After watching the Muppets – don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a sappy sad one – and something that struck me was the 80′s robot that was in the film, and the lingo it used. I tried this move on Melissa and Jeff (he’s over here this week visiting).
I turned round in the car and looked at them. “You won’t believe it!”
They stared evenly at me. They’re used to my non-sequitors.
“In the Muppet Movie they used some slang from the 80′s that I had completely forgotten about, and which we all used to say.”
They continued to stare, however eyebrows had risen in steep teenage interest.
“So when something was not nice, we’d say ‘Gag me with a spoon!’” I grinned, awaiting their reaction. They looked confused. I continued. “And if it was really bad, we’d say ‘Grody!’”
I grinned, expecting a good reaction.
“Yeeeeeeeeees,” Jeff said slowly. “I’m not going to be adopting those.”
“Yeah, I saw both of those and I don’t need to see them again,” Melissa added, studying her nails.
I blame their knowledge of Swedish as a barrier to understanding how cool those terms were.
Which led me to doing some surfing about language and how – back then – we used to know it, use it, and abuse it. It really took me back.
There was a plethora of terms to indicate that things were suck, including but not limited to “lame”, “mental”, “mold”, “mung”, “bunk”, “heinous”, “bogus”, and probably more. But lest we get concerned that they were so pessimistic, there are many indicators of the good – “wicked”, “awesome”, “rad”, “bomb”, “way cool”, “excellent”, “tubular”, and “sweet”.
My fellow Americans may remember many of these phrases (were they outside of the States as well? I was so sheltered.)
- “I have to book”/”Book it!” Said when one was in a hurry to get somewhere and, I assume, deeply ironic as a book is never the quickest option. I think we were always in the act of leaving to get somewhere in the 80′s, because we also “had to motor” and “got to jam”.
- “Barf me out.” Because just displeasing someone could take on so many levels, some of those including stomach fluids. It did go hand in hand with grody, and if it was especially bad it was “Grody to the max”. “Gag me with a spoon” (which must be said with an eye roll-never forget the eye roll!) always felt milder and, for some reason, it was never appropriate to go with another form of cutlery.
- If you wanted to know what was going on and (clearly) Google was still an idea cooking in someone’s brain matter, then you needed to find out “the 411″. I loved that expression. That one (and only that one) should make a comeback.
- “Burn!”, alternated with “Burn your face!” Shame has always caused one to blush so alluding to fire would be very appropriate. You can also use “Face!”, as in “In your”. I kinda’ miss both of those. And if they were a response to someone faking you out/tricking you/surprising you, you were in the right to say “Psych!”, usually in their faces and usually in a falsetto. I suspect way too much basketball was being played.
- “Shut up!” Valley Girl for “I believe you not, what you said was a new level of extraordinary!” You could also use “Not even!”, which did not refer to an item’s straight edges.
- The forerunner to telling someone to “chill” turned out then as “Take a chill pill.” Both versions are equally annoying and should see the user beaten within an inch of his life with a pair of jelly shoes.
- “Shredded.” Liberally used for success. So I didn’t just eat that pizza, I shredded it.
- If you agreed with something someone said, you could say “Word to your mother”. Presumably giving information to one’s madre meant it was written in stone.
- “Wasteoid.” I think this one was meant to imply familiarity with narcotics, but it generally went for anyone who was just a lazy dick. He could also be a “hoser”. You could remedy this by finding a cute guy to be “So totally fine.”
- Women who were on the negative spectrum were “airheads”. I think that could apply to men, too, but I don’t remember it doing so. Sexist.
- “I’m so sure.” Or, you know, you’re totally not. The definition of 1980′s irony. Ironically, you could use “for sure” to indicate that you actually were sure. Keep up.
I can’t believe most of those terms have left and/or morphed. In hindsight, most of those should have left because they were crap to being with. But even though the 80′s weren’t “my” years (I was just a kid, the 90′s were more my time) they were fun times. Innocent times. Caboodles, colored mascara, pegged pants, those crazy foam bendy curlers that were meant to give you cool near-ringlets but never actually did. If only we knew then what we know now, eh? Could we go back and not only plead with ourselves to not wear many strands of pearls, that bigger does not equal better with glasses frames, to avoid the perms, or would we still say “Go on. The excess is just what is needed.”? Who knows. Takes you back, reading the lingo (and I cringe with embarrassment on some of them. Cringe.)
Did I miss any big ones? Or even better, any terms more regional to where you are/were? My horizons need broadening.
-S
PS – last year when I took a blogging break, I also took a break guest writing for In the Powder Room. I’m back today to earn my place back, and I’d love it if you checked in, read, and commented (where I promise to interact more!) It’s free to sign up, and I’d be mighty grateful (I’d use a cheesy 80′s term to indicate gratitude, but I can’t think of one). You can find my article here. Begging is implied in this entire paragraph.
