# Blow, as in leave **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 11, 2022, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787 "2022-07-11T22:34:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2022, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/21 "2022-07-12T18:14:53Z")
Grody = Grotty? [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/QREeweMWTZk/hqdefault.jpg "A Hard Day's Night~Funny George Harrison Scene") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QREeweMWTZk) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2022, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/22 "2022-07-12T18:18:44Z")
Valley Girl came out while I was late HS or early college; I forget which. Anyhow, “grody” caught on unironically, spread widely, at least in SoCal, and stuck; I still use it occasionally today pretty interchangeably with “gross”. Ref @Elmer_J.Fudd it may well have been derived from “grotty”; it certainly carries the same connotation. E.g. poop is gross; 3-week old poop crawling with maggots is grody. There’s an essential element of deterioration in there I think. The other two were always seen as jokes; over-the-top examples of something nobody would ever say seriously. Maybe the VG equivalent of a Betty Boop-ism. Likewise the over-the-top accent. It was a play on the adenoidal sound of the stereotypical SoCal Jewish American Princess, turned up to eleventy. But as spoken by the ultimate air-headed blond beach ditz. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2022, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/23 "2022-07-12T18:35:51Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > > [@susan](#): > > > > Jocularly, “Let’s blow this pop stand.” > > Yup – we used “Let’s blow this pop stand / popsicle stand” often when we were kids, decades ago, as slang for “let’s go.” Uh-uh. Clambake Let’s blow this clambake ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2022, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/24 "2022-07-12T18:53:22Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Grody = Grotty? Interesting. Might be on to something. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2022, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/25 "2022-07-12T19:23:45Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > I never understood what, if anything, “tubular” was supposed to mean. Surfing slang. > _(a)_ Of a cresting wave: hollow and curved, so that it is well-formed for riding on (_U.S._ _Surfing_); _(b)_ more generally: wonderful, amazing, ‘fantastic’ (originally and chiefly _U.S._). ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2022, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/26 "2022-07-13T00:46:14Z")
If you enjoy the experience of being constantly stymied by ‘the vernacular of the Other’, I’d suggest you raise a teenager or two. “Gonna dip.” (figured out that that meant ‘leave’ by the context; kid was no longer there… which had been an _undipped_ state, one might surmise). “Yo, gotta dipset.” A week later, the next permutation. Because “dip” was getting too mainstream? But “blow” or “vamoose”… or “depart”? Nope. Too ‘normie’. . As an aside, our youth minister (40-ish female, demure) loves to say “Well, I’m going to make like a fetus and head out.” ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2022, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/27 "2022-07-13T07:38:23Z")
Coincidentally, tonight I was reading a scan of [this](https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=415741) comic from 1946 and found this: [![](https://i.imgur.com/6082BPS.jpeg) ](https://i.imgur.com/6082BPS.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2022, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/28 "2022-07-13T12:09:24Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > I’ve said “let’s blow”, probably not that recently but somewhat. Hell, I’ve said “let’s book” maybe as often and who says that? That’s nothing: I say “Let’s skedaddle!” ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2022, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/29 "2022-07-13T12:41:05Z")
“Let’s blow this joint” is a seldom-used part of the family lexicon. Another, more obscure phrase with the same meaning is “take the air”. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2022, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/30 "2022-07-13T12:45:52Z")
“Let’s blow this joint” was still current as recently as 2015. Around then, I was in Central America with a twenty-something American student who had recently learned Spanish, and it was time to go somewhere. I jokingly said “¡Soplemos esta articulación!” (literally “let’s blow (i.e., breathe on) this joint (e.g., elbow or ankle)”, and he got the joke right away. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2022, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/31 "2022-12-05T18:02:57Z")
Just remembered a use much like from the song: in the 1957 movie Silk Stockings, Fred Astaire says “Little brother will get everything he wishes if little brother will just blow” (meaning leave) ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2022, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/32 "2022-12-05T18:32:37Z")
That use by gangster types was used as early as the 1930s in movies. Not sure if “real” gangsters used it and script writers picked it up or the writers invented it. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2022, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787/33 "2022-12-05T18:38:17Z")
Better not tell a yegg to blow, unless you want to get exflunticated. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blow-as-in-leave/967787.md?page=1)