THERE’S GOOD LINGUISTIC FUN to be had with vintage international slang, in this case a 1971 Japanese underground dictionary. We continue here in Part 2, beginning below Fourteenth Street.
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going below Fourteenth Street フェラチオ. Prudence prevents full English equivalents. Hint: The Japanese is pronounced “ferachio.”
goody-goody two-shoes 良い子. A person who does everything properly and according to the rules (to an obnoxious extent).
high camp ハイキャンプ. Sophisticated use of something artistically banal or mediocre.
hip 気づいている. Aware, knowledgable, wise.
“Hep” is listed as well, with essentially the same definition.
matchbox マッチ箱. An amount of drugs [麻薬] equivalent to half a Prince Albert tobacco can.
I wonder if Japanese kids had the joke of calling tobacconists and asking whether they had Prince Albert in a can?
maxibopper マキシボッパー. An old woman who wears miniskirts.
Mazola party マゾラパーティー. Two or more people who get together to engage in sexual play and intercourse with their bodies covered in vegetable oil.
out of body 体外離脱 [麻薬]. Having a feeling outside of oneself while under LSD.
out of sight すばらい. Wonderful.
Might these three be combined?
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pig on a hog バイク警官. A policeman on a motorcycle.
Don’t use this one at home, kids. We’re linguistic professionals, sorta.
plastic hippy プラスチックヒッピー. One who seeks hippy-like situations without in reality having any commitment to the hippy way of life.
Sorta like me in high school, only back then one was termed a would-be beatnik. (Japanese: ビートニク.)
smilie スマイリー. A button or mark depicting a smilie face.
On a not unrelated note, Wikipedia cites, “Originally meaning pictograph, the word emoji comes from Japanese e (絵, ‘picture’) + moji (文字, ‘character’); the resemblance to the English words emotion and emoticon is purely coincidental. The first emoji sets were created by Japanese portable electronic device companies in the late 1980s and the 1990s.”
watermelon head スイカの頭. A person from the country and not sophisticated in city ways.
In Conclusion: Be 気づいている, not a プラスチックヒッピー. See you at the マゾラパーティー? ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024
