Split the Corner Podcast
2 ex bartenders have their favorite bar conversations. Your home for phone down bar discussions on movies, music, sports, history, hypotheticals and whatever else we feel like.
Split the Corner Podcast
Season 1, Episode 19: Slang Through the Decades
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Happy National Plant Something Day everyone! We don't care what you're planting as long as it is something. Today is a day to make the planet just a little bit better by getting something in the ground and waiting for that that bad boy to pop up and beautify its little corner of the world. While that would be enough to talk about for the day, we here at Split the Corner always want to go just a step further. Today, we are taking on the Herculean effort of covering a century of slang in just over an hour. Starting in the 1920's, Kaz and Kyle are take a trip through the decades to discuss some of the best and worst slang words to ever see the light of day. So for this episode, grab your bae and chillax, put your gams up, make sure you're looking extra drippy, and lock in for this episode that is guaranteed to be extra. No cap.
Welcome to Split the Corner. What can we get you? What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Split the Corner podcast. My name is Kyle. Across the internet universe from me is my good friend Kaz. And we are doing something that we have never done before. And we are recording this episode at night. Kaz, A, how are you doing? And B, how are you feeling about doing a little late night podcast recording?
SPEAKER_02Little S T C A D, little split the corner after dark around here. That's good. I like that. We we spend we spend most of our time in in this industry and and I think and and because of it, most of our just daily lives working that kind of evening schedule. This might be this might be peak performance hour for us. I'm excited.
SPEAKER_05I'm excited too, man. I I agree. I feel like I've had the entire day to talk to other people. I feel like I'm I'm warmed up. I didn't have to do any vocal exercises as I stumble over that word. I didn't have to do any vocal exercises today because I've already done all of my vocal exercises by existing. So this, my friend, has the potential to be a really good one.
SPEAKER_02It's like when you tell somebody you got your steps in when really you just walked around the house a lot. You know, like yeah, I stretch today.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_05I got my steps in.
SPEAKER_01What is our day? What uh what does what's the chalkboard say?
SPEAKER_05The chalkboard outside, the split the corner bar and grill, wants to wish everyone a happy national plant something day.
SPEAKER_03Bar and grill? Bar and a pub.
SPEAKER_05I feel like if we're if we're a pub, you're gonna be able to split the corner pub didn't sound it doesn't have the the ring bar and grill.
SPEAKER_02But the initials, right? We we are the split the corner podcast, right? STCP. So split the corner pub, split the corner podcast. I just I don't want to be STC bag. And every every even even the diveest, even the nicest of bar and grills, eventually that's what they're called.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's a good point. Okay. The chalkboard outside the split the corner pub and grill. It's national plant something day. And I enjoy this because it's so arbitrary. Like there's no plant a flower or plant grass or plant opium or whatever. It's just plant something.
SPEAKER_02Shout out to anyone that just caught the nerdiest joke of the season when he said that Plant Something Day was arbitrary.
SPEAKER_05At least someone's paying attention. Kaz on a scale of one to ten, how green is your thumb?
SPEAKER_02Very green. I'm a plant guy. Um one of one of my biggest uh issues with my South Philly Row home that I have loved for so very long is the lack of sunlight and the struggle that I have to grow just about anything. Um I I am a big fan of plants, I'm a big fan of nature, I'm a big fan of being out in the woods, and and you know, that's I'm I'm down. Let's let's plant all the things all the time and and keep this planet green.
SPEAKER_05See, I have the same problem in my southern New Jersey home. I don't get a ton of natural sunlight, so things just die. And I also am a chronic forget to water things guy, which I don't know how that's a thing, but I might go a week and think, oh shit, I forgot to water the plants on Thursday when I was supposed to. But I just things die in my house, man. Now on on the on the flip side of that, I've done a pretty good job of maintaining the plants in my yard with zero experience in doing so. I planted them in in the right places. I did research on how much light certain plants needed. Like uh, like the front of my house gets no sunlight, basically, like no direct sunlight. So when I was planting things in front of my house when I first moved in here with my wife and kids, I did research to see like what doesn't need direct natural sunlight, and those plants have done really well.
SPEAKER_02I do think it's fascinating that there's a such a a range of you know plants that are almost impossible to kill and come back every year, whether you like them or not, and then the the plants that if you look at them the wrong way, they're done for. Yeah. I I do think that's fascinating. Um, are you a how's your how's your survival plant knowledge? Are you like uh let's go foraging for mushrooms? I wanna I wanna pick my own ramps kind of thing. I feel like every chef I've ever met has been like really into gathering ramps.
SPEAKER_05If the apocalypse happened tomorrow, and it was my job to keep me and my family and perhaps a small group of friends alive by foraging for edible flora, we'd be dead in a week. We'd be dead in a week. I have no knowledge whatsoever. I'd see like a berry and be like, oh, let's eat that, and then like everybody dies because they get explosive ice cold diarrhea.
SPEAKER_02That's but that's so much of society right now, and I think it's fascinating because if it did, if it did all collapse, we're starting from before we learned about nature because we've forgotten so much about nature. So there is going to be a large group of people that see a berry bush and go, finally, food, and then all die, except for the four people that go, all right, let's not eat those. And they're all right. We did that. We did that like 2,000 years ago, right? When we were like, those mushrooms will kill you, those mushrooms are for Saturday. You know, and then they had to be like, what the hell's a Saturday? And they were like, take the mushrooms and you'll figure it out.
SPEAKER_05I I listen, man, like as much as I want to say that I all the plant knowledge that I have gained specifically for like outdoor plants, uh to make sure that my yard doesn't look like a bunch of you know white trash living in my house. As much as I've learned in that regard, I still don't know what's edible. I like like there's edible ferns, right? And like you're an Eagle Scout, right? Like you know this stuff, dude. Yeah, I would do it. You learned this stuff. I never spent a second as a as a scout, so I have no idea. Like, I just I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I was out disc golfing a couple of months ago and found a giant horde of hen of the woods mushrooms and chopped it all off and brought it home and cooked it up, and we ate it for like four days.
