The slang that Dobie Gillis and Maynard G. Krebs used on the TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959) probably made adults of the time scratch their heads. You dig?I have worked in an undergraduate college for nearly thirty years, and I am extremely cautious (not to say paranoid) about using the slang words that I hear students use. Just today one of my students used the word skeevy in a discussion posting in an online course I am teaching. It was obvious from the context what it meant, but I would never use that word to students or in the presence of students. I figure, no matter how well-meaning I am, I'll sound like a jerk. I have enough problems being understood by my students when I use what you might call "educated" language. How would I sound if I tried to use their secret language? It's more educational, not to mention more satisfying, to have them work to understand my secret language!
For one thing, young people now use the same term I recognize from years ago to mean something entirely different. I am told that a young person today might use the letter H to mean very intense (hardcore), as in, "The words to that song are totally H." In my day, H was a slang word for heroin. There's a difference that could get you in trouble. OMG! Don't go there!
In fact, I sometimes wish I could purge some of the old slang words and expressions from my vocabulary. For example, if "Oh, gag me with a spoon!" were to escape my lips, how dated would I sound? (Answer: 1980's.) In German, Grufti (more or less meaning a "graveyard person") used to be a youth-slang term for elderly people. I'm sure it's archaic now. I'd rather sound ancient and overeducated to my students than like an old fogey. "You dig?" as the beatniks and hepcats of the past used to say.
Most slang changes so fast that by the time a Grufti knows what it means, it's already out of date. I mean, how do you get from groovy to rad to tubular to bitchin to sick? (I hope I have those in chronological order. Anyway, you get my drift.) One basic rule of thumb is that if you hear a word in an advertisement on TV, it's already dated, like chillin. Let's face it, if you can talk about chillin and Dr. Scholl's gel insoles in the same breath, chillin is archaic. You dig?
3 comments:
When my jailed criminal clients would ask "do you feel me?" my only feeling was concern and a search for the exit, until I learned that meant "do you understand what I just told you?"
'Skeevy,' 'skanky' and 'squicky'--That's slang I can relate to! They also sound like cartoon names or characters from Laverne & Shirley. Guess that makes me a 70's throwback! I still that of H as slang for heroin. I'm kind of pleased that I've become unhip. It takes too much effort to keep up. And I think Moon Unit Zappa should go into that Hall of Fame of one-hit wonders.
Also, I love that pic of Maynard G. Crebs (remember what the 'G' stood for?) and Dobie Gillis. Brings back memories of 'woo - rk' and 'I'm going to kill that boy!' Wonder what Dwayne Hickman is doing these days. I'll have to check IMDB. He's probably not doing anything as exciting as Tony Dow's display of his sculptures at the Louvre.
Post a Comment