- Do you like to use 50s slang?
This 50s slang will have you saying “pad” and “dreamboat” again. Do you use any 50s slang regularly?
Off the Cob
Off the cob was first meant to show something as overly hokey and sentimental from the 1930s.
Get Pinned
You may see this if you watch “older” movies as getting pinned is the same as going steady, from back in the day. This was literal as well as figurative, with males offering an actual pin to their girl as a sign of their commitment. Do you remember this 50s slang?
Backseat Bingo
When American car culture exploded in the 1950s, so did the car-referencing slang. Backseat bingo referring to the hanky panky or doing the dirty in the backseat.
Ginchy
Being called “the ginchiest” is sincere flattery or it was back in the day. Other words won out though and most people just say cool these days to talk about someone who is ginchy.
Dreamboat
Dreamboat has been around since the 1940s but became much more popular in the 50s. The word was usually used to talk about a man that was extremely good looking. Think men like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Elvis Presley. This is 50s slang you still hear today.
Endsville
Endsville though, is the best of the best for slang. The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as a fictional place full of all the good people and things of the world, like a place where your favorite local cuisine is and maybe even your favorite music group.
Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’
In the 1950s, to say “cruisin’ for a bruisin’” meant they were looking to pick a fight. Later in the 1970s, it went from cruisin’ to give a bruisin’ to cruisin’ to get a bruisin’ If you make fun of your friend and have a short temper, you’d be cruisin’ to get a bruisin’.
Antsville
From planes to trains and even a big supermarket, anywhere someone felt packed in like a sardine, or ant farm, as it were, is a place you can call Antsville.
Atomized, Bagged, Incognitoed, and Skunky
All meaning the same thing, drunk. To make it 1950s drunk, use these words, atomized, bagged, incognitoed or skunky. Did you ever use this 50s slang?
Beatnik
Beatnik wasn’t actually coined until 1958. This is the year that Herb Caen added the -nik (as in the satellite Sputnik that launched in 1957) to the end, creating beatnik and describing members of the Beat generation. Someone free-spirited and artistic, rejecting social conventions is a beatnik, like the American novelist Jack Kerouac.
Burn Rubber
Burn rubber first came out in the early history of the automobile. Sunset magazine circa 1921 describer a motorist going so fast that he “may burn rubber for ten yards.” Originating in the 1920s, it became the most used slang for gaining speed behind the wheel and in the street racing of the 1950s. Tires and smoke on the street made the phrase literal and this 50s slang term is still used today.
Pad
We still use this wording today when talking about our place or our spot, calling it our pad. But back in the 1950s, it didn’t have a good connotation. The 1950s beatnik would have used this to refer to a place to crash or a room to use, after going on a drug type bender.
Squaresville and Cubesville
For 1950s slang, you could really add “ville” to almost anything and make it a new word. Take for example square and cube, both meaning a boring person and use it to describe an entire town of dull people. Saying things like “he’s from squaresville” or “way to be the mayor of cubesville” will get the point across that the person is boring, boring, boring.
What do you think of this 50s slang? Let me know in the comments!