They Say Em' From the Golden Era - Slang & Memorable Phrases

[Amy Jeanne]

I heard Benny Goodman announce a song saying "this one rocks!" on a 1938 radio broadcast.

 

[Mario]

I don't know if this has been posted before. Just stumble across this website with slang terms from the 1920's.

 

[Miss sofia]

My grandad was brought up in the east end of london, so there was alot of cockney rhyming slang, another thread in itself, but words/sayings that have stuck in my mind are, "He deserves payin'" or "I'll pay you", meaning i'll give you a slap, "bonce" meaning "head", "time for an oily" (oily rag - fag). Men with no backbone were 'biscuit eaters". My favourite from Nana at bedtime was always "up the stairs to Bedfordshire"!

 

[Mr Vim]

I heard Benny Goodman announce a song saying "this one rocks!" on a 1938 radio broadcast.

I like the NBC broadcasts of Benny Goodman at the Cafe Rouge in the Hotel Pennsylvania. The Announcer's voice is fantastic and I love his sayings after Benny would finish a song.

"Well where I come from..."
then either
"we call that pretty much the tops."
or
"we call that a little bit of all right."

I've started using both around and about... people dig it.

 

[Blackjack]

I SHOT HIM LIGHTLY AND HE DIED POLITELY...to be used when you just out did someone. I love it!!!!

 

[Mickey Caesar]

1920's to 30's Slang Glossary

All in: Physically exhausted

All wet: Foolish or gravely mistaken

Alley apple: Half a paving brick. Carried in the coat pocket as a weapon. Came into use during the big union strikes during the 30's.

Altar: Toilet, toilet bowl

Artist: A skilled criminal

Baby/Baby Vamp: A popular and/or attractive girl

Baked Wind: Idle talk

Balloon: bedding, especially if carried in a roll; applied to transients

Ballon Juice: Idle or exaggerated talk

Bat: Prostitute

Bell Polisher: A boy who lingers in the lobby after dropping off a date

Bent: Criminal

Berries: Anything very good

Big Guy: God or an important official or criminal

Big Man: The Pinkerton Detective Agency or one of its men

Bird: An aviator or a popular girl

Biscuit: A flapper willing to engage in "petting"

Black Bottle: Poison

Blow Out: A big meal

Blurb: The advertising matter on a book jacket

Board Stiff: A sandwich board man

Bonehead: A fool

Boob: An Idiot

Brace (as in to brace): Ask someone for money

Break one's guts: Breaking the spirit of a prisoner by flogging

Breeze: Trivial or useless talk or information

Breezer: A convertible automobile

Broker: A drug dealer

Brush Ape: A country youth

Buck: A Catholic priest

Bull: A policeman, a cop

Bull (as in to bull): Lie or talk big

Bull Buster: One who assaults a cop

Bull Simple: Fearful of cops

Bull Wool: Cheap

Bundle (as in to Bundle): To steal

Bunk: Synthetic liquor or false goods

Bunk (as in to bunk): To conceal or fool

Burn up (as in to burn up): To defraud

Buzzer: A policeman's badge

Cackler: Perjorative name for a clerk

Cake Eater: A ladies' man

Candy Leg: A rich and popular young man

Cannon: A gun



More to come ...

This list will come in handy. Im reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler and there were a couple terms I havnt been able to figure out.

 

[Mickey Caesar]

1920's to 30's Slang Glossary

All in: Physically exhausted

All wet: Foolish or gravely mistaken

Alley apple: Half a paving brick. Carried in the coat pocket as a weapon. Came into use during the big union strikes during the 30's.

Altar: Toilet, toilet bowl

Artist: A skilled criminal

Baby/Baby Vamp: A popular and/or attractive girl

Baked Wind: Idle talk

Balloon: bedding, especially if carried in a roll; applied to transients

Ballon Juice: Idle or exaggerated talk

Bat: Prostitute

Bell Polisher: A boy who lingers in the lobby after dropping off a date

Bent: Criminal

Berries: Anything very good

Big Guy: God or an important official or criminal

Big Man: The Pinkerton Detective Agency or one of its men

Bird: An aviator or a popular girl

Biscuit: A flapper willing to engage in "petting"

Black Bottle: Poison

Blow Out: A big meal

Blurb: The advertising matter on a book jacket

Board Stiff: A sandwich board man

Bonehead: A fool

Boob: An Idiot

Brace (as in to brace): Ask someone for money

Break one's guts: Breaking the spirit of a prisoner by flogging

Breeze: Trivial or useless talk or information

Breezer: A convertible automobile

Broker: A drug dealer

Brush Ape: A country youth

Buck: A Catholic priest

Bull: A policeman, a cop

Bull (as in to bull): Lie or talk big

Bull Buster: One who assaults a cop

Bull Simple: Fearful of cops

Bull Wool: Cheap

Bundle (as in to Bundle): To steal

Bunk: Synthetic liquor or false goods

Bunk (as in to bunk): To conceal or fool

Burn up (as in to burn up): To defraud

Buzzer: A policeman's badge

Cackler: Perjorative name for a clerk

Cake Eater: A ladies' man

Candy Leg: A rich and popular young man

Cannon: A gun



More to come ...

