Changing of the Language
Last week I referenced the cartoon character Mr. Magoo, an elderly but wealthy gentleman with severe nearsightedness. This eyesight trouble gets him into some comical situations that usually works out for him in the end. Often, when I reference something that is so obvious anyone can see it, I say things like “even Mr. Magoo can see that.”
Last week I became aware of the fact that no one on the TDP staff knew who Mr. Magoo was except for me and one other person who is of my generation. This revelation got me to thinking about the language of slang, and how it has changed over the years.
Being a journalist, language is interesting to me. Each generation seems to have their own language, and for some reason it changes through the years. This past week my daughter asked me if I wanted some tea. I told her no thanks, I wasn’t thirsty. Then I learned that for today’s generation, tea was gossip. To me it is something the British drink hot and southern Americans drink cold.
When I was growing up my father was a department manager for a large grocery store. He made a good salary for the time, and our family was lucky enough to always have good dinners, especially steaks, which we had at least a couple of times a week. In high school I had a friend whose family wasn’t as well off as mine. They invited me to stay for dinner once; they were having steak. The friend’s dad said he hoped I liked steak and asked what my favorite was, and I said T-bone and sirloin. He said they were having tube steak. I had never heard of that one before. Then I found out tube steak was hot dogs.
Last year I had the chance to go speak to a group of OU Band students. They asked what it was like to be at OU and in the band in the 80s. I told them it was, like, totally RAD, totally tubular. We discussed the changes in the Texas game rituals, and I mentioned that it was always such a fun weekend, except for having to look at all that puke orange around the stadium – then I said “like, gag me with a spoon—totally.” They looked a little confused.
The language topic also reminded me of my ninth-grade algebra teacher. He was always talking about how us students could stay caught up on our math if we wouldn’t waste so much time watching the boob tube. That one we understood. I did pretty good in that class overall, unlike others who couldn’t hack it. Plus, I usually got everything done in class, which gave me a chance to watch the boob tube when I got home. That was the idea, catch my drift? I could do that or listen to the newest KISS album. I thought that they had really far out outfits, especially their clod hoppers. When I finally got to high school, my friends and I started getting cars, so we no longer had to hoof it everywhere, and we got to go to drive in movies, which I totally digged.
All in all, growing up in the 70s and 80s was really groovy. You had funky music a person could really boogie to and awesome shows, even though some of the famous actresses were totally plastic. It was real radical, and a time a kid could really rock on. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that out because even Larry Holmes could. Seriously, even Mr. Magoo can see that.
Randy Gibson is the CEO of RDG Communications Group, LLC.
