What words meant "mega-cool!" in your childhood days?
By The Horse
@TheHorse (238349)
Walnut Creek, California
June 23, 2016 10:12am CST
When I was playing hot wheels with my neighbor kid friend the other evening, something exciting happened (I think he had two Mustangs with exactly the same lines but in different colors). "Epic!" he exclaimed.
That got me to thinking about how each generation of kids has their own word for "cool" and "beyond cool." When I was six or seven, something that was really cool was "boss!" But something even cooler than that (like a good episode of "Lost in Space") was "doom!" When I was in early high school, "rad" meant really cool, and "cope" (short for copacetic) meant "it's all good."
When I worked with Jr. High kids in the '90s, beta-testing a "Women in Science" product, "fresh!" was the term de jour for cool. More recently, a 13-year-old kid client told me that "wet!" meant very cool. But a year ago, an 11-year-old kid client got in trouble for using "dope!" to mean really cool. I thought the teacher took things way too seriously. Every 10- to 13-year-old used "dope" to mean really cool a year or so ago. I told my kid, "I guess there are certain terms you only use around your friends."
In any case, what words meant "cool" or even "beyond cool" in your early days?
15 people like this
17 responses
@TheHorse (238349)
• Walnut Creek, California
23 Jun 16
@Asylum I notice it because I work with kids. When a new term emerges for "cool," I ask about it. We might have a conversation similar to the one I've tried to start here. It's fun playing "dinosaur" sometimes. Fun, but not quite "boss" or "doom."
3 people like this
@TheHorse (238349)
• Walnut Creek, California
24 Jun 16
@jaboUK My kid friend is here right now and told me that the "epic" thing was when we made his glow-in-the-dark wheels really bright with the kitchen light. He remembered that my kid word for really cool began with "d." I remembered then that I'd told him about "doom." He just asked me to remind you about "boss" too.
3 people like this
@toniganzon (77261)
• Philippines
23 Jun 16
In my days, it was the game n watch by nintendo.
1 person likes this
@louievill (28846)
• Philippines
23 Jun 16
I heard the hippies of the flower power generation, a little bit older than mine say "groovy" lol!, there are a lot here but mostly in our language, but it's practiced very much like what Americans do and some are even adaptations or copies, you are right, every generation has one or several
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@louievill (28846)
• Philippines
23 Jun 16
@TheHorse there are a lot of " Americanism" here, remember we were a colony, educated upper middle to upper class speak mostly English in formal occasions and speak a sort of hybrid "taglish" informally. Spanish is from an older generstion.
Another way a generation said cool was " wow heavy" and it becomes Filipinized to " wow heavigat" because bigat is heavy in Pilipino, so words get combined
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@TheHorse (238349)
• Walnut Creek, California
23 Jun 16
@louievill I'll try "heavigat" on my Filipino friend who is 71 and got his Masters here in the US. I hear him speaking Taglish on his cell phone all the time.
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@rebelann (117267)
• El Paso, Texas
24 Jun 16
How funny @TheHorse tattoos have been around for thousands of years in one form or another .... not that I'm interested in getting one but it doesn't bother me if other people find they need to.
Personally, I don't get why they do piercings, much of it is purely dumb.
@TheHorse (238349)
• Walnut Creek, California
24 Jun 16
That's true in many ways. With music, rock was musically simpler and louder than the Louis and Ella of my parents' generation. Today's rap is pure garbage. How will the children of today's children sink lower that that? We had longish hair in my early teen years. Then there was Dallas/Dynasy hair and wanton materialism as rebellion against the hippy/save the world/peace love dove generation. The young people thing that bothers me the most right now (other than rap, which is mostly limited to a certain social class) is tattoos.
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@Jessicalynnt (50523)
• Centralia, Missouri
23 Jun 16
wasnt gnarly around in there somewhere too? lol
2 people like this
@Jessicalynnt (50523)
• Centralia, Missouri
24 Jun 16
@TheHorse prob had something to do with the teenaged mutant ninja turtles lol
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@JamesHxstatic (29410)
• Eugene, Oregon
23 Jun 16
I recall that in my southern California high school, really cool things were a word that starts with "b" and ends with "in" was used incessantly. I can't use the word here though since it has other meanings. I also recall that "bad" was good.
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@Jeanniemaries (8237)
• United States
24 Jun 16
I'm not sure...I think we just said cool.
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@teamfreak16 (43655)
• Denver, Colorado
23 Jun 16
I used "rad" a lot when I was a skateboarder.
1 person likes this
