Groovy
In its heyday, “groovy” was the word. If it was cool, it was groovy. If it was fun, it was groovy. If it was excellent, it was groovy. Its popularity soared during the 1960s, only to lose its groove by the 1980s. Merriam-Webster’s dates it back to the 1930s. Supposedly, it came out of the Jazz culture where the word was used to describe the groove of the music.
Cheesy
Yes, the base of the word itself is derived from everyone’s favorite dairy product (sans you lactose-intolerant kids), but it refers to something that’s trite, cliché, or of poor quality. Example: “That romantic comedy was so cheesy; I saw the ending coming a mile away.” Its etymology stems from the Urdu word chiz, meaning “a thing.” By 1818, the British in India picked it up and used it in the sense of “a big thing,” according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. By 1858, cheesy had evolved a slang meaning of “showy,” which led to the modern, ironic sense.
Schlock
It’s not just the hip-hop culture we tend to borrow from when it comes to our slang. There are lots of slang words that are little more than twists on Yiddish terms, and that includes schlock. Spelled “shlak” (meaning evil or nuisance) in American Yiddish, we have come to know it as meaning “of low quality.” Merriam-Webster dates it to 1916, but you’ll likely hear it these days when someone is referencing a B-movie or the latest by Quentin Tarantino, who actually strives to put schlock into his work for that cult classic effect.
Cracking into the cultural zeitgeist with the right slang word isn’t always easy, but when it hits, it can explode, as evidenced above. And if and when the sun finally sets on a favorite phrase, you can be sure there’s bound to be another “dawg” or “jiggy” right around the corner.
Related Links:
- The Quirky Origins of Common Phrases
- Old Wives’ Tales: Fact or Folklore?
- Five Myths about America’s Origins
- Chime in to win
