Posted on 02/01/2019 9:33:13 PM PST by vannrox
The seventies get a bad rap. When people talk about the decade, they focus on all the embarrassing stuff like Pet Rocks, Watergate, shag carpeting, and disco music. Sure, there was a lot about the 70s that was cringe-worthy. But it also had some of the most colorful, over the top slang of the 20th century. And if you don’t believe us, well baby, you can just keep on truckin.
Put on your best polyester suit, crank up the Bee Gees on your 8-track player, and revisit some of the best worst slang of the Me Decade. On the other side of this spectrum, take a look at 40 Words People Over 40 Won’t Understand.
The other side of today is tomorrow, so to catch you on the flip side means to see you again tomorrow. Yeah, we know, it doesn’t make sense to us either. And for more great out-dated slang, check out the terms from the 1950s that seem hilariously dated now.
Example: “I got to run, but I’ll catch you on the flip side.”
A solid is a favor because, um… favors aren’t liquid? When you do someone a solid, you’re helping them out in a big way.
Example: “Would you do me a solid and give me a ride to the airport?”
To dance, but to do so in an especially enthusiastic way. Ideally, while being accompanied by disco music.
Example: “That ABBA song makes me want to boogie down.”
When something is presented, and then quietly taken away. A taunting word for a jovial denial.
Example: “Oh, you want a piece of gum? Sure, here you go. (pulls it away.) Psyche!”
If you find a woman’s body especially attractive, you might say she was built like a brick house. As in: Well put together, proportionally perfect. If you want a brickhouse body, find out What Celebrities with Perfect Bodies Do Every Day.
Example: “That girl is so fine, she’s a brick house.”
When somebody is up in your business and they won’t leave you alone, just tell them to stop dipping in your Kool-Aid. Your Kool-Aid, in this equation, is your business, and the dipper is the person who won’t leave you alone.
Example: “I told you I don’t want to talk about my divorce. Stop dipping in my Kool-Aid.”
If someone is acting unusual or wacky, you could accuse them of being a fry. Were French fries especially kooky during the 70s? It appears so.
Example: “Did you hear that Steve went streaking last weekend? What a fry!”
An authority figure. It could mean the police, the government, or even your parents. Anyone with the power to take your fun away. And speaking of the Man, here are 20 U.S. Government Secrets They Don’t Want You to Know.
Example: “I wish I was doing better, but the Man is keeping me down.”
He’s not just a lovable dorky character in Meatballs. Being a spaz is a state of awkward, spastic, bumbling energy. If you’re spazzing out, you have lost all control of your limbs and anything approaching rational thinking.
Example: “Whoa, I think you’ve had too much coffee. Don’t be such a spaz!”
You’re not ordering a side dish at a barbecue place. Rather, it’s expression of approval.
Example: “Sure, I’d love to see a movie tonight. That’d be cool beans.”
When you’re talking to somebody on a CB radio and you want them to know you’ve heard what they just said. During the 70s, an actual CB radio was not required to use this slang. It wasn’t just truckers who wanted to talk like truckers.
Example: “10-4, good buddy. I hear you loud and clear.”
No such drug existed. The “chill pill” mentioned here is entirely figurative. However you do it, you need to caaaaalm down! If you need to chill, try this 24-Hour Guide to Stress Relief.
Example: “Hey, hey, take a chill pill, dude. You’re going to get us all killed!”
This insult from Fonzie on Happy Days pretended the slang’s origins were in the 50s. But actually, “sit on it”—a nicer way of saying “shut up”—didn’t catch on until the 70s.
Example: “I’ve had about enough from you. Sit on it!”
If someone isn’t all there, and their attention span is the equivalent of somebody floating through space, staring at nothing in particular, then they definitely qualify as a space cadet.
Example: “Take a look at that space cadet. He’s in his own little world.”
Again, not a slang term to be taken literally. There’s no eating involved. Instead, it connotes confusion. Whatever they’re trying to understand makes no sense to them. They must’ve been out to lunch when it was explained.
Example: “I have no idea what any of that means. I’m out to lunch.”
You want to call something bogus, but you don’t have time or energy to pronounce the “gus” part. It’s like Millennial speak, but with more chest hair.