SPEAKER_05See, here's the thing, though. You're you're talking a lot about mushrooms, and as much as I enjoy the mushrooms that would allow me to smell the color purple, I don't enjoy mushrooms outside of that. Like I I have gone on a lifelong mission of avoiding mushrooms. And at this point, I think we could probably rename this podcast Things Kyle Won't Eat. Because I feel like we've spent an inordinate amount of time talking about how I don't like cheese, and now I'm putting mushrooms on the list, and olives are on that list, but like a picky eater spinoff. But I'll eat I'll eat pretty much everything except for those like seven things that I just don't like.
SPEAKER_02Ladies and gentlemen, when we get to a thousand downloads, Kyle will eat cheese. Mushrooms wrapped in cheese with an olive on top.
SPEAKER_05I I will I will cook them for you. We will we will live stream it. So all 19 people who would give any kind of shit about this. Ashburn, Virginia, we're looking at you. That's right. What's up, Ashburn? Um did you ever go down the road of planting things to be uh lit on fire and inhaled? No. I had a roommate that did one time, and I didn't know it until the smell uh got out into the rest of the house, and he had a closet, like a like a like a closet you build from like you know, uh IKEA or whatever, that he had turned into a grow space. And this was a guy who I love to death, love him dearly, but you know, uh the guy couldn't do basic math, and yet he had this entire setup to make things that you could light on fire and inhale in a closet. He had a watering system, he had a lighting system that was on a timer, and that takes a like a significant amount of research to do to be able to be successful at that.
SPEAKER_02Is it that much different from like homebrewing or like buying a smoker? You know, like guys cross this threshold where right, we we've all seen the memes and whatever where you like pick one of four hobbies, right? Like you either you either get really into golf or you get really into smoking meat or you get really into World War II, or you you know, like there's these cliche things that we all sort of do. And so maybe if you know, maybe if home brewing isn't your thing because you're not trying to make beer, well, maybe a little closet and some dirt, you know.
SPEAKER_05Why not? You're growing Hawaiian mamma jamma that'll make you feel like your lips are on your forehead.
SPEAKER_02But again, what what's wrong with wanting to control the process? Right? We're all we're all baking our own bread since COVID, right? I picked up a loaf of white from my mom like not but two weeks ago, because we're just we bake our own bread now. That's what we do. We learned that we don't back the preservatives, we don't want all that nonsense.
SPEAKER_05So we've gone back to the Civil War days by by baking. My wife made a focaccia like three months ago that I still talk about. It was one of those things where like I'm I'm sitting there going, I know I shouldn't eat all this bread, but like I'm going to eat handfuls of this, and I'm not gonna use a knife, I'm just gonna dig my fingers in and grab the biggest wad of this focaccia bread that I can and just down the hatch.
SPEAKER_02Well, and you know it's all organic and it's homemade and it's not full of preservatives and it's not well, but she does. We're assuming she does.
SPEAKER_05You're gonna sit. Listen, if you think that my wife, whom I love to death, went out and bought organic flour, some bullshit, you're out of your mind.
SPEAKER_03But it's still, it's better than store-bought, right?
SPEAKER_02That fiction's gonna go bad in three or four days. That store-bought loaf is gonna sit up there for months looking at you awkwardly.
SPEAKER_05Meanwhile, it's getting a little bit greener, a little bit bluer. Yeah, I knew, listen, I knew that it had a shelf life, and I made sure that it was in my gullet before that shelf life happened.
SPEAKER_02So, yeah, I if you want to if you want to plant something, I I say you go ahead and and you plant something. Yeah. Have you seen, speaking of, but on a on a different scale, have you seen the guy that that planted the smiley face trees in the forest on his lawn? Yeah, dude. That like when the leaves change colors, you can see the trees turn into a smiley face. Yeah, because he's what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_05He did like a what is it, like a different plant or a different variety of tree than was native to that hillside or whatever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it turns like yellow and then red and then or orange and then red or whatever. So so yeah, get creative, man. There's too many of these cities that that you know, and it may and it's maybe it's a rabbit hole for a different podcast, but there there's this concept of arboreal sexism where like they they only grow certain sexes of trees in cities to keep them from creating fruit so that it doesn't mess up the streets, and and then there's you know the conspiracy theories that they do it to keep people from fending for themselves, which you know, whatever it is, but but like the cities are hard enough to get trees and things to grow in. So if you live in some space where you know you can you can plant some things and cultivate, go for it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I mean, I've been trying to grow a garden at my house since we moved in, but uh, the amount of time that it takes to like build a space where the gosh darn rabbits aren't gonna get to things and all of that. But like my big thing is like here in New Jersey, which uh is a place that I never thought I would live because it is the armpit of the United States. I love my neighborhood. I'm glad that I live here. It's a great little suburb. I mean, I miss living in Philadelphia. Uh, but the soil here is so sandy. Like you can't necessarily plant like a really good garden without going all out and buying new soil and like putting a friggin' like box together to like keep everything in and all of that. Because like I've been trying to grow grass because there was a portion of my yard that was was just completely devoid of it. And I went out and I spent like $500 on a whole bunch of soil, and I spent three days making sure that it was properly slanted so that rain would fall down it and into the middle of the yard and all of this, and then I put a whole bunch of grass seed down, and I bought the expensive grass seed, and I put the hay over top and I did the whole thing with like watering it every day. I got like nine shoots of grass, and I've tried it every year since, and I just dude, it's just getting worse. Like, it's just now I've got weeds out there that that that mock me. And like I went out and I got weed killer, and I'm spraying them like, yeah, fuck you, dude. And then like three days later, there's triple the amount of weeds in the one spot that I sprayed the weed killer in. So so I think my point is screw you, New Jersey.
SPEAKER_02That's one of those industries where I'm I'm never really a hundred percent convinced, right? Like, does the weed killer actually make you grow more weeds so that you go buy more weed killer? Is is it like sunblock? I'm not a hundred percent convinced that sunblock is real. And if right there with you if you put it on and then you get sunburned anyway, don't you go, man? I gotta make sure I put on more sunblock next time. Like, isn't that a great marketing ploy? Shouldn't feel we all have invented something like that.
