The expressions your mother wears combat boots and your mother wears army boots descend from the African-American tradition of the Dozens, also known as sounding or capping or snapping, where people try to top each other’s insults. This is...
Jerry in Lutherville, Maryland, was reading a 2018 biography of Nelson Algren, author of The Man with the Golden Arm, that mentions a group in the 1930s that were described as hipsters or hepsters. In the 1930s, the word hipster applied to a jazz...
Fadi from Indianapolis wondered why California governor Jerry Brown has been called Governor Moonbeam, especially after the nickname resurfaced in a political Twitter jab. The label came from Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko in the 1970s, when...
Bianca in San Diego, California, has heard family theories tying far out to surfers offshore, the Beach Boys, or 1960s psychedelia. The evidence points instead to jazz slang: by the 1920s, musicians and fans were using out of this world for music...
A Huntsville, Alabama, man asks: What’s the origin of the peace symbol? A good resource on its history is Peace: The Biography of a Symbol, by Ken Kolsbun. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Peace Symbol Origins”...
What is a hipster? Is it an insult to call someone a hipster, even if they’re, well, a hipster? Do hipsters identify themselves as hipsters? Grant traces the label from 1960s counterculture to today’s skinny-jeaned Brooklyn paradox. This...