“JIVE JARGON”

 

When I was a kid, I remember all the phrases, both local and national that were used then, and that you rarely, if ever, hear today. There are times I try to “resurrect” old jargon from the 1950’s and 60’s that I both heard and used as a kid. That’s why you see works like “swell,” “neat,” etc. throughout my web site. I’ve made a “hobby” out of trying to get certain old phrases to catch on, but so far not too many have caught on. I’ll keep plugging along and maybe someday something will catch on. In our family circle of friends, many phrases were used and are still used at the present time by Tim and me. For example, when something was really “swell”, our dad Terry would say, “That’s a darby,” or a “darb” as a shortened version. Our family and friends referred to any liquor as “Zookey Juice.” If our dad agreed with something someone said, he would say, “That’s the McGaffer.” A local Berlin Hts. term for something that was goofed up was “Skeejawed.”  When we were told to doing something and started to “sass,” we were told, “No backtalk”! If we gave any “backtalk”, then we got “Cuffed” or “Backhanded” Both terms referred to getting hit (hard) with the back of the hand. Often when we didn’t “straighten up,” we were threatened with being “Knocked flatter than a fritter”! I never did know what the noun form of “fritter” meant, but I think it’s some kind of a very thin pancake or something. IF ANYONE KNOWS, E-MAIL ME PLEASE! Whoa… “Hold the phone”! I did a little quick Internet research and found a pic of a “fritter”! (See below)! If I “acted up” while our dad was gone and my mother told him about it, he would say, “Well slap him down”! If something were good, then all the “Old people” would say, “Isn’t that Grand.” Sometimes if our father was frustrated with us he would say, “You Loggerhead”! (As far as I know, that’s a big turtle). Since our mother had a lot of German in her, when she got frustrated with us she would say, “You dumb Koff”! Now, I know this is German, but I’ve forgotten most of the German I learned years ago, and I only remember about enough German now to get my face slapped by any respectable lady in Germany (or for that matter, France, Greece, Israel, Japan, and Viet Nam)! (Come to think of it, I only learned ancient Greek and Hebrew, so I could only get slapped in those countries maybe 2,000 years ago give or take a few years). Hmmmm, “Eryvay acinatingfay”! (At least I’m still fluent in Pig Latin)! I’ve always enjoyed learning the Indo European languages because I think they are beautiful when spoken, especially French. The one exception, however, is German. It is too gutteral and sounds “rough” in my subjective opinion. Yikes!, I’m starting to sound “normal” all of a sudden, so I guess my medication has finally “cut in” today, so I think I will “cut out”!