(Originally
published 9/20/11)
My current
writing project has me revisiting the 1970s. It is my favorite decade bar none.
While researching my subject matter, I reacquainted myself with the jargon of
the time. After all, three decades have passed and I am no longer a teenager
uttering, “Be there or be square” and “Take a chill pill.” Actually, I never uttered
either of those two phrases. I was way too square for that. However, I know
that I branded a few people “chumps,” who were worthy of the label, and I may have
even said “later,” as I parted with friends once or twice, which is
embarrassing enough.
While
surfing the Internet, I discovered a 1970s “lingo” listing and noticed that
“Who cut the cheese?” made the cut, if you will. This intriguing query
resurrected the memory of a grammar school religion class taught by a hipster
priest, Fr. Borstelmann—an agreeable fellow from my Bronx parish, St. John’s. Father
B, as he was affectionately known, interrupted a lecture with that very
question: “Who cut the cheese?” He knew how to endear himself to seventh
graders living in that groovy snapshot in time. However, I did not appreciate
his follow-up query: “Nick, are you gagging?” As I recall, I was not the guilty
party. And as we know:
Whoever smelt it, dealt it.
I
remembered most of the 1970s slang enumerated, even if I did not call it my own.
“Far out” was John Denver’s thing. And I did not call police “pigs” because I did
not have a bone to pick with them and, too,
Kojak was my favorite TV
show. Even the “fuzz” was too pejorative for me. I may have said “fooey,”
instead of “nonsense” at some point, and I am certain I used the word “grody”
to describe any number of “disgusting” things. “Doofus,” well, I still like the
term. It is equally apropos in the twenty-first century, and I have no
intention of retiring it.
Sure, I
recollect peers of mine being called “spaz” when they lacked athletic grace.
And that is urban slang at its best, sounding like what it is describing. I
know some people said “you know” at the end of every sentence in the 1970s
.
It was the hip thing to do. Now, some people do the same thing when it is
not the hip thing to do.
Many of
the phrases that became the “rad” in the 1970s are hippie-inspired, and the
hippies deserve their due for adding immeasurably to the English language.
Wearing cool “threads” with no “bread” in their pockets had to be a real
“bummer.” Do you catch my drift?
