Posted on 08/25/2004 9:48:53 AM PDT by presidio9
Are you feeling screwed, blued and tattooed because the man slipped it to you? Like, stay loose, hit the pad and share a thumb with your pash.
Huh?
If that made no sense to you, check out "The Hippie Dictionary" by John McCleary. Using the new book to translate, readers come up with the more conventional: Are you feeling mistreated by the authorities? Relax, go home to bed and share a very large marijuana cigarette with your significant other."
Those expecting the dictionary, published by Ten Speed Press, to be a stodgy reference work are in for a jolt.
McCleary's book is chock-full of pointed editorializing, slang and swear words culled from the vernacular of the 1960s and 1970s hippie youth, who questioned authority and created their own counterculture.
McCleary said he wouldn't have it any other way.
"In order to be truthful to the era, I had to put every term that I could remember in the dictionary," McCleary, who spent eight years writing and compiling the 700-page tome, said in an interview.
Hence, among the book's entries are such gems as "hey man" (the most prevalent greeting of the era) and "swacked" (high on drugs or alcohol).
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I believe it refers to something completed using a rifle as a stereotype, old weapons had barrels that screwed into the receivers and were blued to protect against rust and finally marked as to the builder and the date made.
Trying to track down old phrases like this can be frustrating: I've spent quite some time at it. Both explanations make sense but I'm inclined to go with O.P.'s because my Dad was a gunsmith. I remember him blueing rifle barrels -- a dangerous process requiring cyanide as I remember. I'm not sure what "blued" refers to about being shanghaied unless it's an oblique reference to the blue ocean or a Navy blue uniform.
That's true, and I have no dogs in the fight. However, OPs gun explanation doesn't do much for tattooing.
Klevvvveeeerrr!
Electric etchers were used to scribe the barrel and receiver metal in a touch, release fashion just as tatooing is done with a needle.
You can make an etcher using an ice pick, a couple of jumper leads, and a strong battery.
OP explained it well I think.. It could also be jargon for "imprinted" or "etched." I have no dog in the fight either except that the phrase dates from long before the 1960s.
"If you go, wear flowers in your hair."
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