A lot of surfer slang consists of in-crowd jargon or outmoded antiques: grommet (an eager young surfer), hodad (a non-surfer; a poser), log (a heavy surfboard), Noah (a shark). But other terms that bubbled up in the surf towns of Southern California, Hawaii, and Australia in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s â bro, dude, Cali (for California), wipeout â are now part of the everyday vocabulary of English-speaking landlubbers who may have no idea about the wordsâ briny origins. One of the most widespread of these expressions, and probably the most pertinent to our interests at Strong Language, is bitchinâ, an adjective or interjection meaning âexcellent,â âcool,â or âadmirable.â
It took a long time for bitch and its derivatives to evolve from veterinary noun (Old English: âfemale dogâ) to taboo slur (for a woman c. 1400; for a man c. 1500) to slightly taboo verb (early 1900s: âtalk spitefullyâ; early 1930s: âcomplainâ) to a word so cheerily inoffensive that itâs used in brand names that are prominently displayed in mass-market retail outlets like Costco. Along the way, bitch begat dozens of slangy spin-offs, most of them U.S. in origin and mostly pejorative, that include bitch bath (perfume instead of soap and water), bitch box (loudspeaker), and bitch light (a twisted rag soaked in grease and used for illumination).
Bitchinâ Sauce at Costco, Richmond, California. Photo: Nancy Friedman
Bitch and its relatives were considered highly offensive from the 18th century on: In Wicked Words (1989), author Hugh Rawson notes that people resorted to euphemisms like âlady dogâ even in the âproper canine context.â (Speaking of dogs, Rawson informs us that the poet John Keats coined bitchrell on the model of âdoggerel.â It was naughty enough that Keats self-bowdlerized the word as Bârellâ.) It wasnât until 1962 that bitch was heard in a Hollywood movie (Advise & Consent; the speaker was Gene Tierney, saying of Washington hostesses, âThey say any bitch with a million bucks can be the bestâ). Elton John could sing âThe Bitch Is Backâ in 1974, but there was still enough opprobrium surrounding bitch in 1984 that Barbara Bush, campaigning for her husband George H.W. Bush, cattily demurred when calling Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro âthat four-million-dollar â I canât say it, but it rhymes with ârich.ââ
Twenty years later, bitch was fully out in the open. It was heard frequently on the TV series How I Met Your Mother (2005â2014): See Michael Adamsâs four âBitch Chroniclesâ posts, in which he posits that bitch was the solution for âtonal accuracyâ in the showâs dialogue, âpermissible on television, but not always in polite conversation.â Around the same time, bitch attached itself to a whole category of wines marketed at women; as I wrote in 2015, the trend began in 2004 with an Australian Grenache called simply Bitch and expanded into unrelated brands like Sassy Bitch, Tasty Bitch, and more. And 2012 brought us resting bitch face, âa facial expression that unintentionally creates the impression that a person is angry, annoyed, irritated, or contemptuous, particularly when the individual is relaxed, resting, or not expressing any particular emotionâ (Wikipedia).
By then, bitchinâ/bitchen had migrated from surf shacks to high streets. The earliest agreed-on appearance in print of positive bitchen is in Gidget: The Little Girl with Big Ideas, the 1957 novel by Frederick Kohner that was inspired by his teenage daughterâs experiences with the Malibu Point surf crowd: âIt was a bitchen day too. The sun was out and all that, even though it was near the end of November.â The spelling gradually settled on bitchinâ, eliding the g of the participle. American Speech, the journal of the American Dialect Society, included bitchinâ in a 1965 issue under âNotes on Campus Vocabulary,â observing that it could âserve both as an interjection (bitchinâ, man! = âGreat!â) and as an adjective.â The Surfinâary, a compilation of surf terms originally published in 1991, calls bitchinâ âa sixties term for cool adopted by surfersâ and adds that âit has now been replaced by radâ (from radical). But editor Trevor Gralle also inserts this unverified anecdote:
The word bitchinâ, derived from bitching â as in âQuit your bitchingâ â may have been coined by Dale Velzy in 1949. While surfing with the Manhattan Beach Surf Club, Velzy was overjoyed after a ride and said, âThat was a bitchinâ wave,â giving the word new meaning and a positive connotation.
Velzy (1927â2005) was a pioneering Southern California surfer and surfboard maker; according to a Los Angeles Times obituary, he was âsurfingâs first commercial shaper or builder.â
Surfinâary, 1991 edition.
I havenât been able to confirm Velzyâs reappropriation of bitchinâ, but I have found evidence for earlier positive or emphatic uses of bitch that may have laid the groundwork. As early as 1928, according to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (HDAS), bitching could be a synonym for âwhoppingâ or âdamned,â and bitch kitty was World War II slang for âsomething extraordinary.â (âSheâs flying right along. Bitch kitty of an airplane.â)
Today, although bitch can still skew negative â and necessitate a softened version, bish, that tones down the aggression and evades online censorship â the adjective/interjection bitchinâ has achieved full cultural integration. As proof, I point you to the U.S. trademark database, which as of this writing includes 32 registered or pending marks with adjectival BITCHINâ. Besides the aforementioned Bitchinâ Sauces â whose owners also own a record label, Bitchinâ Music Group, phone number 1-737-BITCHIN â thereâs Bitchinâ Kitchen, a cooking program that launched on Canadian TV in 2010; Bitchinâ Kitten Brewery (Pennsylvania); Bitchinâ Berry beer (Nevada); Bobâs Bitchinâ BBQ (Wisconsin); Bitchin Coffee (North Carolina); Bitchinâ Betty brown ale (also North Carolina); and Bitchinâ Digs commercial and residential design in Malibu, California, home of the original bitchinâ surfer girl Gidget.
Like bad, wicked, and sick, three other negatives-turned-slang-positive, bitchinâ has reversed course, from pejorative to enthusiastically approving. While other surfer slang has crested and ebbed â does anyone still say âquimbyâ or âkooksterâ? â bitchinâ continues to ride a long, sweet wave of acceptance by the mainstream.
https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2024/03/27/thats-bitchin/
#bitchen #bitchin #Gidget #surferSlang #surfing