Blow This Pop Stand

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Daniel in Dallas, Texas.

Hey, Daniel, welcome.

How are you doing? What can we help with?

My best friend growing up, whenever we would be hanging out with the group people, he was kind of the cool one of the group.

And whenever we’d get bored, things would slow down, and he came up with an idea of what he wanted to do.

He would say, let’s blow this popsicle stand, and then he would just get up and kind of walk off, and we would follow him.

I always thought he made it up.

And then I found out recently that other people have heard that before.

And so I was just wondering where, I mean, yeah, why are we blowing up electrical stands?

And why that means having a good time, although I can see why it might be a good time.

There’s two parts to this.

The one that’s most operational would be the word to blow, which is meant to leave since well into the 1800s.

Very slangy uses, of course.

But if you blow, you’re blowing out of here.

You’re blowing on through.

You’re done.

You’re gone.

They’re sailing away with the tide winds.

So the pop stand part is really complicated.

Well, a popsicle stand is how many people say it today, but it was originally pop stand.

And pop for soda isn’t universally known.

So people replaced it with popsicle, which is more universally known.

So a pop stand was just a place where you’d go get a soda back in the day, like the 50s or 60s.

And then by the early 90s, yeah.

So basically you’re just leaving this place where you just had a refreshment.

That’s it.

And then we replaced it with a bunch of other things.

There are a wide variety of variations on let’s blow this whatever.

Popsicle and popsicle Stan is just the most current one.

There are a couple places that I think had a lot to do with blow this whatever coming into the fore of kind of slang usage.

It was the 1953 movie The Wild One with Marlon Brando.

And also in 1973, there was a book called A Good Day to Die by Jim Harrison.

And that book was a bestseller.

And there’s a line in there with some coarse language we can’t use on the air.

But he says, let’s get ready and let’s get out of this pop stand.

And that’s one of the first places that we can find pop stand being used in that way.

But it refers specifically to a place where you’d get an old-fashioned soda.

Yeah, that makes more sense to me than a popsicle stand.

I’ve never seen a popsicle stand.

Exactly, but a pop stand for sure, like a drugstore soda fountain.

Yeah, or just something at the fair or something where they’re serving up a…

Yeah, that makes a lot more sense.

I just had a little aha moment myself.

So that’s it, and here we are still saying it.

But it’s always had a tinge of the cool cat saying it.

So it’s interesting that your friend who fashions himself as the cool one kind of retains that.

It’s never been really nerdy usage.

It’s always been like, I’m the leader of this group.

Let’s blow this joint.

Let’s get out of here.

Yeah, I’m picturing James Dean, you know, in tight pants and cigarettes rolled up in his short sleeve.

Well, that’s how Brando is in that film I mentioned.

He’s very much like that.

I think it’s a, I misremember it maybe, but it’s, I believe it’s a motorcycle gang and they’re, they’re tough dudes and they come into town and they cause a lot of trouble.

They drink some pop and they leave.

Well, it was a different time.

They couldn’t have him doing heroin.

It’s funny, though, with that masculine image, though, and then it being a pop stand and then changing to a popsicle, which is honestly not that masculine of an item at all.

Right.

Well, the pop stand, I mean, there are cultural notions around soda and places that kids gather.

I mean, there’s really what we’re talking about here is you’ve got to go back.

You can find it in the newspaper.

Screeds written against pool halls.

I mean, it’s in movies and plays and soda stands and restaurants and diners because that’s where the kids gathered.

And if the kids gathered, they must be up to trouble.

So it’s not so much the soda.

It’s the people who are attracted to it.

That makes perfect sense.

Cool.

Thanks for your call.

Really appreciate it.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for answering my question.

All right.

Take care.

All right.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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