SPEAKER_05Isn't there a class action lawsuit like in the waiting in the wings for like we could all just go and and sue the suntan lotion companies? The the Suntan lo big big suntan. We're gonna go get big suntan lotion with a class action lawsuit.
SPEAKER_02Big bronzer.
SPEAKER_05That's right, dude. I put on SPF 158, and I still look like a lobster.
SPEAKER_02Still roasted.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god. Well, Kaz, Happy National Plant Something Day. I hope that uh you go outside and you plant something with your finger. But today's episode is not about horticulture, it's not about botany, it's about something that I'm really excited to talk about, and I know you are. And I would like to hand the reins of this episode right over to you, pal, because I know you've got locked and loaded.
SPEAKER_02What do you got for us today, big guy? So today we're gonna talk about generational slang. Uh, because there's there's lots of things that you know we talk about national plant something day, and and you know, maybe maybe you call it reefer, or maybe you call it, you know, weed, or maybe you call it pot, or uh, you know, a lot of these things uh come from what year it was that you learned it. What were we calling things at that time? And and while we were talking about how fun it would be to put ourselves on the on the altar of of self-deprecation and just look like the old men that we've become by by facing ourselves with some of these things, um, there is uh there is sort of a fascinating progression of like the categories that kind of slang has always dipped a toe in, right? You find that like it's always in fashion somewhere, it's always in alcohol somewhere, it's always in kind of the the way that we the exclamations that we use, the way that we refer to things that we like and don't like. There there are these sort of these sort of traceable paths through history that you can follow through the words that we were using at the time, and uh and that and that's just a lot of fun. So what I want to do is uh we found a a collection while while doing some research um on how stuffworks.com. Uh we found a laundry list of slang broken up by the decades. So let's let's run through uh as quickly as I can some of the some of these things that are either significant for their year or or we're just fun to say. Um I'm are are are you ready? I'm gonna I'm gonna throw some of them up there. Stop me when you stop me when you feel the need to I'm ready.
SPEAKER_05Where are you waiting where are you starting?
SPEAKER_02So we're gonna start in the 1920s.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so we're doing like a hundred years of slang.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Oh, I'm gonna be able to do it. It goes it goes all the way back, um, and it starts with B's knees, which is which is fantastic for me because that's like the definition of slang in in my mind. Yeah, right. You know, like it it's it's two terms that mean something ridiculous if you take them literally, but because of the context, it was cool.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so if we're if we're starting with B's knees, here's the thing what I what I find fascinating about this before we even jump in is that like there's a dude, right? We're gonna call him Frank. And Frank and his boys were hanging out one day, and they saw something really awesome happen, just something really cool happened, like a car drove by and they had never seen a car before, or something to that effect. And Frank went, Oh man, that's the bee's knees. And everybody around him went, What? What does that mean? He's like, It means good, and they all were like, Yeah. And then it expanded. They went six degrees of Kevin Bacon and spread it across the country. It all of these things have to start with one dude, right?
SPEAKER_02Do you think it was do you think that was what he was known for in his circle of friends? A hundred percent. Is B's knees the the millionth try? You know, does does he start with like with like, man, that's the ant's toes, and everybody's like, no. And he just it just keeps going.
SPEAKER_04Oh man, that's that's the Ardvark's cello. That jacket is the fly's eyes.
SPEAKER_00Like you're getting closer, bud.
SPEAKER_04That is not bad. It's not not quite there yet, Frank. And he's like, Or you got a orchestra.
SPEAKER_02Is it's a group of scientists, right? And they're and they're looking around and they get this B under the Microscope and they discover that it has a knee. And like all of a sudden, we look at bees differently because you know they got knees, and that's cool, right? And and so now it's that's it's mockingly said about the guy that that found the bees' knees. It's about as cool as bees' knees, man. It just it just exploded. Right. Well, oh my god. Slang spread so much, it has spread so similarly throughout history, right? It's it's movies and radio and television and and and these things get this grand screen uh of of ability to uh to reach multiple audiences across the world, and and it only takes one to catch on. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I mean, especially nowadays. I mean, but I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves because I know that we're going to be talking about slang that we were into and slang that uh exists today. But I mean, now that we have these these platforms where you know one line from a movie creates a movement or creates this like synergy between an entire uh group of people or between everybody that has seen it and everybody knows what you're talking about. It's just it's an amazing thing. Linguistics in general is an amazing thing, but like this particular thing, slang, it's on bees what fucking Frank.
SPEAKER_02So alright, so bees knees, right? That's that's something that's just just fantastic. That's an outstanding thing. So if if that outstanding thing is splendid or stylish, they are the cat's meow. If it is neat in your dress and appearance, you could also be called dapper, right? Now, at the same time, we're saying doll for attractive women, yeah, delightful people are ducky, and your legs are your gams. This is the first time we see people getting the heebie jeebies. It's when we start calling alcohol hooch. That's a good one. It's when you become keen to something. Okay. It's also when we are first seeing the word scram. Like to leave immediately, right? Scram. It's also, again, 1920s, when we see the rise of the word speak easy, and when celebrating a good time is called making whoopie. Right? 1920s. All right, moving on. 1930s. Such a good one. 1930s is when cool people become cats.
SPEAKER_05Angry people are cheesed off. Do you say I see I I'm a big proponent of the word cat, like calling somebody a cat. I say it a lot. I don't I I'll say it.
SPEAKER_02I think I'll say it like, you know, if you have that specific look where, you know, that that's a cool cat. That's uh, but I always I think I always use those two together.
SPEAKER_05Okay. I don't think you're wrong. I don't know. I it's it just jumped out of me. Like I I realize now as we're sitting here talking about it, like I do say that probably more than your average person. Okay. So alright. So that is crossed what uh 90 years, and I'm still saying I'm still keeping it alive. Maybe it's just me exclusively. I'm keeping cats alive.
SPEAKER_02You and jazz musicians. That's right. So so that cool person be becomes a cat. The uh the doll from the 20s is now a dish. Now your attractive women have become dishes. Uh we see nonsense called hooey. Uh your courage is your moxie.
SPEAKER_05Oh, that's a good one. I I love Moxie. What a great word.
