|
Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
khmerhit
Joined: 31 May 2003
Posts: 1874
Location: Reverse Culture Shock Unit
|
 Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2004 6:16 pm Post subject: cool or what |
 |
|
| Quote: |
Why 'Cool' Remains Hot
Sunday, January 18, 2004
By Stephanie Shapiro
The Baltimore Sun
Now and then, the words "nifty" or "groovy" might drop into a conversation, instantly identifying the speaker as an old fogy or -- worse -- an old hippie.
But the word "cool" doesn't do that. Cool is constant. As a modifier, as the modified, as a noun and as a verb, cool has withstood the fleeting nature of most slang.
What is the reason for cool's longevity? That's an easy question for Keith Covington, owner of the New Haven Lounge in North Baltimore and jazz expert. As long as Miles Davis' classic 1949 work, "Birth of the Cool," remains the best-selling jazz album of all time, cool will stay cool, he said.
Cool still "carries the same weight and definition that it did 50 years ago," Covington said. "Jazz musicians and jazz aficionados still refer to great works as cool."
Cool comes in many flavors. Actress Kirsten Dunst, for instance, isn't cool the way Miles Davis is cool. And yet, in a recent Elle profile, the word cool, used to describe the young actress, is a constant refrain, as in " Kirsten Dunst is inherently, organically, preternaturally cool. She's 'None of my friends are actresses' cool. Catholic schoolgirl cool.' " And on and on.
Cool has been around for quite a while. Shakespeare used a form of cool as a verb and later the word morphed into an adjective, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. The word cool has been applied since 1728 to large sums of money and used to mean "calmly audacious" since 1825, the same source maintains. Cool -- meaning fashionable -- is "said to have been popularized in jazz circles by tenor saxophonist Lester Young," according to the etymology dictionary.
Of the word cool, "I can say one thing about it; it has not stood still," said Donna Jo Napoli, a Swarthmore College professor of linguistics.
When she was growing up, cool meant "wow!" said Napoli, also the author of young adult novels and the mother of five. Today, cool is used more often to mean, "OK, I'm fine with that," Napoli said. In other words, "I'm cool with that."
As Napoli suggested, cool gets around. There's "way cool," "cool beans," "That's cool," "Keep your cool" and "too cool."
Cool is an example of an "underspecified word," Napoli said. The less specific a word, the more meanings it can have. Assassinate is an example of a "highly determined" word, one that can't be used in too many contexts, she said. The more unspecified a word is, the more staying power it has, she said.
But the question remains: What makes cool so cool? Benn Ray, manager of Atomic Books in Hampden, Md., gave the matter some thought. "Here's what I think it is," he said: "The reason the word cool has remained cool (is that) the people who have helped to establish that word were cool. Their coolness was permanent as opposed to people who used words like 'peachy,' 'nifty' or 'keen.' "
It's the difference between a very cool James Dean and a trendy but most uncool teeny-bopper, Ray said. "The icons who used the word, or were associated with it, have remained cool."
Cool, over the years, has trickled into the vocabulary of a range of folks; some cool, some not so cool, Ray noted. "We hear it all the time from people of all ages and different groups. You might see some Satanists in here using cool, or Goth kids using the word cool, and then someone from Roland Park (Md.), using the word cool. It's a staple in our language. I don't think it's going anywhere."
"It's amazing that (cool) is still around," said Robert Beard, chief executive officer of yourDictionary.com and a retired professor of linguistics at Bucknell University. "When I was in high school some 40 years ago, I was a 'cool cat' because I played with a musical organization called the Catbird Combo and we were 'cool.' "
Beard attributes cool's staying power to its connection to jazz. "Jazz won't go away," so "cool won't go away," he said.
It's not clear whether cool has a place in the lexicon of contemporary popular music. Camay Murphy -- director of the Eubie Blake Cultural Center in Baltimore and daughter of a consummately cool musician, the late Cab Calloway -- has heard kids into hip-hop use the word. "It's just a frequently used word to express something that's relatively good or a good surprise," Murphy said.
Musicians of the atmospheric down-tempo school -- an amalgam of trip-hop, ambient and other genres -- "refer to their product as cool quite a bit," Covington said.
For several Baltimore high school students, though, cool has been eclipsed. When a friend says she's making plans to do something fun, Alayne Francis, a 16-year-old City College High School junior, will signal her approval by saying, "That's what's up" or "That's the business."
Francis' friend, Eleeshabah Yahudah, a City College senior, also 16, agreed that cool no longer serves her young friends in the black community. You don't hear it on television shows featuring blacks, either, Yahudah said. Actors "don't say cool on TV unless they're acting white."
Larry Jeter, 49, sees the word differently from high school kids. Cool is a universal, evergreen word whose use transcends race and gender, said the jazz drummer and owner of Dimensions in Music in downtown Baltimore.
Why?
"Because it rolls off your tongue, baby. You can put some bass in it, some treble. Some words can't do that," Jeter said.
What's coolest of all, he said, cool doesn't "have any date on it at all. It's like a good piece of music. You can listen to it 10 years from now, and it will still sound the same."
|
http://www.nwaonline.net/280602948540948.bsp |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
|
| Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2004 9:34 pm Post subject: Hot and cool |
|
|
Dear khmerhit,
I used to love to befuddle my Saudi students by telling them that, in slang terms, "That's so cool" and "That's so hot" can mean (just about) the same thing.
Regards,
John |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Capergirl
Joined: 02 Feb 2003
Posts: 1232
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 4:19 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Talk about an overused word!  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
khmerhit
Joined: 31 May 2003
Posts: 1874
Location: Reverse Culture Shock Unit
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2004 5:20 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Cool avatar! -- or is that hot!? Hmm. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
khmerhit
Joined: 31 May 2003
Posts: 1874
Location: Reverse Culture Shock Unit
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2004 7:11 pm Post subject: getting cooler |
|
|
| Quote: |
Two guys from Toronto
Two guys from Toronto die and wake up in hell. The devil stops in
to check on them and sees them dressed in parkas, mittens and
toques warming themselves around the fire.
The devil asks, "Isn't it hot enough for you?"
They reply, "'Well, we're from Canada, the land of snow and ice
and cold. We're just happy for a chance to warm up a little bit eh."
The devil decides they aren't miserable enough and turns up the
heat. The next morning, there they are, still in parkas, toques and
mittens. The devil asks again, "It's awfully hot down here, can't you guys
feel it?"
Again they reply, "Well, like we told ya, we're from Canada, land of ice and snow, and we're just happy for a chance to warm up a little, eh."
This gets the devil steamed up. He cranks the heat up as high as
it will go. People are wailing and screaming. He finds the two
Canadians in light jackets, grilling sausages and drinking beer.
The devil is astonished. "Everyone down here is in misery, and
you two seem to be enjoying yourselves."
The two Canadians reply, "We don't get much warm weather in
Toronto. We've just got to have a cook-out when the weather is THIS nice."
The devil is furious, and decides to turn all the heat off in
hell.
The next morning, icicles are everywhere, people are unable to do
anything but wail, moan and gnash their teeth. The devil smiles. He
finds the two Canadians back in their parkas, toques and mittens. But
now they are jumping up and down, cheering, yelling and screaming
like mad men!
The Devil is dumbfounded. "When I turn up the heat you're happy.
Now it's freezing and you're still happy."
"What is wrong with you two?" The Torontonians look at the devil in surprise, "Don't you know? If Hell freezes over, it must mean the Leafs have won the Stanley Cup!"
> > >
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling.
Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
