Slang

     I love slang.  It's proof to me that language is alive.  Slang adds color to speech, and as anyone who reads Happy in Hainesport knows, I like colorful language.  I like the wit and cleverness of slang.
     I was watching the Hainesport turkeys the other day, and I thought about how no one ever uses the term jive turkey any more.  Likewise, no one ever bets their bippies, nor do they keep on trucking.  These days I would just call someone an idiot, say you bet your sweet ass, or encourage someone to keep up the good work.
     My mother had a vernacular all her own.  When she grew tired of our chatter, she would tell us to dry up.  If we were wrong about something, she told us we were all wet.  When she lectured, we got an earful.  When I complained about the way a neighborhood boy treated me, she said he was just razzing me.  Most of Mom's slang vocabulary came from the 1920's.  That makes sense since she was born in 1923.  However, I was a kid in the 50's and 60's.  I wish I had a mother who kept up with the times and assured me that the kid next door was only trying to bug me.
     Some expressions that started out as slang were so perfect that they went into general usage.  Attaboy was first used in the early 1900's, and you won't be mistaken for a time traveler if you use attaboy today.  Blind date and Bible belt originated in the 1920's.  Brainchild, slang for a creative idea, originated in the 1940's.  Raggedy (though I prefer raggedy-ass) originated in the 1890's.  The term to rattle someone (to make someone nervous or uneasy) was first used in the 1780's.
     Some slang doesn't enter polite conversation, but it remains in use with a new meaning when adopted by a new generation.  Ripped meant drunk in the 1950's, but it means having well defined muscles today.  
     Some slang can enjoy a revival.  Millennials might think that Michael Jackson invented beat it or killer diller, but beat it comes from the 1920's and killer diller comes from the 1930's.  I thought the Four Seasons were oh-so-original when they sang, "I'd change her sad rags into glad rags if I could," but the term glad rags, meaning one's Sunday best, also comes from the 1920's.
     Cool is probably the only slang word used by everyone from 18 to 80.  Everything else runs it's course, then falls into obscurity.  Slang makes you part of the group until it goes out of style, then it date stamps its user.  When Mom said you slay me she might as well have worn a t-shirt that said "born in 1923."
     I was sitting on the patio a few weeks back.  The little girl from next door came over for a visit. After the usual inquiries about school and bicycle riding, her father interrupted by calling out to her.  "I'm just chillin' with the neighbor," she hollered back.  My mother would have said we were shooting the bull.  I thought we were hanging out.