SPEAKER_02Powerful things are considered socko. Shout out, Mick Foley. And safe crackers or burglars are referred to as yegs. Y-E-G-G. That's what that's new to me. I've never heard that. I've never heard that in my life. So let's see if safe crackers come back up later. 1940s. Nonsense or flattery is called applesauce. Really? An important person is a big cheese, a huge success is a blockbuster, an extremely attractive woman, right? So we've gone from doll to dish to bombshell. 40s, you become a bombshell. It's also where we see the beginning of bum rap for false accusation. We get chicken for a coward. We finally see the word cool show up. So stylish and sophisticated. So in the 30s, you were ritzy. In the set in the twenties, you were dapper. Now you're just cool. You're just cool. That's cool, Breeze. Uh, things of poor quality are crummy. Things that are great or fine were considered ducky. Again, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So Ducky took a decade off and then made a comeback.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05Good, good for Ducky.
SPEAKER_02And it went from charming and delightful to great. Or so it it's gotten better. Ducky has a here you go. Here you go. Ducky got a glow up.
SPEAKER_00There we go.
SPEAKER_02That's some slang on your slang. You're welcome, everyone. So uh around the same time, flip your wig starts to mean losing control. Uh, language that is meaningless became known as gobbledygook. Shout out WWE circa thanksgiving. Uh, you you start to see the jazz culture talk about jive. Yeah. Alcoholic, uh habitual alcohol consumers uh finally become called lushes. Your house becomes your pad, your eyes are your peepers. Smooth people are slick and losing your temper, uh, which was cheesed off in the 30s, is now snapping your cap. Well, is this still all the 40s? Yeah, 40s were a long one. Don't snap your cap at me. I like that became pad was in the 40s, pad was in the 40s. No kids live. Wow, good for you, 40s. 50s. We start calling kids ankle biters. That's so good.
SPEAKER_04That's such a that's such a good one, dude.
SPEAKER_05Like that to me is just like it's so unnecessary, but so good.
SPEAKER_02Again, I believe it has to start referring to one child, right? Yeah, we both raise kids. You ever get bitten on your ankle?
SPEAKER_05Never once, right?
SPEAKER_02Never once. My finger a few times, but never my ankle, right? So why fingers are probably much? Why don't we call kids finger biters? Like who whose kid was biting ankles? Then that became a slang term.
SPEAKER_04It was in little Joey's biting ankles so much that we had to talk about it.
SPEAKER_02Another little ankle biter over there. First birthday party, make sure you wear your high socks.
SPEAKER_05And your ankle boots. He's just getting a mouthful of leather.
SPEAKER_02All right, so 1950s, little Joey the ankle bitter. You would say he was cruising for a bruisin. I like that one. Dude, I use that. Might have also called him daddy O. That was uh that was a term from the 50s for dude or or man. Uh, dressed up and fashionable was decked out. If you understand something, you dig it. See a couple episodes ago when we go deeper into that one.
SPEAKER_05See, I still, but I'll listen, I'll go back to that one. I still say dig it. I I don't know when it became a thing that I did, but I have said dig it for a very long time. Something I do consciously. I still say cruising for bruising. Oh, absolutely. I say it all the time, especially because I have young children. So in the in not that I'm actually gonna bruise them, just so we're all clear on the way. But they're cruising for it.
SPEAKER_02They listen, they're cruising for it, but I'm not gonna act on it. So, still in the 50s, things that were cool become hip. Yep. A punch in the face becomes a knuckle sandwich.
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_02So cruising for bruising and knuckle sandwiches are both in the 50s. We we must have fought a lot in the very violent decade, right? For for fist fights and cigarettes rolled up in your sleeves. But at the same time, we had made in the shade. Okay. We still had pad for people's houses, okay, and your clothes were called your threads. Yeah. That just that sounds like the 50s just sounds like it was a cool place to start, right?
SPEAKER_05Nice threads, Daddy O.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I can do it.
SPEAKER_021960s, it starts to get a little bit a little bit weird for me. Uh to hog something becomes to Bogart.
SPEAKER_05I have used that on several occasions.
SPEAKER_02Money is bread. Okay. Things that used to be cool are now far out. Or groovy. Relaxing is hanging loose. We see the introduction of the hippies. We hear people say, lay it on me when they want to get the details of the situation. We also hear people say out of sight if they think something's impressive. It's also where we start to see peace out used as goodbye, which stays on for a while. Really? Peace out, yeah.
SPEAKER_05No kidding. See, I would not have I would not have guessed that. I thought that was exclusively. I I would have put that in the 80s and beyond. Maybe just maybe the 90s. Yeah. Definitely not the 60s.
SPEAKER_02What do you know? I also see that things that are considered excellent uh are now considered righteous. I like righteous. Yeah, right on. Uh and we start to call our strange experiences trips. Which just fits right into the 60s. Good job. That one's yours. Well, well done, hippies. 70s, boogieing. That's when that's when we start referring to dancing as boogie. Okay. Um, it's also when disappointments become bummers, and people who lack motivation are called burnouts. Bummer has got some staying power. Yeah, bummer's been around. Um, we see the beginning of catch on the flip side. I like that one. Um, and uh great or awesome because of good times because dyno might. All right, I like that one too. You get foxy for attractive, you get funky or groovy for stylish.
SPEAKER_05Wait a minute, wait a minute. Let's let's pump the brakes there for a second. We get foxy for a good looking woman. Yep. So we've had we've had doll.
SPEAKER_02Yep. We've had dish. Yep. We've had bombshell, and we've had foxy.
SPEAKER_05I'm starting to sense a trend here.
SPEAKER_02That we will always need things to say to attractive women.
SPEAKER_05I I guess. We can't just say you're beautiful, you have to be like, hey there, doll. You're real foxy, can you dig it? Nice gams.
SPEAKER_02I'll just run it all back. Why not?
SPEAKER_05I'll bet you if you tried really hard, you could put all of them in like one sentence, maybe two, but you could lose all of them.
