I want to bring some words back.
A lot of us remember the 'good old days' now as being the sixties. You see fewer Elvis impersonators and more Temptations look-a-likes at the Indian casinos. Why? Because the people remembering the fifties are dying off and the sixties generation is at bat, plain and simple. That's just the tip of the iceberg that's looming large on our bow. Wait until Michael Jackson wannabes start showing up at your kids bat-mitzvah. So if we're going to do it, lets bring back the words that galvanized a decade of love, war, leisure suits, and some guys called The Beatles.
Groovy is a term developed by long hairs to mean 'cool' and 'hip'. These are two words we need to clarify later. Groovy means to be harmonious and usually was accompanied by the person raising their index finger and whatever that finger is next to the index finger as if they're indicating two orders of fries. The two fingers was symbolic for 'peace' in those days which is not to be mixed up with Sir Winston Churchill's use of the same two fingers during WWII which were symbolic for 'Victory.' There could be a correlation between victory and peace although that combination is fleeting.
Bitchin' is one of my favorite words. Its cutting, hard-packed, and makes you seem like you live on the edge. Anyone hearing it will get the image that the user has a motorcycle, a gun, and isn't afraid to use either. The word means 'groovy' 'cool' 'neat' only with an air of someone saying "I want to see you bleed, man."
Hip associates with fashion. It marks whatever it is addressing as trendy, fashionable, stylish, so on. You are not groovy if you stand there and comment on what your friend is wearing and say "Hey, you're stylish," and then flip the peace/Churchill sign. You would then be a "drag." I like to think this came out of the fashion style of 'hip-hugger' jeans when the women wore their jeans waaaaaay down on their hips, showing their form, usually accented with a big, wide, white belt; much like high school boys do today.
Cool. I don't think this word ever went away. It's classic and versatile. Its one of those words that can apply to almost any situation from fashion, attitude, to your coffee on a winter day.
Boss rates up there with groovy. It symbolizes that something is king-be it a shirt, a band, or music. Whatever it is pointed at means that item deserves respect and a free pass back stage.
Look, there are a bunch and some of them today we could even weave in, although they haven't lived long enough in our vocabulary to warrant a seat in the Hall of Fame of Words yet, like Phat; which we all know means someone who is fat spoken by someone with a lisp. These words have been around and I think we need to try to revitalize them. Come on, weave them back into your daily vocabulary. It'll be bitchin.
Cool article. I love some of those old words, too.
ReplyDeleteIn my pursuit of etymological oddities and points of interests, I found out some interesting things about several of those terms. The terms cool, hip, and groovy came to the hippies through the Beat movement. The Beats--Beatniks--got them from 1930' and 1940's black jazz musicians. Cool described a riff that let listeners and dancers "cool" off like they were sitting in a cool breeze.
Since those were the beginnings of the vinyl days, when you recorded an album you "cut" it into the gold-plated master, which was then used to "print" or by impression make the dies that would print the rest of the albums. If you sold enough albums, the record company let the artist keep the original cold master-the gold albums hanging on the walls. Anyway, each spiral line of recording was a groove. So, when a riff or song was finally good enough to be recorded, it would "make a groove," "be in the groove," or be "groovy."
The jazz songs that were hits were those that got people dancing, and dancing in jazz starts with the hips. So, a hit song got the hips moving, hence, if a song was "hip" it would be a hit! Now, there's a bitchin' sensual connotation! If it gets me moving, I'm hip with it! Being able to improvise a dance to a piece of music, meant you understood the piece's jive, it's vibe (a little later version of jive). When you understood what someone was rapping about, you could truly say, "I'm hip" or "I'm hip to that."
Cool blog, dog.
People give me funny looks when I say 'groovy,' but I use it anyway. Such a nice word.
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