Thursday, January 31, 2013

Two-word utterances
of my adolescence

In imaginary order of increasing frequency:

No way. Right on. Double dribble. Oooh, cutdown.

[Cutdown, noun, with the accent on the first syllable: an insult. This meaning has eluded both Merriam-Webster and the OED.]

comments: 3

Elaine said...

Dang. I never heard of 'cutdown' and I've never said any of those. Dull life, I reckon.

normann said...

When I was in grade school, the Chicagoland equivalent of "cutdown" (if I understand it correctly) was "cut low", with primary stress on "low". It was mostly the kids from a lower-middle-class subdivision that used it. The slang I retain in my non-ironic speech is either from my siblings, from my suburban Catholic high school, or from undergraduate days. I am pre-awesome, BTW, and find "awesome" off-putting if someone my age or older uses it not as a joke (people born in 1959 or later are excused). Now, "excellent", that is a word....

Michael Leddy said...

Elaine, no way. I’m sure your life is rich without these words.

Norman, I’ve never heard cut low. I wonder whether it and cutdown could be related. By the way, the only things I find awesome are mountains, tall buildings, and so on.