Jennifer in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, has been in recovery from substance abuse for 29 years now, and still recalls some of the slang she heard back in the days when she was using illicit drugs. Her ex-husband used to say Now you got my nose open and Don’t get my nose open, which both refer to the idea of enticing someone to do drugs. There are larger senses of this phrase, referring to being excited about something or being sexually aroused or feeling rising anger. This slang term has been around since the 1950s. Jennifer also used the term bonnaroo to mean “really good.” In the slang of San Quentin Prison in the 1930s, bonnaroo meant “a preferred job assignment” for prisoners. The Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee takes its name from the 1974 album Desitively Bonnaroo by Dr. John, who said the word came from the French-influenced slang of New Orleans, Louisiana, a combination of French bonne, “good,” and rue, “street,” meaning “best on the street,” or in other words, “really good drugs.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Nose Open and Bonnaroo”
Hi there, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Jennifer from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
Hey Jennifer, what’s going on?
Well, there were two terms that I was curious about. I am in recovery from substance abuse, and I’ve been in recovery for 29 years, and I was listening to your show a couple weeks ago, and I’m not exactly sure what it was, but something triggered me to remember these two terms, and I was just kind of curious to their origin. The first one, my ex-husband was significantly older than I was and was born and raised in California, so he brought California terms and attitudes to the Midwest, which is where we were together. And one of the things he would say is, now you got my nose open, or don’t get my nose open. And it was typically in relation to drugs, you know. And I just thought that that was a very interesting term, kind of an interesting way of saying, now you made me want to do drugs, or now you’ve enticed me to decide that I want to do drugs.
Yeah, that one, I know, that’s a classic slang term going back to at least the 1950s.
So he would say this when you would entice him or make him interested and want him to do, what, like a rail of coke or something like that or smoke a joint?
Yes, yes.
There was a lot of cocaine involved back then.
So, yeah, mostly cocaine.
It was like, so maybe someone would come over and had it but wasn’t going to share it. And my blue, the name of my ex-husband, would say, come on, man, you got my nose open.
Right.
Or, yeah, yeah.
You got me wanting it.
Now, there’s a couple other related meanings. There’s a larger meaning of to have one’s nose open in slang. And generally, it’s to be excited or interested in something. And in another context, to have your nose open is to be sexually excited or to be romantically interested in someone. And so to have your nose open means to be in pursuit of a romantic partner.
Oh.
Yeah, I’ve heard that as nose wide open.
Nose wide open, yeah.
Or another one is to be angry at somebody. To have your nose open is to be intensely angry and ready for a fight.
Nostrils flaring.
Nostrils flaring, yeah.
It kind of sounds like the jungle.
Yeah, but in all these contexts, all of them is you’re focused on a goal. You’re focused and interested on a thing and in pursuit of something.
Interesting.
Yeah.
What’s your other term?
The other term is Bonnaroo, and I have no idea how to spell it.
Bonnaroo.
He would use it like, I’ve got some Bonnaroo stuff, meaning it’s really good. And I know that there is a festival called the Bonnaroo Festival now.
Yeah, that’s right.
Of course, I thought immediately that there was probably drugs involved with that, but that may not be so.
It’s connected. It’s connected.
So let’s talk about the slang term Bonnaroo for a second here. They found it as far back as 1938 in a list of slang from San Quentin. They talk about Bonnaroo, and they talk about a Bonnaroo as a noun, and a Bonnaroo in 1938 in San Quentin was a really good job in prison. In their case, they mentioned that having a job in the prison library was a Bonnaroo. But the Bonnaroo Festival, the music festival where you go to see live music, actually comes from the 1974 album Desertively Bonnaroo by Dr. John. Desertively is the words definitely positively combined. And Bonnaroo supposedly comes from the French words bon, meaning good, and roux meaning street, meaning good street. And he claims it was street slang in New Orleans in the ninth award that meant the best on the streets. And so it referred to really good drugs.
I’ll be darned.
Yeah.
Isn’t that interesting? How all of that’s connected.
It’s all connected.
Now, the problem is that that album came out in 1974. It’s possible that slang was on the streets of New Orleans at the time. We have it in California in 1938. The Bonnaroo might have been floating around. It might not even come from French, but that’s the story of that album from 1974. That’s the myth of the word. That’s what Dr. John believes it comes from. Perhaps it’s the origin. And I believe Dr. John spent some time in prison. Jazz has always had this underbelly association with the rougher side of life, hasn’t it? It’s never been completely clean and on the up and up.
Well, Jennifer, speaking of clean, congratulations on 29 years.
Yeah, that’s amazing.
That’s really great.
Thank you very much.
And sometimes things just pop up, like something about your show just got me thinking about those terms. And so I really appreciate you letting me talk about that, finding out more about those terms.
We appreciate your calling.
Yeah, call us again sometime if something else occurs to you, all right?
I will.
Thank you so much.
Okay.
Take care now.
Bye-bye.
Have a great day.
Bye-bye.
Is there strange slang in your past that you’d like to talk about? Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
