In 1968 Teen Slang, “Use Your Clyde” Meant Think It Through

In a 1968 list of Cheyenne High School slang that ran in newspapers around the United States, Clyde, written like the man’s name, meant one’s head or mind. The Wyoming students’ examples included Use your Clyde! and put it out of your Clyde, alongside terms still familiar now, such as do hinky for a whatchamacallit and tube for a television set. Such student slang lists are useful raw material for lexicographers trying to keep dictionaries current. This is part of a complete episode.

Back in 1968, a couple of classes at Cheyenne High School in Cheyenne, Wyoming, compiled some lists of slang.

And it’s interesting to me that some of them are things that are instantly recognizable today, like do hinky for, you know, a whatchamacallit or a thingamajig, and a tube for television set. That doesn’t strike me as particularly unusual. But one of the ones that I really liked was they used the term Clyde to mean head or mind. So use your Clyde or put it out of your Clyde. I like that. Spelled like the man’s name, C-L-Y-D-E. Yeah, yeah. Although it could be a small C as well as a capital C, but use your Clyde. For some reason, that just makes sense to me.

Oh, that’s pretty cool. Where was this list? Well, it ran in newspapers throughout the United States in 1968, but it was one of these, hey, teenagers in Cheyenne, Wyoming, can compile this list of slang. Those are cool. Lexicographers depend on those to keep their dictionaries deep and current.

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