You know, I was so lame I didn’t really use any of the slang way back when. I know I said “gag me with spoon” once, but I felt so out of place when I said it I never uttered those words again. What a sad case I was.
However, I do often say “what’s the 411″? I love you endlessly for wanting to bring it back. I’m already on it.
Oh…you are so totally awesome! I am listening to moon unit zappa’s Valley Girl in the car on my way to work this morning… Fer shurrrrr…
Not all of those have disappeared – particularly “chill” and “take a chill pill.” Though on the West Coast, they have morphed into the much more annoying “chillax.” Also, “shut up” seems to have regained popularity thanks to “Mean Girls.” “Psych” is still in, apparently, as my ten-year-old cousin likes to use it, particularly in the context of writing “I love you – SIKE” on my birthday card, the (adorable) little shit.
I like to throw “burn” out there now and then as a sarcastic throwback, and “word to your mother” as something that should never leave my mouth no matter the decade. Sometimes I alter it to Olde English, as in “my vernacular regards to thy matriarch.” I call it “Ye-bonics.”
my vernacular regards to thy matriach. OMG. I love this.
And word to your mother has morphed to just “word.” I hear that a lot.
“Okay fine,
fer sure, fer sure.
She’s a Valley Girl,
and there is no cure.”
Dude, you forgot Dude!
I think “You rock” is an appropriate ’80s way of saying thanks. So if someone gives you two tickets to a movie, you’d respond by saying “Dude, you rock!”
One that I hated (but actually dispels the “only one form of cutlery is acceptable for gagging” myth) was “Gag me with a Ginsu”. Ginsu knives were those knives that could cut through an aluminum can and then slice right through a tomato. “Gag me with a Ginsu” is kind of like saying “It’s so bad, just kill me now.”
I can’t stop…I’m reliving the ’80s all over again. : )
I believe many of the “exiting” sayings came from the ’80s: Let’s make like a tree and leave; let’s make like a baby & head out; let’s make like horse manure & hit the dusty trail;…
Another term that was used liberally was gnarly (or narly) which meant that something was either incredibly cool or incredibly difficult.
Not sure if these were just So Cal terms, but “bitchin” and “killer” for awesome. I also heard “mega” to mean “extremely”. And of course, the liberal use of the word “like”.
Have you seen the Geico commercial where the guy has the popular girls from the local middle school follow him around to keep him on track with his diet? Maybe the lingo has changed, but the attitude, not so much! http://thejosevilson.com/2012/01/31/eww-seriously-that-is-so-gross/
What was popular in my school was “You’re wreckin’ me buzz” (you are ruining my previously happy mood) and “Scarleh for yer ma for having yeh”, often abbreviated to “Scarleh!” (What you have just said/done is unbelievably embarrassing). I am reliably informed the first one is now obsolete but the second is still acceptable. “Burn!” is still current as far as my non-teenage self knows.
As a white kid, I got sharply rebuked in the 80s once for using the whole phrase “word to your mother” because “the mother” in question was Africa, and I was not an African-American rapper. Instead, I simply said “word”, and circumvented the problem with most people. I was not really convinced until, years later, I heard Vanilla Ice who did not say “word to your mother”, but instead said “word to THE mother.”
And I still use many of the rest of these.
The irritating thing about growing up in a non-English-speaking country is that I… have nothing to add to this thread. Though I do remember endless, mind-frying discussions as to whether it was still cool to say ‘cool’ when we meant something was cool.
Oh, and ‘harsh’. My American cousins went through a ‘harsh’ phase. Everything displeasing, from parents to colours, was ‘harsh’. Whereas my English cousins had a painful ‘innit?’ phase, and an even more painful ‘dude’ phase, which Went Not Well with their cut-glass Home Counties accents.
Oh yes, how could you leave out “dude” and “awesome” and “major?” I always hated the “gag me with (implement of your choice)”.
One of our colloquialisms was the grundy – it generally referred to a wedgie…or any situation in which your underwear must be retrieved from your butt crack.
And to QoB – instead of “You’re wreckin’ me buzz” we had “buzzkill.”
You forgot Bad, meaning good!
You forgot “like.”
As in, like, every other word, like, had to, like, be interspersed with, like, totally bitchin’ levels of “like.”
I’m cringing as I read this. Did we really use those terms?
I still remember the culture shock I got as a 14 year old clueless teen (and a bit of an introverted one, at that) when I moved from Georgia to Southern California, and had to often ask people what they were talking about. Or at least do the mindless puppy-dog nodding because I was too embarrased to showcase my ignorance and inexperience with SoCalValleyspeak.