Prohibition be damned, words were just better in the 1920s. There's a fascinating piece today in the New York Times fromEdward Rothstein about the new prohibition exhibition at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center that's well worth a read if you're interested in things booze and 1920s, and of course about that truly weird little legal time in our country's history. But of extra-special interest to me in this article was the following note about the exhibit:
On small tables like those at which “zozzled” (drunk) flappers and “jelly beans” (their boyfriends) once illegally imbibed “foot juice” (cheap wine) or “jag juice” (hard liquor), you can read explanations of speakeasy slang.
Speakeasy slang! Language was truly so much more evocative then, wasn't it? If you don't request extra foot juice tonight at that dive bar where you order the subpar pinot grigio, you are doing something wrong. In honor of this exhibit, I've scoured the Internet for a list of twenties-era wordsand phrases that we need to add to our contemporary conversations. (Did you know that in the 20s,bimbo was used to mean "a tough guy"; butt me was "to take a cigarette"; and handcuff and manaclemeant engagement and wedding ring? A person who was divorced was out on parole, a gimlet was "a chronic bore," and the exclamation "Nerts!" meant "I am amazed." Herewith, a dictionary of awesome twenties slang.
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