6 Slang Terms With Surprisingly Badass Origins
Let's face it, words can be pretty boring. They don't talk, you can't eat them, they're not boobs. It's like, why even have them anymore?
However, just like superheroes, words have origin stories, and we guarantee that these six are about a thousand times less shitty than Wolverine.
#6.
Kibosh
Meaning:
Put an end to something.
Used Today:
"I'm putting the kibosh on this right now. You are NOT boning my sister."
Used Originally:
"I'm literally putting a kibosh on my head right now, because I am about to murder you."
"Kibosh" sounds like one of those amusing bits of gibberish that people make up out of nowhere, but that's not the case. In fact, some experts believe that "kibosh" comes from the Gaelic phrase "cie bais," pronounced "ky-bosh," which translates to cap of death, the black skullcap that would be donned by a judge as he prepared to sentence someone to execution, and it's apparently still used as a metaphor in Ireland today. Like the oranges in The Godfather, seeing a cie bais meant one thing: Someone was going to die.
With a name like "cap of death," we sort of would have preferred if it was a hat that shot lasers, but it's still a fairly badass origin story.
#5.
Push the Envelope
Meaning:
To take a dangerous risk, especially in conversation.
Used Today:
"You are REALLY pushing the envelope, trying to bone my sister!"
Used Originally:
"You are REALLY pushing the envelope, and as a result, a plane is going to explode."
You'd be forgiven for thinking that the "envelope" in question is a paper one, but you'd be wrong. It's mathematical.
Now, you may think that by adding math to an article that's already about words and history that we've officially thrown ourselves into a perfect storm of perpetual nerd virginity, but first hear us out. Mathematics is used to calculate a plane's limits in a construct called its "flight envelope." That is, the particular combination of speed, height, stress and other aeronautical factors that form the bounds of safe operation. Go beyond these limits, or "push" the "envelope," and you'll be dancing into the danger zone where the dancer becomes the dance, and the plane becomes a giant fireball.
Test pilots, of course, have to push the flight envelope all the time. By flying a plane beyond its mathematical limits, they can check that it'll be safe when flown within its limits and find out what parts might fail if the limits are pushed, all while running the risk of having the plane burst into flames. There's also the rarely spoken about unofficial risk of having the moon collide with the plane as a result of the strong, gravitational pull brought on by the pilot's massive, massive balls.
#4.
Smart Alec
Meaning:
A wise guy, a know-it-all.
Used Today:
"Don't be a smart alec, I'm not letting you bone my sister no matter how funny you are. "
Used Originally:
"Don't be a smart alec; tell your whore wife to stop robbing me."
The most likely source of the term "smart alec," according to Professor Gerald Cohen, is an incredibly ballsy con artist called Alexander ("Alec") Hoag, who along with his hooker wife (man, his nickname is so much better than hers), swindled a string of horny men in New York in the 1840s.
It worked like this: When said hooker wife, Melinda, was "engaged" with a "client," Alec would "sneak" through a "secret panel in the wall" and "make off" with the guy's "stuff." When the client was finished, he would find to his horror that his wallet, pocketbook and/or watch had mysteriously vanished and, what's more, the police didn't want to help. Why? Because Alec, that devilish rogue, had paid off the cops, of course!
"Wow, they should call you generous alec!"
Unfortunately for our original smart Alec, he got a bit too clever. Instead of paying the crooked cops like a good honest man, he started to hide his plunder. Eventually, Hoag was busted and sent to jail where he met a wrongfully imprisoned newspaper editor named George Wilkes, who wrote his story down. The theory goes that either Wilkes or the police gave Hoag the nickname of "smart Alec" for being a clever thief who got too clever for his own good.
I never even knew the "riding on a rail" one could be used figuratively. Makes me wonder if in fifty years they'll be saying "Sleep with my sister and you'll get the chair" figuratively, or "Sleep with my sister and I'll throw you under a bus", and not have the slightest idea where these phrases come from until Cracked 2.0 comes in.
ReplyI think it is safe to say to stay the f**k away from Mike's sister ಠ_ಠ
Replyi guessed the block buster one
ReplyIsn't 'alec' a Russian slang word for prick? I thought Russian Jewish immigrants introduced the word to the English language in the late 19th century.
ReplyAlec Baldwin is living proof of this origin.
