'Groovy as a Cucumber'

An Associated Press story reports:

"Cool" remains the gold standard of slang in the 21st century, surviving like few expressions ever could in our constantly evolving language. It has kept its cool through the centuries -- even as its meaning changed drastically.

"Cool is certainly a charter member for the slang hall of fame," says Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of popular culture. " 'Cool' just sits back and keeps getting used generation after generation and lets the whole history of the language roll off its back." ...

It is the all-purpose word for OK, good, great, terrific and every gradation in between, now often pronounced as "kewl."

The term, beyond its original use of describing the opposite of warm, has certainly proved durable.

But I have to say, I take some exception to the inclusion of some terms in a sidebar accompanying the article claims have gone the way of the dinosaur. It's true that heavy, outta sight, far out, phat, gag me with a spoon, and the fuzz have all gone the way of the proverbial and oft-cited do-do.

But I used the term right on just this week. And everybody knows that I'm a hip...er, groovy guy. I mean, I'm au courant, right?

And what about off the hook? Just this past December after worship, a ninety year old woman visiting her family and our congregation used the term to describe one of the worship celebrations at her church. That's cool.

Copasetic, nifty, the cat's pajamas, and da bomb are terms whose currency has admittedly ended, but which I occasionally use just for fun. (Along with swell and the bee's knees.)

Of special interest on the sidebar's listing of passe slang though, is groovy. Nobody uses it today, of course, and I knew that its continued use in the 60s was probably fleeting when Doris Day used it on her CBS sitcom back in about 1969. Nothing could be considered hip...I mean, cool, if Doris Day said it. (Johnny Carson probably similarly killed Nehru jackets and love beads when he wore them on The Tonight Show in the same timeframe.)

But groovy has an interesting life. When the SoCal trendsetters and New Yawkers like Simon and Garfunkel ("Feelin' groovy...") used the term, I thought that it was a product of my generation. But that was just another example of Baby Boomer hubris. In the early 1970s, my grandparents gave my families copies of two complete editions of Columbus newspapers from 1945: one headlining the end World War Two in Europe and the other the end of the conflict in Japan. It was fun looking at the entire papers, seeing what made news and how much things cost. I even enjoyed reading the comic strips, something I never do today. One strip especially caught my eye. It showed two teenage girls talking. As I remember, one asked the other if she'd like to go to a party where a boy they especially liked would be. "That'd be groovy," said the other.

I was blown away....rendered incredulous. It's only one of many examples of how, through the years, I've had my generational conscension punctured. We're not so unique, after all, I learned.
Don't be too dismissive of old turns of phrase. Next week, they may come back and you, in an effort to stay relevant, will be using them yourself.