I was just thinking about all the hip coinage of the 60's...like "Let's roll!" that was mentioned. Also, "Later!", for instance, trimmed down from "I'll see you later on" to "later on" then simply "Later!" We could also include the more cliché catch-words and phrases like groovy, far out, out of sight, bummer, not my bag, rip-off, sock it to me...but that's enough from me for now. Remember... the 60's...not the '50's or '70's. How many can we get from all sides of the pond? Or does anybody care?

Psychedelic, man!

I think we did this a while back, but I can't remember the thread name.

Anyway, I have a corny one a male guidance counselor used to use:


Know what I mean, jellybean?

It's probably not all that hip. I'm not hip and never have been, but I liked that phrase back in the 60s, just to show how out of it I was. I mean: way far out, and not "far out!" at all. There's a paradox for ya'!

WW

One I can't stop using, even after all these decades, is cool.

One word I've observed mentioned is 'gnarly', which is generally synonymous with 'cool' or 'rad'. Another one from the 50's or 60's, I believe, is 'gone'. I inadvertantly discovered an ad for a 50's or 60's recipe, and found the word there. It also means 'far out' or 'rad'.

e.g.: Gnarly, dude!
e.g.2: That pie is totally gone!

That pie is totally gone!

Like, real gone!

Welcome, Varbarian!

Timothy Leary:"Tune in, Turn on and Drop out."

from the late 60s SF scene: contact high (Fillmore West)

I brought back from a trip to SF (not a SF trip) a brass peace symbol on a leather thong, which I would wear to parties: token hippie : )

One I can't stop using, even after all these decades, is cool.

But that is cool, Auntie - or at least it is over this side of the Pond, where 60s phrases and outfits (saw my 16-y-o cousin in a distinctly Mary Quant hat/outfit the other day) are coming right back in.

My 5-y-o son and 3-y-o daughter are already describing things as cool, so I expect the term will become such a natural part of their vocabulary they'll have to find another one when they hit their teens.

Another Carnaby Street special is Fab. Two years ago I would have felt a complete pillock saying something was "Fab". Now it's close to my favourite expression of approval, and I haven't yet been laughed at for using it (at least not to my face ). This might just be a regional thing - I live fairly close to (liberal) Brighton right in the Saath of England, so opinions of those in the frozen North would be interesting here.

Hi Rhub and dode!

grok

From Robert A. Heinlein's classic SF novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, where the main character, Michael Valentine Smith, an alien, teaches those on Earth to grok as a way of absorbing and understanding something, or someone.

from Bartleby's and The American Heritage Dictionary:

grok

PRONUNCIATION: grk
TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: grok·ked, grok·king, groks
Slang To understand profoundly through intuition or empathy.
ETYMOLOGY: Coined by Robert A. Heinlein in his Stranger in a Strange Land.


--------

Also: uptight, stoned, bad trip, keep on truckin', bad vibes, good vibes, cool it, spaced out

burn-out (as in, he's a real burn-out): this expression is an interesting study of the social mores among the younger folks of the time...it meant someone who stayed high all the time, usually using a vast array of drugs. It's semantic value is now difficult to explain if you weren't there, because most folks partied to a degree, even if just experimenting with pot, but nobody wanted to be a burn-out except for the burn-outs. Yet, there was no derision in the term, just a mild distancing...it wasn't really cool to be a burn-out, but burn-outs maintained their own cool and mystique in a strange sort of way and intermingled and partied with everybody else. But you would hear folks say things like, "Man, I ain't no burn-out!" Or, "I ain't doing that [drug], I ain't no burn-out." Or, "What are ya, some kind of burn-out!" And these were always accompanied with a laugh and/or a smile, and a definite twinkle in the eye.
Then "burned-out" also came to mean overextending your energy somewhere in the 70's.

And, then, of course, "burned-out" or "all burned-out" [on drugs] came to take on a more ominous tone as more peoples' lives began to shipwreck on substance abuse in the 70's.

Cool idea, Whit, but I don't know if i can trust any of the posts being made.. remember, Don't trust any one over thirty!
i am going to find my white go-go boots, and mini skirt.. or maybe i should go with a maxi, or bellbottomed jeans.. and water buffalo sandles.. I still have my "Frodo Lives" button.. and even my dylan lp.... (and a turn table! so there!) or i could tune my radio to station NYC and listen to Oscar Brand play the newest folk tunes on "Woody's Children" (actually i can still that last one!)

One strong memory of the late sixties for me was the song form HAIR, where i heard word i had never heard before! (given my strict catholic upbringing it was no wonder...)

Cool idea, Whit, but I don't know if i can trust any of the posts being made.. remember, Don't trust any one over thirty!
i am going to find my white go-go boots, and mini skirt.. or maybe i should go with a maxi, or bellbottomed jeans.. and water buffalo sandles.. I still have my "Frodo Lives" button.. and even my dylan lp.... (and a turn table! so there!) or i could tune my radio to station NYC and listen to Oscar Brand play the newest folk tunes on "Woody's Children" (actually i can still that last one!)

One strong memory of the late sixties for me was the song from HAIR, where i heard word i had never heard before! (given my strict catholic upbringing it was no wonder...)

My problem is getting my bell bottom into the jeans!

grok
How could we forget, Juan?
Originally the Martian word for "drink" I believe.

And, then, of course, "burned-out" or "all burned-out" [on drugs] came to take on a more ominous tone as more peoples' lives began to shipwreck on substance abuse in the 70's.
I've heard the term "gouching" used to describe people totally blissed out and unconcerned by the world, but definitely with negative connotations. Implies a slack-jawed out-of-it state. Anyone know if that was a 60s term? I suspect it's more 70s heroin abuse territory.

"Man, I ain't no burn-out!" would have a modern equivalent (dunno if this is UK only) of "I'm not a stoner!"

My problem is getting my bell bottom into the jeans!



[snorted coffee]

Thanks, TEd!

Originally the term "beat" meant "weary", but it was later
connected to jazz music like the "hip" vocabulary and cool manners of the
Counter Culture artists´. "Beat" also appeared in Norman Mailer's essay
The White Negro (1957): 'The words are man, go, put down, make, beat,
cool, swing, with it, crazy, dig, creep, hip, square.' Several magazines
published articles on the Beats and lexicons of their jargon. Teenage
followers were called 'beatniks" -

Man, like, I can dig it, Dr. Bill!

Yeah, I guess the Beat Movement continued into the early 60's and the lingo crept into the hip jargon of the decade, co-opted by the hippies who had metamorphosed from the Beatniks. (why do we always spell hippie with a small "h" and Beatnik with a capital "B"?)

But that is cool, Auntie

Thanks, my dearest young Fishling. Better to be safe than never. Or something.

Speaking of not trusting anybody over thirty, I remember a radio program of
Allen Ginsberg meeting a notable English literary Dame, whose name I forget. Her
first words to him were: "My, you do smell."

(why do we always spell hippie with a small "h" and Beatnik with a capital "B"?)

I dunno, Juan. Maybe for the same reason 'hep' transmorgrified [sic] into 'hip'?
...whatever that is...