You've probably uttered at least a few slang terms in your time.
However, did you ever wonder aboutwhy you were using a temperature term to describe someone you liked, or why a term that once meant happy now causes religious anxiety across the country?
However, did you ever wonder aboutwhy you were using a temperature term to describe someone you liked, or why a term that once meant happy now causes religious anxiety across the country?
Luckily, we're here to demystify some of the most pervasive slang words and terms out there. They're so pervasive, in fact, that many of them have entered mainstream language.
1. The birds and the bees
The term today means a fairly conservative way to explain sex to children--something about pollination and flowers--but it actually comes from a 1928 Cole Porter song, with lyrics that include "...the birds do it, bees do it/Even educated fleas do it." The song references falling in love, but we all know what that really means.
2. Legit
Short for "legitimate," this term means a real, genuine thing. "Legitimate," of course, means legally documented and official.
3. Haywire
When rolled into bales, hay would often be tied with a springy, flexible wire. The drawback was that it would often snap and whip around in unpredictable patterns, potentially causing harm if it was used improperly. The term came to mean anything or anyone who could go off wildly.
4. Skid Row
Now meaning a seedy or dangerous urban area, this term had its origins in the Pacific Northwest. Skid Road was where loggers moved timber down the roads on skids. Many people working here were itinerant workers and drifters, and the area featured cheap hotels and drinking establishments.
5. Decked out, or "Deck the halls"
The word "deck" in English comes from the Dutch dekken, which means "to cover." It could also come from the Latin-based word "decorate," as it's now used to mean embellishment and ornamentation.
. Deck (verb)
. Deck (verb)
Speaking of decks, to deck someone is to punch them. It refers to a ship's deck and the idea that someone is hit so hard that they end up there on the floor.
7. Nitty-gritty
This term pertains to the fine details of something, usually with the implication that they're not entirely pleasant. It comes from looking at something up close and seeing the less attractive details like grit, or dirt, and nits, or larval lice.
8. "See you later, alligator"
The "alligators" were the audience at jazz and swing performances, while the musicians themselves were the hep-cats. A song with the same name by Bill Haley and the Comets appeared in 1956, and the phrase stuck.
9. Jumping on the bandwagon
P.T. Barnum started this with his circus, traveling from town to town on wagons and playing music. This would attract a lot of attention, and politicians were soon employing a similar tactic during campaign tours. To "jump on the bandwagon" came to mean lending support to one of the candidates. Now, it means going along with anything, usually in a mob mentality setting.
10. Gay
"Gay" has been around since the 1300s, meaning happy, brightly colored, and cheerful. Over the next 500 years, as things got more dour, it became associated with being carefree, promiscuous, and even prostitution. It didn't become linked to homosexuality until the 1920s, and no one is sure why. Today, people use it to mean "stupid," but that's not very nice, and we discourage it.
11. Cool
"Cool" has something of a mysterious origin (making it, uh, cooler). It might stem from the West African concept of itutu, which includes the ability to remain calm under stress and diffuse tense situations. It would hold up, because the word cool originated in the U.S. with the African American community. Interestingly, cultures all around the world have this concept of self-collectedness as something to strive for.
12. Jazz
Speaking of jazz, the word "jazz" itself was a slang word. In 1915, when the term emerged, it meant both "nonsense" and "excitement," reflecting the improvisational and energetic characteristics of jazz music.
13. Groovy
We associate this term with the '60s, but it actually began in the 1930s with jazz musicians. If a musician got really into a performance, it was said they were playing "in the groove," which was a reference to the grooves on a gramophone record.
14. Geek
While it's now synonymous with "nerd," "geek" actually started out with a grosser connotation. The first instance of the word appears in circus sideshows, which were known for doing things like biting the heads off live chickens. Today, it's associated with technology and intelligence, but the chicken-biting thing seems to be connected to a lack of social skills.
15. An arm and a leg
When we say something costs an arm and a leg, it's really just a dramatic way of saying something is expensive. It has a much darker origin, though, with veterans returning from battle without their limbs. Their service to their country cost them "an arm and a leg"--sometimes literally.
16. Buck
"Buck" is slang for a dollar, and also a term for a male deer. What do these things have in common? They were both used as currency, as buckskin was used by traders on the frontier.
17. Between a rock and a hard place
This phrase first appeared in the U.S. in 1921 regarding the 1907 Bankers' Panic, which involved miners having to choose between unsafe, underpaid work and unemployment/poverty. Other phrases meaning the same thing include "between the devil and the deep blue sea," "the lesser of two evils," and, if you're fancy, "between Scylla and Charybdis."
18. Filthy rich
Money began being known as "the filthy" during the Great Depression, which seems odd considering no one had any. It actually refers to get-rich-quick schemes that were less than ethical. Such schemes involved buying homes from poor families for super cheap, effectively making them homeless.
19. Dope
"Dope" means both heroin or opium and a slow, stupid person, maybe one who acts as if affected by opium. It actually comes from the Dutch doop, meaning "sauce," but used to describe any thick, goopy liquid. Opium is a thick goopy liquid, and the name stuck.
20. Zero tolerance
Today, this is commonly associated with drug law, usually with laws strictly enforced in problem areas. It actually started with the FDA's stance on pesticides in food, which led to the reduction of harmful chemicals in food, like mercury in milk.
21. Muggle
This relatively recent term was coined by J.K. Rowling in her Harry Potter series. It means a non-magical person. She likely derived it from "mug," a British term for a fool. "Muggle" has had other meanings, though, including a fish's tail, a girlfriend or female sweetheart, and a marijuana joint.
So, jive turkeys, have we learned something? What slang phrases really have you "jazzed"?
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