MetaChat - How many of these words

cool--always, but it's definitely not 80s. : >

posted by amberglow 06 October | 20:40

I use "dude" almost constantly. It's a holdover from my high school stoner days (1985-1989). "Man," and "Cool," have been around since like the 30's as signifiers.

I'm all for reviving "neato," and "too much," and "cat," (as in 'that guy is one hip cat') quite frankly.

posted by jonmc 06 October | 20:41

I use all four frequently. But then, I'm a pretty unimaginative interjector.

posted by nomis 06 October | 20:43

I'm aware that "man" and "cool" are older, but I thought they only saw widespread use in the 60's and after.

posted by agropyron 06 October | 20:43

You never see people saying "Cool, man" in the 50's movies, right?

posted by agropyron 06 October | 20:44

Read Mezz Mezzrow's Really the Blues, dude. A lot of the staple slang expressions of today were in use among street people and cognoscenti waaay back.

You never see people saying "Cool, man" in the 50's movies, right?

Watch all those JD/greaser flicks. They're manning and cooling till the cows come home.

posted by jonmc 06 October | 20:46

I use "dude", "awesome", and "cool" all the time. I was 6 in 1990. Does that make me a child of the early 90's? 'Cause I also use "sweet", and used to be a fan of "sick" (as something that's good) and "hella" as in "Hella NorCal".

posted by muddgirl 06 October | 20:49

I say them all, though "man" is rarer. I was born in 1979. Draw your own conclusions.

posted by dame 06 October | 20:51

I was 6 in 1990.

Jesus H. Christ. I'll be in the next room riffling through the yellow pages under "rest homes." There's a Billy & the Boingers t-shirt that I still wear occasionaly that's a year older than you.

posted by jonmc 06 October | 20:51

Bonus question for N Americans: Do you use "mint" in the sense of "cool"? Or is that an antipodean thing?

posted by nomis 06 October | 20:52

I started school in 1980, so I guess that makes me undisputably a child of the 80's.

posted by nomis 06 October | 20:53

Do you use "mint" in the sense of "cool"?

That's insane.

posted by nickdanger 06 October | 20:53

Not on preview: Please note, all conoisseurs of slang, that only people from NORTHERN California say "hella." When I tell you I grew up outside LA, do not ask if I say it. I say things like "grody."

Also, learn to pronounce Oregon and Nevada.

posted by dame 06 October | 20:54

I was 6 in 1990.

Thank you very much for making me feel REALLY old! I am now going to stick my head in the oven!

posted by ramix 06 October | 20:56

hella is Boston/New England too. (i think they use it on Family Guy)

posted by amberglow 06 October | 21:00

I believe the New England for "hella" is "wicked." I could be wrong.

posted by dame 06 October | 21:02

My use of those 4 words has decreased dramatically since moving from California to Texas.

I find myself missing terms like "foxy" more and more.

posted by WolfDaddy 06 October | 21:16

Awesome: rarely, and usually in an ironic sense. "The house is on fire? Awesome!"

Dude: in traffic, constantly. Otherwise, intemittently, and rarely by conscious choice. It just kinda slips out.

Cool: All the time.

Man: for emphasis - "We mean it, MAN!"

Mint: never heard that usage, but I may appropriate it. "That new Waco Brothers album is minty."

Hella: never. Not on your life. And I'm NorCal born and raised. I've never understood that one. "That's hella cool" = "that's hell of cool". Huh?

Oh, I was an adult in the 80's, thank you very much.

posted by bmarkey 06 October | 21:20

foxy
Absolutely the best word.

posted by Wolfdog 06 October | 21:34

Wow, mudgirl was born in the same year as my youngest child. But that's cool man but not so much neato. (And just so I don't come off as completely ancient my oldest child is only 1 year older. But I think I am hovering at the outer limit of the Meta age band - 45).

posted by Carbolic 06 October | 21:37

Oh yeah, I use "man" constantly both in the "hey man" (in place of someone's name) and "oh man" as an interjection. Awesome, cool, dude, neato I only use in a smart ass way.

