![]() Teenagers were going steady and always inventing new words to hide their teenage love affairs. They began living the suburban lifestyle in family homes complete with front lawns, small backyards and garages. The American Dream became a reality for many families during this prosperous decade. wet rag - someone who is boring or who puts a damper on others' fun.square - a person who conforms to traditional social norms.party pooper - someone who’s not fun to be around.hip /hipster - someone who is cool and with the times.greaser - a guy who used a lot of hair grease a tough guy in general.fast - person who quickly allowed dating relationships to become physical.bird dog - someone who tries to steal your girlfriend.back seat bingo - making out in the back seat of a car.beatnik - a young person who's into the beat lifestyle (music, drugs, booze, etc.).Explore some of the many ways people were discussed during this colorful era. It has long been said that, during this time, one baby was born every seven seconds in the United States. Given how many meanings the term has picked up in less than a century of use, however, it’s anyone’s guess as to what meanings it will pick up in the decades to come.These were the years that the baby boomers were conceived. The most common meaning of eighty-six encountered today is the one that is closer to its service industry roots (“to refuse to serve a customer”). John Kifner, The New York Times, 3 Feb. "I hate to see the guys always getting eighty-sixed," she said, using military jargon for killed in action. Michael Fleming and Karen Freifeld, Newsday, Īmong the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of “to kill.” We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use. The buzz in the book biz is that the Doubleday project "Listening to Philip Johnson" has been silenced, as in killed, kiboshed, eighty-sixed. ![]() Gary Oakes, Toronto Star (Toronto, Can.), 11 Nov. 1984īut he was "eighty-sixed" - cut off - from club activities for a while after someone spiked his drink with drugs and "I went berserk.” Richard Corliss, Film Comment (New York, NY), Mar./Apr. ![]() Yentl earned a sheaf of benificent ( sic) reviews and surprisingly healthy B.O., but Barbra Streisand was 86'd by the Academy. Following the application of the verb to drunks, eighty-six broadened its meaning further to include meaning “shut out,” or “rejected.” The more common explanation is that the word came about as rhyming slang for nix. It should be noted that, despite the fanciful story given above, the etymology of eighty-six is unclear. The Minneapolis Star (Minneapolis, MN), 7 Jun. Saloonkeepers in bygone days, on observing a patron becoming intoxicated from drinking hard liquor, sometimes switched his drinks to 86-proof liquor, The practice was described as “eighty-sixing” the patron, and this is probably the source of the verb used today to describe the cutting off of service to a patron by a bartender. ![]() Independent (Long Beach, CA), 12 Sept 1960 I have all I can handle eighty-sixing the drunks. Shamokin News-Dispatch (Shamokin, PA), 9 Jun. “Well,” Bobo said philosophically, “it wasn’t really one of the Schrafft’s chic branches.” Little Winnie and a couple of frisky classmates were tripping up lady customers and such when they were “eighty-sixed” by the Stork Club of the ice cream and cookie league. The initial meaning as a verb was “to refuse to serve a customer,” and later took on the slightly extended meaning of “to get rid of to throw out.” The word was especially used in reference to refusing further bar service to inebriates. In the 1950s the word underwent some functional shift, and began to be used as a verb. Justin Gilbert, The Bergen Evening Record, (Hackensack, NJ), 1 Apr. It did not take long for the word to broaden its use beyond the realm of the soda counter.Ĭarbon cats are musicians who purloin ideas….And, if after hearing you, they say “Eighty-six” that means you’re positively no good! 1941įirst appearing in the early 1930s as a noun, eighty-six (which is also written as 86) referred to an item at a soda fountain, or lunch counter, that had been sold out. Will Cuppy, The New York Herald Tribune, 21 Dec. When a soda popper says the tuna fish salad is eighty-six, he means there isn’t any more. Walter Winchell, Courier-Post (Camden, NJ), At the Lunch CounterĪ Hollywood soda-jerker forwards this glossary of soda-fountain lingo out there … “Shoot one” and “draw one” is one coke and one coffee … “Shoot one in the red!” means a cherry coke … An “echo” is a repeat order.
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