So... how old is Mike's sister?
ReplyTwelve.
...How are these surprising? Most of these origins are fairly common knowledge...
ReplyThe comments on this page are completely bats**t, BTW.
ReplyI'm pretty sure "Blockbusting" is a term that has nothing to do with bombs and everything to do with a racist real-estate scam that kicked off the white flight of the American middle-class into the suburbs.
ReplySources?
How about yours?
That f**king war criminal drunk British c**ksucker Churchill used blockbusters to blow down German houses so they would burn easier when the bombs were followed with incendiaries. This created firestorms that killed hundreds of thousands of civilian women and children.
Reply Hide All See All 7 RepliesJust like the Holocaust!
So you'd prefer it if you were under German rule, then?
Unlike the German bombs dropped on London, which spread flowers? War is not pretty, and no one is really a very "good" guy during it. We still haven't managed to invent a bomb that doesn't kill civilians.
A great deal of the incendiaries were dropped by the U.S. too. And a V1 or a V2 crashing into your house is no picnic either.
Let's just agree that all in all, leaders in WWII weren't as nice as they could have been.
You mad bro?
sorry Kairos, didn't mean to thumbs down your comment
The movies are worse, causing pain and misery to MILLIONS at a time, plus, at least the bombs had the "wow, we are going to be killed by something truly bad-ass" factor.
ReplyPlus it's over sooner
"So the term now used to describe the Twilight movies used to once refer to a device that caused pain and misery to thousands of innocent civilians." - Well, at least huge-ass bombs did some good to the world. At least they were cool.
ReplyI already knew the origin of "push the envelope". During flight training, the instructors simply can't stress enough how critical it is to "fly within the envelope". What happens if you don't? Their answer is always simple: you're dead. Really, you don't play with an aircraft's limitations.
I really enjoyed this article, very well-written.
badass indeed.
ReplyI`ll let the Twilight insult pass because it does have a s**tty storyline, even I can admit that. Britain is more badass than you think
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesYou've the SAS and your women have the biggest average bust in Europe, but beyond that...? You're a country of maids.
@seanDimitri:
'Country of maids'? Maybe you should look up who declared war on whom in WWII. Oh, and thanks for the help guys- although it could have arrived a little sooner. Two and quarter years is a long time to fight a war on your own...
If it wasn't for j*pan, it probably would have been longer due to isolationist tendencies.
oh wonkypops, maybe that's why you were going to lose, until the USA and the USSR decided to fight the Germans!
USSR didnt exactly choose to fight them and the USA was late for the second time running while Britain had managed hold on that long in Europe under heavy bombing. Compared to the US which panicked when a Japanese balloon bomb killed 6 people thats pretty tough.
Also we get great boobs and the toughest soldiers going what else do we need?
Gary R. Voth: Conveniently standing around crashing airplanes since 1958.
ReplySpammers GTFO
ReplyIs nothing safe from a Twilight reference?!
ReplyNope, we're doomed to deal with random Twilight references from here on out. If they decide to rewrite the Bible...we're screwed.
That Twilight joke just made my morning.
ReplyI am pleased a Twilight insult was thrown in here. : D
ReplyI love how they manage to slide a Twilight crack into everything.
ReplyYou got the origins of "kibosh" wrong.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesWhen the English were over and brutalising the place, one of the tortures they used (when someone didn't pay their rent on time or something. to make a show of them).
It involved putting a cap of pitch on the persons head (which is crazy flammable. It burns for ages too) and setting it alight. It caused their brain to boil and they would eventually die in extreme pain.
Kind of really makes you hate the English (from back in the day, anyway) :)
In Ireland I mean, they did it to the Irish.
Holy s**t, that's horrible, though interesting. No one quipped "hot-headed" (I know, I know...)?
How, exactly, do you know that a "cap of death" might not have first been a judge's cap, and only later used as a term for the torture in question? Did the Irish not have caps before the 17th century?
According to Michael Quinion, a well-respected etymologist, there isn't as yet a well-documented origin for the word. All that's really known is it shows up in London in the 1830s, and has meant many different things since. There are possible origin words in French, Turkish, Arabic, and Gaelic, with meanings from "cap of death" to "whip" to heraldic jargon.
It's a bad idea to spread around "facts" that you really have no evidence for. Please don't do it again.