Example: “He blew you off again? That’s bogue.”
When you want the whole truth and nothing but the truth, you ask for the skinny. Because, well, apparently the truth had a high metabolism in the 70s. If you’re trying to shed some pounds, check out the Single Greatest Way to Lose Weight at Work.
Example: “Yes I want to know who she was with last night. Give me the skinny!”
Yes, more slang for that.
Example: “You might want to leave the room. I just laid a gasser.”
When something is taken to the extreme, and it couldn’t possibly be more wild or crazy, you have reached the maximum level of awesomeness.
Example: “We’re gonna have some fun tonight to the max!”
Meant as an insult to disco dancers. Calling them Stella means you think they’re arrogant and full of themselves. Unless their name really is Stella, then your insult is just a friendly hello.
Example: “Naw, don’t invite her to the party. She’s a total Stella.”
Gravy and out of state?
#109 re “Can You Dig It” - 5th Dimension.
Most of us do try to be useful for all the work we make you do.
Truth is, we'd be lost without you.
I come from the day when my mother would actually physically wash my mouth out with soap if I ever even thought something like that, let alone ever said it.
The best Pryor routine was when he went to the Arizona State Penitentiary, all naïve about why black men were in prison, then afterwards said, “Thank God We Got Penitentiaries!”
I know.
Palmolive or Lifebuoy?
I would call everybody at work Good Buddy every 4th of October until I retired in 2015. Most of them wouldn't get it, I would explain to them that 10/4 is national Good Buddy Day and they still wouldn't get it. Hey, if we can have Sep 19th as National Talk Like a Pirate Day, why can't we have a National Good Buddy Day?
Solid man. I’m down with it.
OMG, that man was so funny. I truly laughed out loud reading that ;-)
He’s right about prison population in Arizona. LOL
And then Gene Wilder would try to take to the prisoners, “Hi guys, how ya doin?”
I said “Gene, get your ass over here.”
Gene said, “What do you think they’d do to us, Rich?”
I said, “F___ us!”
Gene said, “But I’m not homosexual!”
I said, “Homosexual ain’t got nothing to do with it, they don’t do it because you like it.....They do it just to see that look on your face.”
My mom always bought the green zest soap. I absolutely cringe now when I see in the store.
As soon as I was on my own I switched to white Dove.
I remember when we had CB radios. My parents had one with the loud speaker hooked up to the bottom of the car. We would drive around and yell “hey” to people walking on the street. They would look around like they were crazy because they thought they were hearing things. LOL
Belonged to a club where we travelled a lot up and down the state attending events in caravans. Great way to talk to people in the other vehicles along the way on the trip.
I remember the song Convoy being #1 on the radio for like 6 mos. one year. I hated that song!
"SPACE CADET" is from at least the late '40s- early '50s and refers to someone not all there.
"KEEP ON TRUCKIN'" is from the late '30s.
"SKINNY" was in use in the '50s; ditto "OUT TO LUNCH", which was often just said as "OTL".
"BRICK HOUSE" is a shortened version of "BUILT LIKE A BRICK S**T HOUSE"...which referred to an extreme well proportioned female and though I don't know how far back that saying goes back to at least the early '50s and most probably it is older than that.
"BOOGIE DOWN" ( which I heard said as "BOOGIE ON DOWN" in the late 1940s ) comes from the term for a type of music known as BOOGIE WOOGIE, which began in the late 1800s, became mainstream and very popular in the late 1920s and stayed popular through the 1940s.
Oh...and “SPAZ” was also used in the late 1950s as well.
“Hi there groovy guys, groovy girls, peace, love, dove, incense, light shows, crashpads, Hare Krishna, and power to the people, groovy, right on and solid.” - Wink Dinkerson from KRUD Radio
“Ha! She called him a space cadet _and_a spaz? Total burn!”
“Yeah! Then he was, like, ‘I know you are. But what am I? Times infnity!’”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBu2cZtJhQU
Above is an appearance by Nixon speaking at the Executive’s Club in Chicago. Sounds about a year after the Watergate break in.
He doesn’t give a speech! Just answers people’s questions for an hour. Several questions touch on Watergate.
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