Dyslexicon

NPR this morning did a bit on the satirical Hipster Handbook, and seem to have been taken in by the faux vocabulary the book's author presents in his "hipster glossary." Apparently, enough people have called him on this that he finds it necessary to attempt to prolong the joke:

"These terms are definitely on the periphery," Lanham says. "They're underground terms. They're emerging. They're for real."

I'm either much more out of the loop than I thought, or this is bollocks, because not once in five years living in New York did I hear anything described as "deck," unless it was a box you play tapes on or the top floor of a boat. And if I ever heard anyone refer to dancing as "busting a Moby," I guarantee I'd have laughed my ass off.

But let's pretend, for a moment, that someone, somewhere did talk this way. Wouldn't the publication of this glossary be the surest guarantee that the lingo in question would be strangled in infancy?

Comments

[Neb Okla]

Dude, I go to OSU.

It's fitting that people who lived in that area would be familiar with the getto bird since Columbus has more police helicopters in the air more often than some cities that are much larger.

We have a helicopter in the air from 10:00 AM to 4:00 AM. Each chopper is in the air for 2 hour shifts, and they switch out at the 3rd Ave. helicopter facility (just south of campus).

New York has a small number of police helis - and they aren't always up. And I think I read that Chicago doesn't have any.

[Tallat]

OK, I'm confused.

In the first paragraph of your item, you call it "satirical," a "faux vocabulary" and a "joke." These seem to be quite decisive declarations.

Yet a couple of lines later you rhetorically scratch your head and write: "I'm either much more out of the loop than I thought, or this is bollocks."

Which is it -- you know for sure it's a joke, or you're not certain?

You've been posting quite a bit here lately. This kind of ambiguity seems to creep into a lot of your writing. What gives?

[DC]

"Deck" is also slang for some quantity of smack.

[dude]

Yeah, there did seem to be an unusual number of choppers for a medium-sized city. I remember they looked like crappy little things too, like they bought them surplus off the Ukranian Air Force or something.

I also remember the police bought some sort of armored personel carrier that they were quite proud of. Always made a showing at the riots.

[david f]

hey dude,

"the police have themselves an RV"...

what do you expect in columbus?

but as a born buckeye, it was fantastic seeing the red and gray (ha! my school's colors, too!) win it all!

cheers,
drf

[dani]

the hipster handbook is a joke. it started as a local (williamsburg) thing, got picked up in big media, and eventually got published. some words are real, most are not, though eventually they may be. i've lived in the 'burg for years and have followed this story with amusement. laughed myself out of bed this morning when i woke up to some self-proclaimed hipster explaining that preppy clothes may be, once again, deck. "piece" gets my vote as the best.

[dani]

not sure, but it might have been mcsweeney's or some thing like it that first published the handbook.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Is anything "outasight" again? It's about time for that to start rolling back into usage.

[dude]

Tassels respect me. I can drink a whole jug and still bust a mean moby.

[joe]

Where the hell are my tea shades?

[quaker120]

I heard that story. I thought the joke was on NPR because I'd heard that the Hipster Handbook was a spoof meant to mock hipsters, not celebrate them. But I guess it isn't a put-on. But I'll never know for sure. Damn you, rampant irony!

God, what's more pathetic than something that comes off as satire but isn't?

[dude]

Teen1: Oh, here comes that cannonball guy. He's cool.
Teen2: Are you being sarcastic, dude?
Teen1: I don't even know anymore.

[Eric Deamer]

The slang is almost entirely a joke similar to the one pulled by the record company intern on Rick Marin, the New YOrk Times style reporter, in the early 90's, in which he told him all this made-up slang like "wack slacks" for blue jeans. Marin then reported it all as fact. Ironically, Rick Marin reviewed the book for the NYT, and tried to finesse the issue of whether or not the slang was real in some way I can't remember.

"Deck" also means skateboard. Using it to mean "cool" is at least kinda sorta semi real. I've never heard anyone say it with a straight face exactly, but I heard it used this way before the book came out, mostly by Williamsburgers and Brits, but again, sort of tongue-in-cheek.

[Neb Okla]

If someone is dressed in a cool way, then they are decked out. And when the halls are decked, they're pretty cool.

Also, around campus, houses with a deck are "cool" (as you Fogerties put it). Especially when they are several stories high and provide a good vantage point for lobbing bottles at the fuzz.

My favorites were "piece" and "shitter". Even if they weren't real before, they're too good to leave out of my idiolect.

And speaking of the fuzz, has anyone else encountered the term "Ghetto Bird"? We've got one here in CMH. In fact, one of the pilots has the vanity tag "GDO BRD" on his car.

[WS]

Ghetto Bird = Police Helicopter

From album track of same name by Ice Cube (1993)

But lets not start confusing hipsta with gansgta or I'm gonna be all mixed up.

[dude]

Oh yeah. Used to live in Columbus around OSU. Lots of memories of the ghetto bird flying above my apartment at night with its search light on. I was glad to live on the 2nd floor when that happened.