Posted on 02/01/2019 9:26:57 PM PST by vannrox
No, no, no. It’s 23 Skidoo. This is my favorite origin story for the phrase...
“23-skidoo came from an expression that construction workers used while building the Flatiron Building on 23rd Street in N.Y.C. 23rd Street is one of the wider streets in New York that is like an uninterrupted wind-tunnel between the East and Hudson Rivers.
Frequently, when one is walking north or south on the avenues and comes to such an intersection, they can experience a sudden blast of wind as soon as they pass the wall of a corner building.
Apparently, when the workers sat on the sidewalk to eat their lunches, they would watch women’s skirts blow up from the sudden gusts.”
I’ll say she does!
Bee’s knees
Jitney
Just as Teddy Roosevelt said...NO HYPHENATED AMERICANS! :-)
Moley is actually from Ancient Greece ( moley referred to garlic, BTW ) and IIRC comes from the works of Homer.
There are other versions, such as : HOLY JUMPING CATS (which I still use).
It’s a THUG/ghetto/RAP thing and was NEVER done/said, by blacks, in most of the 20th century.
Then there are : "ye gods and little fishes", "Jimminy Christmas" which is an alternative to saying (Jesus Christ ), and quite a few more never heard today terms/words.
Personally, I also like "JUMPING JEHOSHAPHAT" as an exclamation. Jehoshaphat was an ancient Kind of Judah.
Perhaps the use of "jalopy" depends on where once was born & raised.
YIKES!
“Ain’t that the berries!” and similar ‘berries’ phrases came from the 1920s.
How about the original college cheer? Ski-U-Mah!
Catty-corner means: at right angle to each other.
Caddywompuss means: messed-up, crooked, at an angle.
Amen to that!
Or kittycorner
You don’t say!
You could’a knocked me over with a feather!
I was standin’ there with my kneecaps halfway up my legs!
He was grinnin’ like a cat eatin’ paste! Or maybe like a mule eatin’ saw briars.
The "23" in the term, does indeed come from 23rd Street; however, my gran told me that at one time there were "undersireables" ( her word...but meaning the worst sorts ) that would hang around the Flatiron building, the cops would tell them ( not nicely! ) to "MOVE ALONG". This then became a slang term, for them, which they would say when they saw cops approaching, which then spread to others, meaning lets get out of here.
"SKIDDOO", alone, actually means : "LEAVE QUICKLY!" :-)
I love the English language and have many books that deal with it, euphemisms, idioms, and such. A really cute book to uses as reference/to read just for fun is one from the LET'S BRING BACK series, titled :THE LOST LANGUAGE EDITION, by Lesley M.M. Blume.
It's how I was raised and still abide by.
And I proud of my heritage? Yes, I am, but I am an AMERICAN; nothing else!
Oh...and race doesn't matter at all to me; it's the person!
That's how I was raised, and I raised my own kids the same way. It's the American way!
HL Mencken wrote some great books about the language.
And my grand is being raised that way too. :-)
A "living language" is NOT one that decreases...it's one that broadens.
“Perhaps the use of “jalopy” depends on where once was born & raised.”
Could be. I grew up around a whole mess of older folks.
I wonder if anyone remembers the Rumble seat. They were gone by the time I made the scene but I remember the older folks talking about them.
Millenials and younger probably think it’s the stool boxers sit on between rounds.
“I wonder if anyone remembers the Rumble seat.”
I’ve ridden in a rumble seat-——great fun.
.
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