A San Diego, California, listener wonders if the expression far out originally had to do with surfing. This expression describing something excellent or otherwise impressive originated in the world of jazz, where far out suggested the idea of something beyond compare. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Far Out Origin”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Bianca calling from San Diego, California.
Hi, Bianca. Welcome. What can we do for you?
Thanks. So I have been curious about where the saying far out came from. I had always thought that it had something to do with the 60s and the psychedelic era. And I had an aunt tell me that it had something to do with surfing and the surfers being far out in the ocean. So I’ve never really known. And I actually brought it up at a family dinner recently. And my grandparents suggested it had something to do with the Beach Boys, but no one really had a good reason or answer for where it came from.
Far out.
How old are you, Bianca? Can I ask?
I’m 26.
26, okay. It doesn’t seem like you’re slang from your generation, does it?
Not particularly, but I do hear it.
Okay, you don’t use it. You just hear it.
Now, you said you’re your grandmother.
Sometimes I use it.
You do? Depending where I am.
Ironically or, like, just genuinely?
Ironically.
Okay, gotcha. It’s kind of like the bee’s knees at this point. Everyone’s heard it, but you only use it as a little bit of a joke, right?
Yeah.
It’s not from surfing, and it’s not from California. It’s from jazz. And it goes way, way back.
Oh, no way.
Yeah, and it’s connected to so many other slangy terms of the years. Let me lay this out for you. There’s just a ton of stuff here, and I’m going to make it as brief as possible. Martha’s giving me the cocked eyebrow where she doesn’t believe me. I’ve got the lasso right here.
So there’s all these similar expressions, and they all kind of mean the same thing, that something is so good that it is beyond human experience, that it is otherworldly. So first, there’s beyond compare, where compare is a noun, meaning comparison, and that’s from the 1600s. So if something is beyond compare, it’s so good that you can’t match it.
Then there’s out of sight, which is the early 1800s in the U.S.
Really? That early?
Yeah, that early, out of sight.
Out of sight?
Yeah. Not as an interjection, but you might just describe something as being out of sight to mean to a great degree or utterly. And then later in the 1800s, you get out of sight kind of as one word, like as an interjection. And then we get by the 1920s, we get out of this world or out of the world. And it was very much in jazz, 1920s. And then by the 1940s, you would get Far Out of this world, which was quickly shortened definitely by the 1950s to Far Out.
So by the 1950s, you can find Far Out in jazz magazines or in liner notes on jazz albums where people are just using it authentically with no irony intended.
Oh, how cool.
Yeah. And then it spread to all the other countercultures. And it’s no surprise to me that it was picked up by surfers because surfing for a long time was this really insular kind of fringe culture thing until it got big.
Decades, maybe.
Wow.
That’s amazing.
That’s awesome.
Yeah.
How about that? You’re going to have a next great family dinner, right?
Right, right. And I’m sure my family will tell you I’m otherworldly, so that’ll be funny.
You are, Bianca. You are indeed.
Thank you so much for calling.
Yeah, thank you guys. Have a great one.
All right, take care.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
There’s one of these quotes. I’ve got the Golden’s Jazz Dictionary. He wrote it as his thesis and later printed it as a book. But he’s got a quote in here that I think really sums it up. The power of musicians of skill to transport is verbalized in send me, which is another one of those slang terms. Something sends you. It means it puts you to heights of ecstasy. It is little wonder that swing devotees on the general observations of music as heavenly and a melody of the spheres proclaimed they were sent propelled by that centrifugal force out of the world.
And then by the 1940s, far out was a thing. It reminds me of that modern Greek expression. I don’t remember the Greek, but it translates as something like, it’s so great, it doesn’t even exist.
Oh, I like that. That’s nice.
It’s impossible to imagine it’s so good.
Right, right. It doesn’t exist.
What word or phrase has caught your ear? Give us a call about at 877-929-9673 or send us an email. That address is words@waywordradio.org.