Geek: "Dude, have you heard about the new XYZZX interface for the SFGGAFS units? It improves the gfsgaf bypass by 25 megajoules per hour."

Me: "Awesome and not only that but neato."

(Although I must admit that the regular types at work consider me to be somewhat of a geek. When I say geek I mean the computer science, hardcore engineer sort of geek.)

posted by Carbolic 06 October | 21:46

All four, although lately I've been saying excellent in place of awesome quite a bit ...which probably makes me more a child of the '80s.

Boy, boy, crazy boy,
Get cool, boy!
Got a rocket in your pocket,
Keep coolly cool, boy!
Don't get hot,
'Cause man, you got
Some high times ahead.
Take it slow and Daddy-O,
You can live it up and die in bed!

Boy, boy, crazy boy!
Stay loose, boy!
Breeze it, buzz it, easy does it.
Turn off the juice, boy!
Go man, go,
But not like a yo-yo schoolboy.
Just play it cool, boy,
Real cool!

posted by me3dia 06 October | 21:47

Yeah, I say awesome all the time. I say man for peoples names, but I don't use it in a "man, those beatles sure are cool" way. I use "cool" instead of "um" for some reason. I don't really say dude.

And this antipodean doesn't say "mint" either.

posted by gaspode 06 October | 22:12

Like, totaly dude.

posted by delmoi 06 October | 22:19

I use man/dude/cool constantly, especially dude. Man is usually as in "man, that sucks."

They are pretty much timeless. I was born in '69. I consider myself an 80's person, though I guess I am a "child of" the 70's. The coming of age thing I guess, is what I identify with, and man--did I come of age. There will probably be no other decade in my life with more orgasms.

Awesome, not so much. Hardcore, a lot.

posted by danostuporstar 06 October | 22:46

There will probably be no other decade in my life with more orgasms.

Shoot for the stars, dano.

Waitaminute. That didn't come out right at all.

posted by bmarkey 06 October | 22:50

"Awesome" and "cool" are used frequently. "Man" a little less frequently (usually "aw, man" in a whiny tone) and "dude" rarely. I am so totally a child of the '80s. Like, totally.

I vote that "nifty", "spiffy" and "neato" get used more often.

posted by deborah 06 October | 22:55

I say "cool" too much, but honest to God, my brother says "groovy" all the time.

posted by puddinghead 06 October | 22:58

i love nifty : >

fantabulous deserves a comeback too, and a word that was used during my highschool days (dunno why tho)--ginchy.

posted by amberglow 06 October | 23:00

Dude, all the time. Man often. Cool sometimes. Awesome just about never. Born in '71.

People who say "hella" deserve to die. mudgirl excepted.

posted by dreamsign 06 October | 23:02

Teenager in the '80s here. I've always said "cool" -- at times with an almost embarrassing frequency -- but only started saying "dude" and "awesome" with any regularity (and lack of irony) after moving to L.A. five years ago. "Hella," however, is anathema.

posted by scody 06 October | 23:05

I often say "motherfucker", and this isn't even my native language.

I blame rap

posted by matteo 06 October | 23:19

It's cool that I can still use these words without sounding old and stupid! In fact, it's awesome. Man.

posted by agropyron 06 October | 23:39

* Dude - a lot, mainly as a greeting - "hey, dude"
* Awesome - quite a bit
* Man (as an interjection) - a lot, mostly when whining - "oh, man, that sucks"
* Cool - a lot

Do you use "mint" in the sense of "cool"?
No, but I have been known in the past to use "apples" in a similar way, as in "she's apples, mate".

I have always considered myself a child of the '70s, perhaps because that is the decade in which I did most of my growing up.

