I will do original reporting!
The Clintons have been trying to speak in a way my peoples will understand:
Nevertheless, I am in my mid-thirties, which makes me a generation older than anyone who is actually cool. I'm sure that I am not right either. However! I know afourfifteen year old girl! I will ask her, and she will tell me what the Clintons should have said to be hep cats.
UPDATE: Seems like the Clintons are more au courant than I am. My fifteen year old source reports that she would use chill or chill out interchangeably.
According to a Clinton supporter, the Governor's wife, Hillary Clinton, took her husband aside just before a debate and told him: "If Jerry Brown goes off on some wild tangent against you, just remind him he's from California and what they say out there is chill out . Just tell him to chill out."They're a generation older than I am, and have this mildly skewed by my standards. I would issue a "Chill, dude", without the follow through preposition. In my sister's circles, they say "Chilly" or "Keep it chilly" as an admonition to stay calm and keep one's head in a pressured situation. I think that is an idiosyncratic usage, from their time playing sports together.
Sure enough, as Mr. Brown started to inveigh against the Clinton civil rights record, Mr. Clinton interrupted cheerfully with "Jerry, chill out! You're from California—chill out. Cool off a little." That became the sound bite used on all the evening news shows the next day. Note how Governor Clinton slipped in the definition, "to cool off," so that non-Californians would understand.
Nevertheless, I am in my mid-thirties, which makes me a generation older than anyone who is actually cool. I'm sure that I am not right either. However! I know a
UPDATE: Seems like the Clintons are more au courant than I am. My fifteen year old source reports that she would use chill or chill out interchangeably.
posted by Megan at 1:41 PM
9 Comments:
Actually, he should have said, "chillAX," an admonition to both "chill out" and "relax," with the accent over the a for increased emphasis.
If I thought he and Attorney General Brown were speaking in code to each other, as generational peers, I would understand better.
I've seen chillax around the blogs, but not heard it much. No doubt my source will confirm your usage.
I'm not entirely certain they are concentrating on the 14-year-old vote.....
I would say "chill, dude" too, which almost certainly implies that it's for fuddy-duddies. Sorry.
The other thing I might say is just "dude" in my what-are-you-doing tone.
Experience of the day: I checked the weather this morning and it was in the high 40s implying a warmish day. It has gotten progressively colder and made going to dinner an ordeal. Maybe the two-scoop sundae I had wasn't a smart buy...
I am not looking forward to waiting for the bus tonight to go home.
Today, at noon, snow eagerly fell as if it could roll back spring into winter once more.
Jerry Brown is nearly 70 and he presumably knows what "chill out" means.
The quote you're mentioning, though, comes from a NY Times article from 1992. I don't think the 14-year old girl will have much perspective on what the cool people were saying in 1992.
But what's really important here is that he didn't say, "Take a chill pill." My mom says that, which means it is, de facto, not cool.
It occurs to me now: if you are a politician, you don't have to be actually cool. You just have to be a smidgen cooler than the other guy.
Post a Comment
<< Home