SPEAKER_02That's what I think is fun about this like it reads like it's all the same mad lib, right? Like you you could you could put it all in the same mad lib of like maybe we'll try and do that for season two. We'll create the mad lib of generational slang so that you leave enough blanks that it all just fills in somewhere. Because it does seem like like they're the same, right? Like you're gonna say John put on his threads in the 70s, he put on his uh, you know, uh his well threads in the 50s, damn it. Um, so we didn't do so great with clothes, guys. Not so great. We'll come back to clothes. 1980s. Cool, we gotta we gotta move right along. We gotta we gotta get to the real embarrassing shit. So 1980s, uh, we see the introduction of airhead for silly and foolish people. Uh bad becomes good. Yes, it does cool. Uh bogus becomes fake or uncool. We also see bodacious, we see cowabunga. People start becoming called dweebs, and then things that we don't like, or sometimes things that are super cool become gnarly.
SPEAKER_05I have to ask, and maybe this is something that any of our listeners who grew up or were teenagers in the 80s can answer for me. Has anyone ever said cowabunga outside of a teenage mutant ninja turtles reference? Because I just don't see a scenario in which you were like, Cowabunga is the best choice I can make in this conversation.
SPEAKER_03But that proves the point from earlier.
SPEAKER_02Because all it took was one movie to introduce a word into you know into the lexicon because a bunch of fun turtles in Jim Henson costumes, you know, again, shout out previous episode, yelled cowabunga in celebration. Now you've got kids all over the country watching these movies and yelling cowabunga out all the time. I feel like Bodacious is pretty much from the same movie.
SPEAKER_05Or uh Fast Time to Bridge Month, right?
SPEAKER_02You've also got Like, you've got Stoked, you've got Take a Chill Pill, you've got Totally, and you can point all of those at Clueless. But I don't think Clueless was an 80s movie.
SPEAKER_05No, it was a 90s movie. I had my first celebrity crush on Alicia Silverstone, and it has not wavered. Alicia Silverstone, if you're listening to this, sub.
SPEAKER_02It's not a bad first crush. That's an interesting episode we might dip back into. Oh, actually, I don't hate that at all. All right, 90s. 90s. All right. Here's here's where they're gonna start making you blush.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, this is just just so we're all on the same page. This is where Kaz and I both started to like these are the words that we used.
SPEAKER_02These are our circles of friends.
SPEAKER_05I I know I will say now that I'm guilty of using, I don't know what you're about to say, but I'm going to say right now that I'm probably guilty of using them earnestly throughout most of the 90s.
SPEAKER_02Go. All that in a bag of chips. Yep. As if. No. No, I don't think. I don't think I ever said as if. I might have said it mockingly.
SPEAKER_05Maybe, yeah. Yeah. In like a right. There's some girl in the making fun of in a hard valley girl accent. Bling. Yep. Booya. Yeah. Oh, dude. I st okay. Hold on. That one I'm not embarrassed about because I still say it when I do something awesome. That one has endured.
SPEAKER_02Uh shit. I will say boo. 18 Titans go. I might have said it yesterday. Alright, here we go. De bomb. Oh, God. Yeah. I mean, alright, with without the duh. Nope. Something is just the bomb. Um dope. Still say it. Use dope all the time. Still say it. Uh no. Not as much. Had to be a specific style. I I've seen a couple people in my life that I can say that that that look was fly.
SPEAKER_05See, I I think mine my caveat here would be that I I put as hell behind it. Like, damn, dude, that was fly as hell. Like that I think I've been guilty of, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I along those same lines. Fresh.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, fresh as hell.
SPEAKER_02Fresh as hell. Or fresh to death. Fresh to death, yeah. Uh, but again, very, very rarely just fresh. In a very specific instance. Yes. Like if I say you look, if I say you look fresh, it's it like I'm commenting, it's like an old spice commercial.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, like you just got out of the shower and I noticed.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. That's a that's a smell of cedar and sandalwood. All right, here's here's one I never I was never guilty of, but I I it I heard it plenty of times mockingly. Get jiggy.
SPEAKER_05I owned Big Willie style. I did too. It was a good album.
SPEAKER_02But I was not I was not one to use that in a sentence.
SPEAKER_05That was priest slap Chris Rock in the face on national television, Will Smith, when he was bringing the hot fire. A lot of things, Will Smith.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. All right. Fats coming up. Um we got homie. Still, still to this day. Yeah, absolutely. I use that. Great. Something that is great or excellent was kicking. No, never heard that. I used kicking, but it was usually about someone's bad breath.
SPEAKER_05Okay, yeah. That's yeah, I'm in I'm on board with that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Breath was kicking. Yeah. Like, I've that's that's something I've said. Uh my bad.
SPEAKER_05I every day of my life. Literally every day of my life.
SPEAKER_02And that one goes all the way back to ancient Rome. So, like, again, we we we did the 20s, but a mea culpa is is a is a Roman term that literally translates into my bad or my fault.
SPEAKER_05No kidding.
SPEAKER_02So, yeah, that one's that one's a couple thousand years old.
SPEAKER_05Um shout out my bad.
SPEAKER_02No, duh. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but like that one for me was always like duh. You know what I mean? Like when somebody had said something in completely obvious. I don't think I ever put the no in front of it. I mean, I'm sure I did, but like it was always like a duh.
SPEAKER_02All right, what about not? Like like Wayne's world. Yeah. Like I'm into this. Not. Sure, that feels it feels ridiculous.
SPEAKER_05I'm sure that I had a really fun like three weeks with not. Next one on the list is FAT PHAT, which is an acronym, if I remember correctly.
SPEAKER_02I remember it standing for pretty hot and tempting.
SPEAKER_05That's exactly what I remember it for. Did you ever use it like in earnest? Like did you ever say that like, oh, that girl's fat? Because I I don't remember ever that one ever being one that I used for real.
SPEAKER_03I remember using it.
SPEAKER_02It was it was like uh something that was cool, like something that was well, like like the design on it was cool, like that design was fat. That was a fat design on there. Like I I remember I remember using it for more than just booties, right? Like, because there wasn't there's always the fat ass, right? And you never know which you are you talking pH or you're talking you gotta you gotta clarify.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but like if you're talking about a design and you call it fat, like that doesn't necessarily jive, thank you, with the acronym.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that design was pretty hot and tempting. That's a hot design. I was tempted to purchase it.
SPEAKER_05Oh, all right, okay. So you went it you went a different direction than I did. All right, respect.
