Well cut off my legs and call me shorty! That particular bit of slang came from the 1940s. Can you guess what decades the rest of these came from?
- Heave, meaning to vomit
- Bitch, meaning to gripe
- Having the hots for someone
- To finger someone
- To come clean
- Groovy
- Sore, meaning angry
- Babe, meaning an attractive female
- Broad, meaning a woman
- A scream, meaning something hilarious
- Teenager
- Dough, meaning money
- Beef, meaning complaint
- Baby, meaning one’s sweetheart
- Bull, meaning bull crap
- Joe, meaning coffee
- John, meaning bathroom
- Hip, meaning cool
- Double-cross
- Dick, meaning private detective
- “What’s eating you?”
Okey-doke. Don’t get in a lather. I’m a hep-cat and won’t take a powder before I give you the poop. 1-3 are from the 1940s. 4-11 all date back to the 1930s. 12-17 are from the 1920s. 18 dates back to 1915. and 19-21 were used as early as 1900.
Now I have to go see a man about a dog.









October 20, 2007 at 12:16 pm
What a kick! What a hoot!! I’m blown away that some of those expressions are 100+ years old?!
October 20, 2007 at 7:13 pm
I was blown away too, that’s why I made up the game. Amazing how unhip so many of our hip slang words really are!