Carbolic, you might be surprised.

posted by dg 06 October | 23:51

Dude gets regular use, but only as the one word alone using the subtle tonal variations, like an asian language. Cool has been through the irony wash enough times that it has general utility. Awesome not so much. Hella feels very affected to me. Yet...my wife and I have been known to use "that is so right on" from time to time as a general compliment, but only when in an appreciative crowd. It was said to us very sincerely in Flagstaff ten years ago, and our use of it has grown slowly, like a prion disease.

Can I whinge about people using "amazing" with flagrant disregard for any real meaning? Again? No? Alright.

posted by pliskie 06 October | 23:58

My pet peeve is "incredibly".

That was incredibly good! I'm incredibly tired! This line is incredibly long!

posted by agropyron 07 October | 01:19

"So" gets me.

posted by mudpuppie 07 October | 01:53

I frequently use them in the same sentence. :(

Oh man, that dude was awesomely cool.

posted by cali 07 October | 02:48

Jesus H. Christ. I'll be in the next room riffling through the yellow pages under "rest homes." There's a Billy & the Boingers t-shirt that I still wear occasionaly that's a year older than you.

Dude, I'm an adult, man. That doesn't make you old, that only makes me hella young :) Seriously, when I look at the people I know in RL, I feel "incredibly" old. When I look at the people I know in the Big Grey Box, I feel like an effing noob.

posted by muddgirl 07 October | 05:29

'Dude awesome man cool' is a complete sentence for me. But only if I'm pretending to be a fucking TV-baby moron, which I do a lot. So often, in fact, that I'm not sure if I'm pretending any more.

Dude.

posted by stavrosthewonderchicken 07 October | 07:24

I hella deserve to die (it's my favorite bit of west coast specific slang). I also enjoy heck of.

I say dude too much, I think I started saying it ironically and then it kicked my ass and became a totally unironic thing.

I say man all the time, especially to women and children, because of an older hippie lady I know who did it. Calling my step daughter man, as in: "You gotta finish your homework, man" is a favorite.

I say Cat and have since childhood because one of my Dads friends has always said it.

I say yo as in "the fuck are you talking about yo?"

I say bro (which is the NY outerborough dude), I also say bro-seph, bro-shot and bro-sephus, because I am an ass.

I sometimes say mango instead of man, as in my main mango.

On occasion I say "mad" because I grew up in NYC in the 80/90's and we all really talk like rappers. I try not to say it too much and if someone says "he was mad angry" I slap them.

If I am every really pissed I will call you "money", the next thing that happens will probably be a fistfight, I have no control over this, calling someone "money" is my redline indicator.

I say homeboy, homeslice,homepiece and homeskillet.

I call people amadan (irish for fool, idiot), call people gurriers (something like little weasel, hustler, guttersnipe) and lapse into Irishisms like saying good man yourself and bleedin eejit and "some stupendous gobshite just dumped a bunch of garbage on the loading dock." Because my godmother was Irisher than hell and she sorta raised me.

I say pinche quite often, also pinchissimo.

I have more.

posted by Divine_Wino 07 October | 09:38

I say dude & man a lot, started ironically, ended up being a habit. My kids have been known to call me either dude-mom or mom-dude, which sends my friends into hysterics. Sometimes I call the dogs dog-dudes. I vary the dude/man thing by saying babe sometimes, or hon - I lived in Baltimore long enough to pick up hon. I tried for a while, in the 80s when I was in college, to singlehandedly revive use of the word groovy, but I failed. I hear myself saying Sweet! and Slick! more than I would like. Cool is simply part of the generally accepted English lexicon - I've used it all my life, and I'm, like, old, dude. Awesome is approaching cool status. And occasionally I get drunk enough to say things like hoooo-eeeee, and I swan and sugah and baby-darlin'.

posted by mygothlaundry 07 October | 10:23

I say groovy all the time too.

posted by JanetLand 07 October | 11:05

agropyron, if we pooled our efforts with mudpuppie, we would be SO INCREDIBLY AMAZING!!1!1

posted by pliskie 07 October | 15:05

06 October 2005