SPEAKER_02Speaking of respect, props.
SPEAKER_05Yep, still using props.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I still use props to this day. I I like to like to give props, like to get props. Props are props are good.
SPEAKER_05I feel like I deserve a lot more props than I get, but I like to give them out as well.
SPEAKER_0290s, we also saw uh undesirable guys become scrubs. Chasing waterfalls and I think this one's interesting because we've done a lot of cool people, and this is cool guys and cool girls throughout the years, but now we have an undesirable. Now we have a slang for for the guy that isn't cool.
SPEAKER_05That yeah, that does seem like a bit of a departure from what we've had thus far.
SPEAKER_02It's like a like a women's empowerment thing, right? Because God forbid Maureen O'Hara called John Wayne a scrub. Right? Like that's that's not going down. That's not gonna happen. No, and that that creates all kinds of other problematic situations. Right. The the original, the original James Bond, you got you got Roger Moore or Sean pick a pick a bond, doesn't matter. And he walks up to the girl at the table and says, Yeah, I sit down, and she goes, I don't want no scrubs. Had to be a 90s thing. Well, speaking of celebrity scrubs, have you heard the rumor that that song's about Dave Coulier? It can't be. I've heard that uh that apparently him and John Stamos were just cruising around one day, and he had the woodchuck puppet with him. And and TLC saw him somehow, and that's where the song came from. Like, look at this scrub hanging out the passenger side of his best friend's ride. Trying to holler with a woodchuck puppet. Two nineties songs about Dave Coulier.
SPEAKER_05I want that to be true so badly, but in my heart, he couldn't have pissed off both TLC and Alanis Morissette to the point where he had multiple songs written about him by multiple artists.
SPEAKER_02I think we're underestimating just how big Dave Coulier was in the 90s. Cut it out, bud. Wait, because cut it out. Like we had a bunch of hand slang in the 90s. Cut it out wasn't alone. It was too legit to quit was the thing. Like hand slang. None of us spoke sign language. Arsenio Hall had the the fist above the head.
SPEAKER_04Woohoo, hoo, hoo, hoo.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I did the same thing, same thing with Jerry Springer. You know, you you you pump your fist for Jerry Springer when shit got crazy, too. Like hand slang, I think, is fascinating. Ugh, that's Dave Kouye.
SPEAKER_05You son of a bitch. You create such good music. So certainly.
SPEAKER_02While we're talking about scrubs, uh 2000s, we see the the birth of a of another girl group slang gone crazy. Uh 2000s is booty licious. Yeah. I don't think I've ever used it in a sentence. Doesn't mean I don't know what it means. Fair enough. Uh 2000s, we also see bromances.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_02Close friendship between two dudes. Um, and we start combining words and shortening things in real strange ways. Chillaxing becomes a thing. Uh, when you want the details, you ask for the deets. Um things that uh uh if there's a lot of something, there is hella of it.
SPEAKER_05Uh dude, I use hella a lot. I still use hella. I mean, not as not frequently. I wouldn't say that I say hella a hella lot, but a hella, a hella lot.
SPEAKER_02There's there's like a vocal warm-up in there somewhere too. That's right. Uh things of poor quality are considered janky. Yeah. Again, people become peeps, parents become rents. I say peeps. I still say peeps. And we see the first nod to gaming culture. Okay. 2000s gives us the word pwned. Spelled PWNED. Puned. Meaning you've been completely dominated or defeated. So if you're not of the gaming culture and you like to play, say, uh, say you're a pinochle player, or you know, you play rummy. You know, if you ever take all the books and leave them with nothing, you can tell them they got puned. I don't I don't know what vowel to put between the P, the W, and the N. There isn't a vowel there, so I'm assuming it's take that zoom transcripts. Let's see what you spell that with. Things get a little weirder. Uh romantic partners become your bay. Uh things that are boycotted are canceled. Yeah. Anything over the top is extra. Yep. Stylish things have gone from dapper to on fleek. Uh cutting off all communication is called ghosting. We we used to just call it hanging up or leaving. Like we're having a great conversation. And then he ghosted me. Yeah, well, no, I left. Yeah, just I'm on my way home now. I pieced out. Things that are fantastic are lit. Things that are subtle are secret are low key. Uh your your situation or your feeling is your mood. Proof are receipts.
SPEAKER_05If you're scared, you wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is your mood? Yes, like that. That's a that's just a thing. Like, like that's slang.
SPEAKER_02See, I don't know. I I would say it's not slang. I don't think that's because if you're checking out the mood in the room, that's pretty literal. Yeah. Like if the room is in a bad mood, that's pretty literal.
SPEAKER_05That's what the word means.
SPEAKER_02Whatever. Alright, whatever, dude. Moving on. Uh things that you do exceptionally well, you are said to slay. And if you are insulting something or criticizing it, people say you're throwing shade. Alright. 2020s. We've arrived.
SPEAKER_05Before we start this, I wanted to be known that as the father of young children, and you are also the father of a young daughter, that this is gonna hit a little bit closer to home than I'm comfortable with. Because my seven-year-old one I I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but my seven-year-old told me one time that I was acting sus. And uh it kind of broke me a little. It kind of broke me a little.
SPEAKER_02So that would have been him performing a vibe check, which is apparently assessing someone's mood or the atmosphere of the situation. So he would have said, doing a vibe check, Dad, pretty sus. It just sounded so wrong coming out of your mouth. That's what I'm saying. I think there's inevitability to this. Oh my god. Like it doesn't matter how cool you can remain, you can only be cool with the slang that you came up with. You can't adapt a new generation's slang. And I feel like that goes both ways. I don't have I don't have any chance of looking cool in the 2020 slang the same way I couldn't pull off the 1920s slang. Like you can't just change it up one day and be like, ah, you know what? Not doing this anymore. It's very generational 1940s, me.
SPEAKER_05Dude, I work with a girl who a couple weeks ago we were having a conversation and something that we were discussing was bad, and she called it on dick. And I said, What? She goes, Yeah, it was on dick. What does that mean? She said, It means bad. I said, That makes no fucking sense. Like we are like, I've heard the expression like get off my dick, meaning to stop nagging or like stop hassling me. But for something to be on dick and be bad, like it when what when did when did get off my dick get Shanghai'?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I know there's a there's a British like pudding dish called spotted dick.
