[originaltext] Slang has always been the province of the young. Words come i

Slang has always been the province of the young. Words come in and out of favor in direct proportion to the speed with which they travel through the age ranks. Once college kids know that high school kids are using a term, it becomes pass6. And seniors don’t want to sound like freshman and so forth. Once a word finds its way to mainstream media or worse, is spoken by parents, no young person with any self-respect would use it.
    Fifties slang wasn’t particularly colorful as these things go. The Sixties, with its drug and protest culture to draw from, would be slang heaven. In the Fifties, hot-rodders and Beats provided inspiration.
    About the Beat Culture. This was by no means a mainstream movement. I didn’t actually know any Beats nor I suspect did most of my peers across America. But they sure seemed "cool" to us. A sharp contrast from the way real teens lived in a preppy, conservative, conformist world.