Today the folks at NaBloPoMo are interested in archaic phrases used to communicate. I first thought about those guys in tights quoting prose from centuries ago. Things like “Where for art thou?” "Whether or no?" The more I contemplated the whole archaic phrases concept; I realized that each decade in my life had specific slang to define it.
Back when I was in grade school in the 1970's Scooby Doo and the Brady Bunch ruled television. Everything was groovy. I will try to give you the skinny. Everyone strived to be far out and avoid appearing to be a spaz at all costs. Every sentence ended with “you know” and when we wanted to dance, we boogied! We really knew how to shake our booties, and some who were really talented did it on roller skates under disco balls. We were bad and we knew it, and the best thing to do with life was to go with the flow or keep on trucking!
By the 1980's the Valley Girl’s took center stage and everyone who was disgusted was gagging with a spoon, for real! If you were bitchin’ then you didn’t hang with some big Bo hunk. It was so tubular, for sure!! Things that were the best thing since sliced bread kicked a$$, and if we wanted to leave, we bounced. By this time in life, we all began to accept the fact that $hit happens.
During the 1990’s something really cool was sweet or tight. We learned to tell people to talk to the hand, and if people were crazy they were completely whacked!! Also the biggest blow off term in history came into play and folks began to say “whatever!!” The standard greeting of “hello” transformed to “yo”. We all learned to do the “Macarena” and thanks to MC Hammer we discovered “You can’t touch this!” What you weren’t allowed to touch was left up to the imagination. Most of us, including yours truly touched it anyways...and liked it!
Some of these archaic terms live on today as each generation ages. If you pay attention, you may still hear it or still be using some of these favorites yourself. Someday our grandkids will need a slang dictionary to simply figure out what Grandma and Grandpa are getting at when they are trying to be cool and fit in with the young folks. All I can say is yada yada yada until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.
