The elementary school playground usage of wicked that has infiltrated my house recently is quite pleasing. I understand its current meaning of "cool" or "neato" or "swell" is based on hip-hop usage such as in the title of this magazine in the same way that sick has moved into popular use for what some in 1993 would have covered off by the now embarrassing extreme. Despite the six-year old being unaware she is reflecting a tiny facet of an otherwise unknown international urban sub-culture, it appears that the word has exactly the same meaning I picked up at about the same age in 1972 Nova Scotian elementary school speak which came out of Lunenburg hierarchies of superlative: good then some good then some wicked good with the trump card of all right some jeesely wicked good. Wicked good and simply wicked were also quite proper usages in their own right.
I recall, too, a pal of mine from the Miramichi in New Brunswick once reporting on a monologue overheard by him earlier in life on a school bus ride: "Loohk-a-there-loohk, cohp cahr. Whhuckked."
Comments
Arthur - May 15, 2005 10:18 PM
You're wicked-whack.
Alan - May 15, 2005 10:56 PM
Is that some sort of Dutch slander?
Arthur - May 15, 2005 11:12 PM
Is that some sort of Dutch slander?
Uh. No. I think it's rap slang: ask your kid.
Alan - May 15, 2005 11:18 PM
I'm jiggy with that, homeguy.
Mike - May 16, 2005 8:21 AM
Wickity-wickity-wickity-whack!
You know, I've never heard someone use the phrase "right some good" in conversation.
I remember Cape Breton cousins visiting Halifax and making fun of us for using the word "Decent!" (meaning "wic-ked!") A year or two later that's what we heard THEM use while visiting C.B.
Alan - May 16, 2005 8:25 AM
You hang with an odd crowd. Growing up, I rarely heard a sentence without it, especially from the pulpit and the school announcements speaker.
Don - May 16, 2005 10:29 AM
Our girls really liked the little boy on the tricycle on The Incredibles who, right near the end of movie, yelled "That's totally wicked!"
It's stuck around for a while now.
Ben - May 16, 2005 10:46 AM
A few years ago on MuchMusic a guy from Labrador City won the chanceto hang out with the band Linkin Park on 'Gonnae Meet a Rock Star.' His reponse to absolutely everything was 'wicked.' At the end of the show when the credits rolled they had spliced together all of the times he had said 'wicked' on air- it easily filled the time needed to roll the credits- I figure it was about 50-60 'wickeds' over the course of a 30 minute show.
Alan - May 16, 2005 10:47 AM
I have shielded my children from all sources of popular culture as something of a fanatical reaction to the effect of mass media.
David Janes - May 16, 2005 10:56 AM
BTW: the voice of the boy on the bicycle in _The Incredibles_ is the director's son.
Arthur - May 16, 2005 6:43 PM
I have shielded my children from all sources of popular culture
My dad tried too but I still ended up in North America. :-)