SPEAKER_05That's something you should go to the doctor for.
SPEAKER_02So like maybe it's a British phrase. Maybe it's like the toppings of the spotted dick are not good toppings. That's the thing.
SPEAKER_05We didn't get into European slang. Good lord. All right. Well, give me give me a couple more 2020s because there's there's something else I want to get into before we before we close this this chart.
SPEAKER_02Alright, we'll do some of the we'll do some of the the outliers here. So uh things uh if you're agreeing to something, you say bet. If someone is lying, they say cap. Uh so if it if you're not lying, you say no cap.
SPEAKER_05Okay, see, I'm glad that you brought that up because I had no idea what the difference was. Like just I I didn't know when you're supposed to say which one. So cap is lying and no cap is telling the truth.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so if you tell your kid to go clean their room and your kid comes back and says they clean their room, you can be like cap. Wouldn't, but I could if I wanted to. You could. You now know where to where to use that. They're like they're like scrabble tiles that you just like throw out in the middle of the day, like, haha, I can use those here. I've been waiting for that. Oh my goodness. All right, so your your style, right? You've you've gone from dapper to you know all these things that we're sleek, yeah, right? So now we are saying that that is your drip. So someone that is stylish or fashionable has drip.
SPEAKER_05I don't hate that. That's one that I can actually kind of get on board with. Uh, I heard someone say it uh that someone was looking drippy, and like I kind of got it. I I'm I'm on board with that.
SPEAKER_02Uh if you think it's over the top, it's extra. Yeah. Which which again is uh you know might be more literal than slang. Yeah. Uh things that are enjoyable, like music or movies, are said to slap. To slap. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05That's one I that's that that's one I just don't find necessary. I mean, tell me you're an old man without telling me you're an old man. I'm like, they're like, oh yeah, that's slaps. I'm like, well, that that doesn't sound right to me. Slaps who are they okay?
SPEAKER_00Do we need to call somebody?
SPEAKER_02So so gossip or news is now called tea. So spilling the tea or sharing the tea. Um, but I feel like spilling the tea is like something my grandmother used to say. So I feel like that is not a not a 2020s original, it's just been brought back around. And then I think we've got my favorite one from the 2020s. It's it they they say it's an exclamation of excitement, approval, or surprise, or to forcefully throw something. And that would be the word yeet. Yeet Y-E-E-T. I I I'm all on board with yeet. That's my favorite. That's the one that I've been like, you know what? I don't care if I look silly. I'm yeeting it.
SPEAKER_05Alright, so we've gone through a hundred years of slang.
SPEAKER_02Hundred years.
SPEAKER_05Let me ask you a question. Everything from bees' knees to yeet. My question to you is of all the slang that we've covered, what do you think is the most enduring slang word? Because I think there's a pretty obvious answer to this, and I it could be debated, but in my head, there's one overarching clear winner of the battle of the slang terms.
SPEAKER_02In enduring, like last, like has lasted the longest in its full potency, not endearing, right? Like it's not the one that we that we find the cutest that we wish people still used.
SPEAKER_05No, no, no. I think what's the most endured, what is the one word that has spanned the decades and has now is still a part of our everyday verbiage?
SPEAKER_02I would go with see, and I and I'm uh we even went through them all and and I'm I'm going through them decade by decade in my head, going, all right, well, that one was pretty old. We still say that, we still say that. I think you know, I think things like like bees knees and and and cat's meow and you know the ones from the 20s that that that we still say, like how what points do you give longevity? See, you you said you said earlier about it's a podcast about foods that Kyle doesn't like, and I I think I could equally throw my hat in the ring for it's a podcast about my indecisiveness. 100% because it's like 17 episodes of you being like, What's your favorite? And me being like, Well, if um you got it, uh I don't know. You did a really good impression of yourself just now. I well, I've heard it enough. I'm gonna go with chicken. I think I think chicken that's the one. It's still it still hurts people the same way it did that many years ago. If you look at somebody today and go, what's the matter? Are you chicken? It still carries the same weight. It's not like you know, if I say, Wow, man, you're really looking dapper. You're not gonna you're not gonna feel that, you know, that fashionable at the moment unless that's a word that does it for no dude.
SPEAKER_05If you called me, if you said I was looking dapper, I'd I'd feel great about myself.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's a my grandmother always always used to call me handsome, you know, that that grandma way of like, oh, you look so handsome. And I'm like, I don't want to look handsome. I don't I don't want to be handsome.
SPEAKER_05I want to look drippy. Yeah, and I'm glad that you just said cool because if I'm answering that same question, the most enduring slang word of all time, in my very humble opinion, is cool. That is a word that you say every single day. That is a word that everybody says every single day. That is a word that in Spanish, there is a word for it. There is no way for me to look at any of these terms and say that any of them have had a have had a larger impact on our vernacular or have a larger impact on society as a whole than the word cool. We say it all the time. We don't even realize my mom says it because it came up, you know, she was a child of the 60s, they were saying cool, she still says it. My grandmother probably said it, but like we all say it, my kids say it. There's not one word on that list, and we just spent 40 minutes talking about slang that has endured the way the word cool has endured.
SPEAKER_02No, and it's got a lot of versatility too, right? So much versatility. There was there was cool beans for a while, you know. Things are things are super cool. Yeah, uh, you you could tell somebody to to cool it. Yeah, oh yeah, there you go. You could you could say, hey man, be cool.
SPEAKER_05Like, be cool. It's just for my money, man. I just don't think that you're going. I mean, yeah, like chicken. I I'm not disagreeing with you that chicken has staying power. But did you call somebody a chicken today? Did you say something was cool today?