This list will come in handy. Im reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler and there were a couple terms I havnt been able to figure out.

 

[C-dot]

I love this site for Golden Era Slang (and not just American like it's title suggests): The Historical Dictionary of American Slang.

One of my favourites is "cast an eyeball" for "look around" lol

 

[Gene]

I'm trying to incorporate "dynamite" into my everyday phrasing.

And no not "dy-no-mite!" like JJ.

 

[Two Types]

My favourite from Nana at bedtime was always "up the stairs to Bedfordshire"!

The original saying was "Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire". Ironically, being Bedfordshire born-and-bred (as were my parents and grandparents), I never once heard this phrase used. I only ever heard it once I had moved to London.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

My grandmother would frequently classify something she didn't like as "for the birds." Usually punctuated with an eye-roll for good measure.

"This rain is for the birds."

Overpriced stores, waiting in line, poorly written crochet patterns, lousy hands at cards...all for the birds.

"For the birds" was one of my mom's oft-used expressions which sometimes used to drive me round the bend. She was born in 1929.

 

[Mario]

In The Big Sleep Bogart says to Dorothy Malone "I'm a private dick on a case". I love that line, even though - or maybe even because - it sounds a bit cheesy (if not naughty), at least to modern ears...

BTW: When Dorothy takes off her glasses and lets down her hair it's the most baffling transformation. Every time I watch this scene I fall in love with her all over again. "Hello!"

[video=youtube;Sqoxk3SrZRw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqoxk3SrZRw&feature=player_embedded[/video]
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[Story]

Seems like a good thread for this -

 

[Espee]

I've just discovered this thread, so it'll take me a while to work my way through it... I may write something that I'll eventually find out has already been addressed.
"BIRD" according to the thread-starting glossary is "an aviator or a popular girl." Plenty of movies (Laurel & Hardy for a quick example) have a cop, or a shopowner, or a bouncer using it as a perjorative for men. "I thought I told you birds to clear outta here!"

 

[Espee]

Here are some interesting sayings from the golden era:

"Beefburger - another name for hamburger, which was considered misleading"
Amtrak trains used this term on the menu in the 1980s, maybe they still do.

"Sweater girl - a movie starlet who wears tight sweaters to call attention to her bust"
Marilyn Monroe said "Take away their sweaters... and what have you got?"
and before that, Bob Hope said he had done a show for troops training in Colorado-- "It was so cold, Will Hays was wearing Lana Turner's sweater."
(Will Hays being the motion picture censor... one interpretation of the joke would be that he would no longer care if an actress was short of clothing, if he wanted to stay warm himself.) Hope followed it with, "I'm still trying to figure that one out."

 

[Espee]

When something is too easy, "that's as easy as sliding off a greasy log backward"
================================================
I've heard many people say "as easy as falling off a log."
I understand the Yiddish expression for the easiest things translates to "like drawing a hair from milk" while the most difficult things are "like pulling a thorn through wool."

 

[Espee]

There's a Jack Benny radio show where Dennis Day is supposed to be a tough guy-- I believe in company with Richard Widmark or some other film heavy. At the point where it's fairly obvious Dennis should say, "... or it'll be curtains, see?"
He says,
"... or it'll be curtains, look?"

 

[Espee]

My mother (b.1925) describes a circuitous or meandering trip to a place as "going all around Robin Hood's barn."

 

[Espee]

I remember when I was very young, teenagers were saying "Hubba-Hubba" (I may have the spelling wrong). I don't know what it meant exactly, but got the idea that you said it was something was really neat or beautiful, i.e., a gorgeous new car.

Does anyone know about this saying? Time-line would have been mid or late 40's.
=====================================
As was already supplied, it was usually a comment about a very pretty woman. But the first place I heard it, was when a neighbor family played baseball in their front yard. The dad, who would have been, oh, maybe 40 in 1969, would call out, "Okay, look alive, hubba-hubba..."
Later I was exposed to old movies and radio shows, where one guy would say "Would ya LOOK at HER?" And another guy would say, "Oh, hubba HUBBA!"
So for awhile I was confused...

 

[Espee]

In case no one's mentioned it, there the Loesser/McHugh song about slang, "Murder He Says"--

http://www.cduniverse.com/roy-eldridge-/-gene-krupa-/-anita-o'day-murder-he-says-lyrics-15170214.htm