Eve, in the thread about anti-sexist street signs in NYC, mentioned that ogling NY guys used to yell “Hubba hubba”, and “Oh, you kid!” at her. I thought these expressions were way obsolete these days, but do they still use them in New York? What sort of people use them, or used to use them until they stopped? The expression “Hubba hubba” was already being derided as an obsolete “square” expression by Mad Magazine in the 1960’s.
“Oh, you kid”, I’ve seen in the 1914 novel Psmith Journalist, although the context there was a boxing match in which a fighter named Kid Brady was being encouraged by his fans in the audience.
And while we’re on the subject, what about “Skidoo”, and “23-skidoo”? The word “Skidoo” was used in the same novel to mean roughly the same as a “curse” or “jinx”. “23-Skidoo” was another antiquated expression that was derided by the same Mad magazine issue referred to above. But what were the meanings of these expressions? When would someone say “23-Skidoo”? And where did the word “Skidoo”
come from?
Well, as indicated back in the street signs thread, I do hang out among an . . . unusual group.
I can tell you that “23 Skidoo” has nothing to do with the breezes blowing ladies’ skirts up on the corner of B’way and 23rd Street (the Flatiron Building). I was reading memoirs of a fellow who grew up in the late 19th century, and he said that was an expression as far back as the early 1890s, before the Flatiron Building went up—and he grew up in the Midwest. He added that anytime the math teacher said “23,” the kids would start giggling . . . Sadly, he didn’t know where the expression came from, though I’m guessing a long-forgotten vaudeville routine.
More urban legends about pop expressions: most people think “flappers” were 1920s girls, so named because their fashionably unbuckled galoshes flapped around. Actually, the word “flapper” was used as far back as 1900, to describe any butterfly-like society girl.
I once heard that the term “23 Skidoo” was derived in Buffalo, where it was the nickname for the old 23 Hertel-Fillmore streetcar line. Then again, it seems like the diner slang makes more sense.
I used HUBBA HUBBA just last year; commenting to a gal pal about a guy that I’d spotted. This phrase said EXACTLY what I wanted to convey. I’d never used it previously nor since.
I think “hubba hubba” got new life when Steve Martin used it in Parenthood, 1989. It actually was first used, at least attested to in print, around WWII, 1941. A comment in 1944 that " The cry Haba-Haba is spreading like a scourge through the land."
O, you kid first appears in print in 1918 with Mencken “I love my wife, but O you kid.” The sense of kid meaning an attractive young lady goes back to at least the beginning of the 20th Century, probably farther.
Eve We did flappers once before(I think). I think that the butterfly society girl meaning of flapper shows up in the teens, while usage around 1890-1910 retains the meaning of simply “young girl”, although some uses as an immoral young woman.
I am reviving a zombie thread just to comment that the Piper Cub and I are watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon from the 40s (“Zoot Suit Cat”) and the phrase “oh you kid” was used in it.
I did not know what it meant, so I googled it and clicked on the first hit that came up, without looking at the url - and here we are.
The SDMB is a Google-recognised authority on early 20th century slang, it appears.
I don’t remember the details but Robert Anton Wilson said it had to do with the Illuminati. I will not try to speculate as to what his actual beliefs were.
I was waiting tables in a bar, sometime in the early '90s, when a Japanese customer with a thick accent greeted me with “Hubba!” I was a little shocked and wondered how old his phrase book must have been. I said “excuse me?” and he repeated “Hubba! Hubba! I dub-a you!” There was a long awkward silence before I realized he wanted
I have an old photograph from the 30s of a relative in rural Missouri, posing in a fur coat (in front of a dilapidaded farmhouse, no less), on which someone had written ‘O you kid’ in pencil at the bottom. Before I heard the phrase elsewhere, I had assumed it was just more evidence of my family’s weirdness. I was glad to find out that maybe they were a little more aware of the outside world than I’d thought.
