# Slang terms and idioms that have stood the test of time
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 11, 2022, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317 "2022-02-11T14:40:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2022, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/101 "2022-02-16T13:00:39Z")
I can’t even begin to guess what that means. Drunk? High? Never heard it. What era and perhaps area is it known in?
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### Author:  [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2022, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/102 "2022-02-16T13:02:08Z")
> [@solost](#):
>
> “cool” and “sucks” pretty much covers the entire describable spectrum of life, with perhaps “meh” centered in between.
cool.
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### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2022, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/103 "2022-02-16T13:02:28Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#):
>
> And thanks to this discussion a vague memory has resurfaced of a friend telling me that no one says “cool” anymore, they say “radical” or “bad”, which probably would have been in the late 1980s.
Cool is a rule, but sometimes bad is bad - Huey Lewis
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### Author:  [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2022, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/104 "2022-02-16T18:19:34Z")
Words that have gone out of use (in UK anyway): ‘gear’ vs ‘grotty’. From Liverpool Beatles era, though I think they were mostly popularized by the comedian Ken Dodd…
I still like "ticketty-boo: though… everyone in our family knows what that means!
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### Author:  [@pudytat72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pudytat72)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2022, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/105 "2022-02-16T23:24:56Z")
aged badly:
“I’ve known him since Buck was a calf”
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### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2022, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/106 "2022-02-17T00:59:43Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#):
>
> > [@elfkin477](#):
> >
> > I’m 44 and do recall my parents being bizarrely insistent when I was in middle school that it “sucks” was vulgar before apparently realizing that it no longer had the same suggestive connotation to kids as when they were young, and no longer objecting when we said it.
>
> I’m 42 and had the exact. same. experience.
I’m 44 and recall the same debate with a teacher as a sophomore. We were perplexed why she thought it was vulgar. I also distinctly recall reading a newspaper editorial that discussed the change in the idiom by explaining that, in present day (mid 1990s) vernacular, “a vacuum that doesn’t suck sucks.” I think somebody had brought it in to show her.
> [@Riemann](#):
>
> “I am down to” / “I am up for” is the flammable / inflammable of colloquial agreement to participate…
Whereas “booty call” and “butt dial” have distinctly different meanings.
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2022, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/107 "2022-02-17T02:29:36Z")
> [@solost](#):
>
> “cool” and “sucks” pretty much covers the entire describable spectrum of life, with perhaps “meh” centered in between
Or the lit-meh-bogus spectrum, but no doubt that’s out of date too.
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### Author:  [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2022, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/108 "2022-02-17T14:51:40Z")
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> I can’t even begin to guess what that means. Drunk? High? Never heard it. What era and perhaps area is it known in?
“Saucered and blowed” means a task or project is fully completed. From the Great Depression days, it’s when someone would buy a cup of coffee at a cafeteria, they’d fill the cup fully and let the excess coffee run onto and fill the saucer. You’d then have to blow on the hot coffee to drink it.
I used to have a regular weekly breakfast with some 90 year old guys.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2022, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/109 "2022-02-17T16:14:21Z")
> [@Bullitt](#):
>
> “Saucered and blowed” means a task or project is fully completed
I really wanted this to be something on a price board in a hair salon…or a brothel.
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### Author:  [@Hakushon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hakushon)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2022, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/110 "2022-02-17T17:26:13Z")
To those young’uns who are perplexed as to why “sucks” should be considered vulgar: it’s short for “sucks dick.” The oldsters who are offended by this, still hear the implied “dick” lurking nearby.
I’ve never found these expressions to be offensive, since I grew up in NYC where all conversations were punctuated with what the rest of the country considered to be curse words–but which _we_ used as everyday speech, and did not shock most New Yorkers.
Not only would we say, “that sucks,” but it was not uncommon for someone to reply, “it sucks a donkey dick” (if the particular situation had been truly dire).
I also suspect that “suck an egg” (as someone mentioned) may be a euphemistic substitution for “suck dick.”
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2022, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/111 "2022-02-17T17:38:47Z")
> [@Hakushon](#):
>
> I also suspect that “suck an egg” (as someone mentioned) may be a euphemistic substitution for “suck dick.”
[It’s not, at least originally.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_grandmother_to_suck_eggs)
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### Author:  [@Hakushon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hakushon)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2022, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/112 "2022-02-17T17:45:52Z")
No, but I believe the original idiom was at some time “linguistically hijacked.” I don’t know what the linguistic terminology for such a hijacking is, but I’m curious to know what that phenomenon is called…?
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### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2022, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/113 "2022-02-18T04:05:35Z")
> [@Hakushon](#):
>
> Not only would we say, “that sucks,” but it was not uncommon for someone to reply, “it sucks a donkey dick” (if the particular situation had been truly dire).
I’ve also heard it as “it sucks dog dicks.”
Anyone know of any other animals that have been fellated?
I have heard “it sucks pipe” as a euphemism.
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### Author:  [@the\_art\_of\_rolling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_art_of_rolling)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2022, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/114 "2022-02-18T10:32:14Z")
A very familiar football (soccer) chant from a while ago. When abusing an opposing player/manager or referee,
“He’s the meanest, he sucks a horse’s penis”
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2022, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/115 "2022-02-18T11:23:42Z")
I won’t rest until i can bring back [“It’s a gas!”](https://youtu.be/ktSWQ9Ki7TY)
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### Author:  [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2022, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/116 "2022-02-18T12:06:39Z")
> [@the\_art\_of\_rolling](#):
>
> “He’s the meanest, he sucks a horse’s penis”
The horse probably didn’t think he was the meanest.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2022, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/117 "2022-02-18T13:30:27Z")
How about “Guy”? Is that even slang any more?
Or “Kid”, for that matter?
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2022, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/118 "2022-02-18T15:54:09Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> “Cool” ( which probably originated in the 50s)
Actually, the 1930s, and more widely by the late '40s:
> Slang use of cool for “fashionable” is by 1933, originally African-American vernacular; its modern use as a general term of approval is from the late 1940s, probably via bop talk and originally in reference to a style of jazz; the word is said to have been popularized in jazz circles by tenor saxophonist Lester Young (1909-1959). Cool-headed “not easily excited or confused” is from 1742.
From [here](https://www.etymonline.com/word/cool#etymonline_v_46706) (cited above).
I’ve always watched movies from the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, so sometime in the late ‘80s or early’ 90s I decided to start calling things I liked or approved of “swell.”
So you can thank me for the upswell (har) in popularity of that expression.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2022, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/119 "2022-02-18T16:05:45Z")
> [@commasense](#):
>
> > [@RealityChuck](#):
> >
> > Cool” ( which probably originated in the 50s)
>
> Actually, the 1930s, and more widely by the late '40s:
So the cool considerate men in 1776 weren’t so named because of their fashionable wig powder?
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### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2022, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slang-terms-and-idioms-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/959317/120 "2022-02-19T23:50:57Z")
Sportscaster Red Barber’s heyday was before I paid much attention to baseball. Apparently, he used “sitting in the catbird seat” to mean being in a good situation as a player. He also used “suck-egg mule,” and I have no idea what he meant by that.
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