Do you speak 40’s?

INSTRUCTIONS What follows is a list of popular 1940’s slang terms. See if your folks can explain the slang term. Some of these terms are obsolete, some are still in everyday usage. Some are a bit provocative -- remember it was a different era! Get your folks to reminiscing about how they may have used these terms when they were young: “Did you ever go to a speakeasy?”

Sing like a bird

Tattle, snitch.

A broken record

Repeat endlessly

Spiffy

Sharp, fashionable

Whistling Dixie

Wasting time

Circle the drain

Dying

“Hey sugar, are you rationed?” Going steady?

“Are you single?”

Two cents’ worth

An opinion

Make a Pass

Ask for sex

BOONDOCKS

In the middle of nowhere

Carry a torch

Have a crush on someone

Cat’s Meow

The best

snood

Woman’s hair net

Reefer

Marijuana cigarette

“Quit your belly-achin’”

“Stop complaining”

Cooking with gas

Making rapid progress

Stacked

A buxom woman

Buy the farm

die

Fast

A woman of easy virtue

Ducky Shincracker Good dancer

Good dancer

Fat head

stupid

Hung

Well endowed man

Eager beaver

Overly ambitious

In cahoots

Plotting

Hooch

Moonshine

Unmentionables

Woman’s underwear

Knuckle sandwich

Punch in the face

Aces

The best

“In like flynn”

No resistance

Kibosh

Stop

No dice

No way

Peepers

eyes

Make Whoopee

Have recreational sex

The big house

jail

Gams

A woman’s legs

Rhubarb

decoy

Spill your guts

confess

Smooch

kiss

Take a powder

leave

Rub out

kill

Patsy

Fool, dupe

Gobbledygook

nonsense

Dame

woman

Cold fish

Unemotional

Cheesy

Tacky, cheap

Be bop

Jazzy music/dance

“I have a bone to pick with you.”

“We have to talk.”

Dreamboat

Handsome young man

Fast woman

Woman who sleeps around

Hard boiled

unemotional

Get hitched

Get married

Get the dope

Share information

Go belly up

die

Speakeasy

Illegal bar/nightclub

The End