Moded California Slang

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Tony. I’m calling from Fullerton, California.

Hey, Tony, welcome. What’s up?

I had a question about the word moated.

Growing up in Orange County, California in the 70s, it was a word that we used in our neighborhood. It meant sort of like, like in your face or you’re busted. And I thought it was maybe just a word that was popular in our neighborhood. But like 20 years later, I’m working in an office and someone said it to me in the office. And I asked her where she heard the word from, and she said it was just something she’d heard when she was a kid. So I’m just super curious about this word.

Oh, that’s great. What was happening?

I love it. I forget. It was meant in jest, but I’d messed something up. And she said, oh, moated. And I was like, where did you hear that word from? We used to say that to each other when we were kids. And I have no idea. My sister thinks maybe it comes from the word demoted, but I always thought it would be spelled M-O-D-E-D. I have no idea.

Was there a gesture associated with it? Anything that you did with your hands?

I don’t recall. I don’t think so. Like maybe scratching your neck?

No, no, that doesn’t ring a bell at all.

No, okay, gotcha. All right.

So, yeah, this was a widespread term specific to California, particularly Southern California, but not only Southern California, if that makes sense. Throughout Los Angeles and Southern California, perhaps as far as San Diego, north up, maybe as far as Monterey, you can find this showing up in little collections of slang and in yearbooks and people’s memories and so forth. It shows up in a collection of slang that was done occasionally from UCLA. And they have an entry for it where they have a bunch of different spellings, M-O-D-E or M-O-T-E, sometimes even M-O-L-D, like mold. And it means to be humiliated or embarrassed or mistaken. And then there was another thing that went with it where you might scratch your neck in reference to an old expression called scratch your dirty neck. Again, it’s the kind of thing like you just kind of demonstrate that somebody has been beaten or been put down or somehow made a fool of.

Right. So this was a thing. It wasn’t just you and your coworker saying moated.

Yeah, didn’t we have a caller who talked about moated, corroded, your booty exploded?

Yeah, yeah, that was the rhyme. You’re moated, corroded, your booty’s been exploded. Yeah, that was like when you’ve really been beat down, when you’ve really just been embarrassed. This is like if your pants fall down in front of a school assembly. That’s like the ultimate defeat, you know?

Right. Well, I’m a junior high school teacher, so I’m going to bring that one back.

Oh, they’re going to love it. They’re going to love it.

I don’t know that it comes from demoted. Obviously, that’s the first thing that pops into people’s minds when they try to come up with etymology. There’s no way to know. Slang is a mystery. There’s a lot of different spellings for this, but it could make some sense. But demoted is kind of not really a slangy word, but I could see it being corrupted into slang. Who knows?

Well, that’s brilliant. Well, thank you for solving such a big mystery. The word disappeared just as quickly as it arrived, I think. But like I said, maybe I’ll bring it back along with the…

Well, by the way, you may not have to bring it back. I found evidence in my files of one report of it still being used in 2003 and a school collection of slang from San Francisco in 2005 that had it reported and submitted by a student. So that’s relatively current. At least it’s not the 1970s. So it might still be out there.

Yeah, clearly, Tony, you’ll have to do some field research for us with your students.

Oh, yeah, find out if they know it. I do. I have some work to do.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Report back, sir.

We will. Thank you.

Take care, Tony.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

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