at November 2, 2009 8:53 AM

Diddy-Bop - We were diddy-bopping across that paddy when the gooks popped up and we wasted them.

Frag - That louie better watch it or he'll get fragged.

Posted by: ColoradoRight at November 2, 2009 1:34 PM

GIVING HEAD:"Not only that she gives great head."

Or as one temporarily unattached guy with a penchant for phone sex told me one time:

"That gal gives the best phone in town."

Posted by: Sara (Pal2Pal) at November 2, 2009 2:24 PM

My political leanings were bummed out back when they tended to hang a looie, mostly because I was just another ding-a-ling looking for foxy chicks who give good head. (I feel like one of those Czech brothers on SNL after typing that.) I find that hanging a roscoe (in a political sense) leaves me much less uptight and more together. That's mainly because my head is less firmly impacted up my rear end these days. Ah, youth.

Thanks for this one, Gerard.

Posted by: mezzrow at November 2, 2009 4:07 PM

Back in those days -- and that whole decade is pretty hazy -- I was kind of fond of "far out" and then I got to reading Stephan Crane's "Maggie: Girl Of The Streets" which was written in the 1890s and discovered that it was street slang back then. Out of sight, man; it almost blew my mind.

Posted by: Ted Joy at November 2, 2009 9:15 PM

Whoa, man. You got some folks of these Eff-Emm types here seein' trails. Better cheese it before the heat gets wind of what's going on here.

Flower Power, man. It's funkadelic.

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at November 3, 2009 4:08 PM

Right on!

Pronounced "Rat own" -- one time I glimmed this jive turkey tryin' to be a bro shuckin' this blood by addin' "Right on" to everything he said, ya dig?

Posted by: BillT at June 2, 2012 1:15 AM

And before usenet we had BBS, at 300 bits early on, but finally climbing to a blazing 56k in later years. The good BBS were out of town, and I had some long distance bills that would make today's cell phone bills look like pocket change.

Posted by: BillH at June 2, 2012 7:28 AM

There was the aforementioned "righteous" which largely referred to anything unrighteous such as drug use, rutting and the Keystone Kommie Kids known as the Vanguard of the Revolution. (a**holes like Ayers and Dohrn and Mark Rudd)

Nam slang-

"bought the farm"- died
"ruined his whole day"- died
"10000 mile stare"- the fruit of combat fatigue

Posted by: bill at June 2, 2012 8:05 AM

Maintain! (As in, Oh, man, that's my history teacher... stay cool, man, maintain!)

What a gas!

My 21-year-old nephew heard Jumpin' Jack Flash (It's a Gas, Gas, Gas) and asked me what it means for something to be a gas.

I told him it meant that the thing in question was far out. Blank stare.

I think I settled for "sort of like cool."

Posted by: at June 2, 2012 1:37 PM

"The Heat" -- SoCal slang for cops. Heard in the Buffalo Springfield song, "For What It's Worth":

What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singin' songs and carryin' signs
Mostly sayin, "Hooray for our side!"

Posted by: Skorpion at June 2, 2012 7:03 PM

Off The Pigs! and put 'em on that Death Star grill!

Bought the farm--as early as WWI for flyboys.
1000 yard stare--WWII or earlier.

Right On was also pronounce "ride on".

Mr. Natural knows the meaning of Diddy-wa-Diddy.

Truckin' goes back to the '30s-'40s big bands.

In the 1923 movie "Greed", one of the characters wears a button on his lapel that says "Oh You Kid".

Sorry, dudes, for harshing your mellow.

Posted by: Sam L. at June 3, 2012 6:24 PM