Jive Turkey

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Oh, hi, Martha. This is Kathy from La Mesa, California.

Hello, Kathy. Welcome.

Hi, Kathy. Welcome to the program.

Well, I’m looking for recruits to help me in my revival of some awesome phrases from the 70s.

There were awesome phrases in the 70s?

Well, I think we have awesome powers to thank for reminding us about Foxy Lady, which is just such a vibrant and lovely compliment.

You like being called Foxy.

Sure. You can call me Foxy.

It’s a compliment then, right?

I think so. It seems that way.

Okay, sure.

And Grant, since you’re a slang slinger, I’m hoping you can help us figure out where the expression jive turkey fits in.

Jive turkey?

I think we were actually watching some 70s cheesy movies, and there are just several scenes where somebody gets just their nose completely out of joint when someone else calls them a jive turkey.

And it just seems so innocent, or at least completely inoffensive, but I guess all of these things are just contextual.

So if you look at the use of the word jive back in like the late 50s and early 60s with beatniks, you know, are you hip to the jive? That seems like a cool word, but suddenly in the 70s or later in the 70s, it’s become something of an insult.

Yeah, the jive goes back to the 1920s at least, and it starts out almost immediately with a negative sense, and it refers to boasting or bragging or just a lot of big talk.

And it starts in Black English.

So it’s really interesting that it continues for some five or six decades well into Black English.

And then Turkey’s got its own history out of showbiz, meaning a flop, and then migrated from, you know, Hollywood entertainment type speak into mainstream English.

So you put the two together and you get a jive turkey.

I’ve seen those movies.

You’re talking like the blaxploitation films, right?

Absolutely.

And they don’t usually use harsher language, like four-letter words and melon farmer and that sort of thing, right?

Right.

And thankfully, we’re searching for ways to maybe drive the language back to a simpler time.

Oh, so that’s what you and your other are up to, right? Your beau?

You think it was simpler?

It was definitely a much more creative use of language.

How’s that?

Because it’s just so easy to go to four-letter words and curse words and that kind of thing.

So if you can convey the same just, you know, cut to the gut insult with something like jive turkey, then you get kudos from us for being a better user of language.

Oh, but who’s really going to take jive turkey seriously?

I mean, I would have to say you jive turkey you.

But that’s what, Kathy, what I was getting at is in those movies, they didn’t have a lot of truly coarse language, right?

Because they were mainstream films?

Right.

All right, so jive turkey is kind of a stand-in for the rougher language that they can’t get away with using.

And so I think you as the viewer are meant to understand that jive turkey represents, you know, a lot of really hardcore language that we can’t say on a family radio program.

It’s a stand-in for the tougher language.

So did it have a sting or was it self-conscious?

Yeah, it had a sting because jive, I mean, just forget the beatnik stuff.

That’s kind of like, that’s white guys taking black language and doing things to it.

But in black American English, jive was generally something negative for a very long time.

Your jive was all your bragging talk about how great you were that nobody else believed.

And so if you are a jive turkey, you are a loser and a failure who is constantly talking about how great you are.

And, you know, so a jive turkey is not really a nice thing to say.

I mean, it’s not as bad as calling somebody, you know.

But jive turkey has got a long heritage.

I think you are undertaking a noble deed, your cause is just, to bring jive turkey back to the masses.

Thank you.

If we come up with a male equivalent for foxy lady, I will go ahead and call you back and apply that to you, Grant.

Kathy, thank you so much for your call.

Absolutely.

My pleasure.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye.

If you have a question, call us 877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.