SPEAKER_02It's probably more likely that something was cool.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, there you go. I think it's cool, man. I think it it has to be cool. But I'd like to ask you one more question before we wrap this whole thing up because as we've uh discussed ad nauseum on this podcast, we are of the hospitality world. Give me some of your favorite restaurant slang or bar slang. You got anyone, you got anything that that jumps out? 86. 86 is my is a hundred percent my favorite one. I use it in my everyday, my everyday life for those of you unfamiliar. To 86 something means that you have run out of it and you no longer have it in the restaurant. So if I were to say to you 86 Miller Light, that means we are out of Miller Light. I don't know why it's 86. I'm sure that there's some sort of historical significance behind it, but I don't know what it is. Uh the other one is uh is is heard, and I don't know if that's necessarily it, I don't know if that counts as slang, but I say that constantly. Like in in everyday conversation. If you tell me something, I'll say heard to let you know that I have taken in what you have said and understand what you mean. And it comes from like being in the kitchen, you know. Chef will call out three filet mignons, medium rare, and the guy on the grill says, heard three steaks, medium rare. So that the chef knows that they've been heard. But I mean, it has made its way from the back of the house to the front of the house, and I use it all the time. I know that a lot of the bartenders that I've ever worked with, we've all said it to each other in like if you said 86 Miller Light, heard.
SPEAKER_02It's uh either depending on which part of the country you you look at the history in, it's either diner code or soda jerk code. Um 86? Yep, 86 was it meant we're all out of it. Cause diners back in the in the 30s and 40s were full of all that code and slang anyway, because you didn't have tickets to come to the back. So you've just got, you know, Nancy in her schmock yelling out that she needs three birds across the road with two dogs flipped over backwards out the house and two breads on a butter. I don't, I don't know. But I that stuff always fascinated me that you just yell all that stuff out, and then the guy in the back goes herd and repeats it all back and on the two double fraud with a with a side of blah blah blah spits it all out. Um so yeah, that's that's where 86 came from. There were you know there were other codes, uh no glassware codes and bosses in and and you know uh fire in the back. Like all of these all these things had codes, and and we say fire in the back, and we both giggle because because it happens more often than you think.
SPEAKER_05Far more often than you think. And don't use water to put out a grease fire, you're just gonna make it worse. I gotta tell you, this is very educational. I mean, it's not like I haven't heard any. I don't know if there's one thing that you said that I haven't at least it hasn't at least crossed my path at least once, but like it after hearing all of that, I realize now that I use far more slang than I thought that I did. And maybe it's just because it's creep crept its way into you know our vernacular, it's crept its way into our our our way of communicating with each other, and just the staying power of some of these things is is really unbelievable when you get down to it.
SPEAKER_02Well, and again, we didn't want to make this really a a linguist podcast or linguistics podcast, but yeah, how much of this comes from the fact that that English lends itself to this? Right. We hear a lot of times from people learning other languages that try to learn English English that the it's the slang that that gets them caught up. You know, what do you mean bad means good? Right. Right. How how can you guys ever figure out this language if things always mean the opposite? Let alone we can spell their three different ways. But we do. We we play the game and and it's it's fantastic. We've created our own language and we change it regularly.
SPEAKER_05I think that's really cool. I think slang just having gone over this and just like having an opportunity to kind of think about it in long form and and to to discuss it in long form, it's just a really cool thing that generationally speaking, people have come up with different ways to express themselves. I don't think without without meaning to, you know, without without setting out to do that. And they they we as a culture, as a people, have figured out different ways to communicate with one another and kind of like a secret code of of our generation or of of the the current generation, you know, and and my kids being younger, you know, they're not even to the point now where they they know what their slang is going to be yet. And they're going to come home one day and they're going to say something and I'm going to have absolutely no idea what it means. And I'm going to have to have them explain it to me. And they're going to roll their eyes and like, oh God, Dad. So lame. In my head, that's how my kid talks. You're so lamb, Dad. Oh my God.
SPEAKER_02Well this the same way our parents rolled their eyes at us and their parents rolled their eyes at them and you know somebody's dad got real pissed off when they called his daughter a dame or a doll.
SPEAKER_05That led to some some ass whoopings you can you know my daughter's not a doll. She's a lady that's right she got some great gams on her there, sir.
SPEAKER_02Whoop whap whap who you calling doll right have you have you ever read like an old have you ever read like Canterbury Tales or or or uh Shakespeare? Sure Shakespeare um I I was going Cervantes oh okay uh Don Quixote yeah so that that sort of put yourself in a in a full time period of like there's a lot of slang in those books and I can't help but wondering as I read them because I'm reading it literally because I don't know the slang uh how many jokes am I missing? You know like what what am I I I don't really do I'm if good means bad and bad means good and that's something that we started in the 80s what were they doing in the 1680s yeah well actually one of my favorites you talked about about hand gestures earlier one of my favorites was the the two fingered salute that the Brits gave people which basically means fuck you where like we just use the middle finger they put up two fingers and I've learned that it comes from during wartime archers who were captured by the enemy British archers that were captured by their enemies like they would cut off one of their two either their forefinger or their middle finger I don't remember exactly which one so the gesture of like showing them that you still have those two fingers means that like I can still shoot my arrows at you.
SPEAKER_05So fuck you you know what I mean and I think that's a really really cool thing like I don't know why the middle finger is such a a big thing which is honestly it's it's visual slang but the two finger from from England that comes from a a historical place of of wartime prisoners I think that's awesome. I mean not that they were getting their fingers cut off or that they were shooting people with bows and arrows I mean that we don't we don't encourage violence here I don't split the corner but to know that the British two fingered salute comes from a place where they were shooting longbows I think that's pretty awesome that it has endured to this point.
SPEAKER_02So anyway middle finger is not nearly as as glorious in its history um middle finger is kind of the exact opposite when you're looking for something so so the two finger is you know we have dignity and we can still fight and you know you haven't taken our assets from us and the history of the middle finger again ancient ancient Greek ancient Rome the history of the middle finger is look it looks like a wiener look look look look it looks like a wiener that's it that's the whole thing oh my god that's the whole thing it was it was used as a as a symbol of of like intercourse but like in a in an FU kind of way even back then um wow for all the the great things that the ancient Romans gave us they were just making a dick joke yep thanks for sticking with us everybody we hope you learned something on this episode of the Split the Corner podcast we have one more episode before we are wrapping up season one officially and uh as always next round's on us.
SPEAKER_05We'll see you there. Cheers
