While 1950s mainstream culture in the United States usually shunned slang used by the youth, among the rising subcultures of the Beatniks, hot rodders or jazz musicians, a number of interesting “code words” flourished.
Some of the words dating from the period have survived to this day, while others were lost and replaced by a new generation’s words.
Their role was to differentiate the “hip” from the “square” ― and even though it started out just among the chosen few, as the decade progressed it changed the way teenagers talk around the U.S.
![1950s Photo by Erik Holmén CC BY 4.0](https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2018/09/photo-by-erik-holmen-cc-by-4-0-445x640.jpg)
Whether it was the smooth Beatniks who themselves dwelt in new forms of poetry, or those youths obsessed with cars and motorcycles who naturally adopted a lingo with more mechanical traits, the American variant of the English language was constantly growing.
https://youtu.be/-3hISphaOW0
While mainstream culture representatives like magazines and TV shows promoted a more preppy, conservative and conformist way of life, these words alone opposed such a vision and offered a hedonistic, renegade image with “passion” written all over it.
![1950s](https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2018/09/teenage-fashion-photo-by-erik-holmen-cc-by-4-0-640x622.jpg)
At the time when rock ‘n’ roll was taking its baby steps, and the generation gap was becoming a serious issue, such usage of language was part of the rebellious spirit which spearheaded the American youth into the 1960s, giving birth to yet another slang powerhouse ― the hippie counterculture.
![Christmas Party in 1950s](https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2018/09/800px-christmas_party_in_1950s_new_orleans-640x419.jpg)
![Photo by Erik Holmén, Nordiska museet CC BY 4.0](https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2018/09/photo-by-erik-holmen-nordiska-museet-cc-by-4-0-640x550.jpg)
![An American family watching television together, 1958](https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2018/11/1024px-family_watching_television_1958-640x595.jpg)
The funny thing is that you will recognize a great number of these and understand them without a problem. These retro-slang words have, in fact, influenced the contemporary lexicon so much that they are no longer considered as slang ― i.e. an informal register of words and phrases ― but more of a casual vocabulary used and understood by everyone.
Read another story from us: Vintage Fashion – 1950s Teenage Girls with their Doo Wop Dresses
On the other hand, a lot of these have lost their usage, but we somehow feel that they deserve a comeback.