[ANON POST] 1950s Culture Clash

[kutsuwamushi]

So, I have my main character, 12 year old, tough, working class kid going back in time to meet with his tough, working class grandfather in 1957 in Missouri. Now, I'm assuming that my blue collar grandpa won't sound like a Happy Days character, but I'm just not sure how much language I can get away with, either. Does he cuss like a sailor? Swear,

Comments

[sailorhathor]

>> I'm looking for possible phrases the grandson could use that just weren't around back then and would make people look at him strangely

Beotch
Gay marriage
Homeboy
Emo
Oh no you di'n't!
Shut the front door
Danger, Will Robinson, danger!
You are the weakest link. Goodbye.
SUV
Clubbing
Rave

Pretty much any catchphrase from recent television or mention of a product that didn't exist back then. (5 Hour Energy, Red Bull, etc.)

[sailorhathor]

Have him talk about man landing on the moon and Mars too! :D

[punch]

+1 for Lost in Space.

I second this. Anything popular culture related.

As for things the grandfather would say - watch Back To The Future, that involves going back in time to the 50s.

[sailorhathor]

I don't think there were sack-dances and end-zone dances in the football games of the 50s, and this reminds me that in basketball I don't remember the term "slam dunk," particularly when used in general conversation as in "that [job/task] was easy; it was a real slam-dunk."

Also in the realm of the casual racism of the "ideal" 50s, racist sayings would crop up, such as "Two against one is N*****-Fun," when 2 boys would gang up on a third. ... Sometimes boys would share cigarettes, pass one around, and if one boy got his saliva on the cigarette (which was usually non-filter), this was called "N*****-lipping," another racist term.

[laetificat]

Stephen King's 11/23/63 time-travels its main character back to the late fifties. It's a great book and the narrator struggles with this exact thing. You may find it good reading as well as educational, which is a crazy thing to say about Stephen King. LOL.

[mereprototype]

Oooh, good idea. Language gaps, pop culture stuff, how money looks different and the intense change in prices between now and then, clothes and hair styles, and the not so great stuff. The book doesn't talk about working class families very much, but it'd be a good way to get a feel for the period and differences overall.

And my copy of the book is at the other end of the state, dammit.

[rosehiptea]

I was talking to my late dad a couple of years ago. He was born in 1931 to a working class family in Washington State. I asked him if kids swore around each other when he was a kid, and he said they did, from around age ten. That surprised me but that's what he said.

When I heard my dad swear he used mostly the same words I do. But I didn't hear him swear in the '50s of course. But he definitely said fuck, shit, damn, etc. and I remember a reference to people saying "dick" when he was a teenager too.

[cdozo]

Check out http://www.amazon.com/Memos-From-Purgatory-Harlan-Ellison/dp/0441524389 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_the_City, both by Harlan Ellison. They may not be 100 % factal, but they will have enough truth to give you a pretty realistic feel for 1950's gang life.

[green_grrl]

A comment above reminds me that he could meet a boy named Richard whom everyone calls Dick or Dickie with no overtones or irony--he might choke himself trying not to laugh!

On the minus side, he'd probably see a lot of shocking, to him, institutional racism and use of the N word.