Origins

With It, Out of It

by S. D. Liddiard

Joe inspected his closet with growing dismay. He and his wife were planning a rare night of clubbing and, from the point of view of fashionable outerwear, he felt like Old Mother Hubbard.

"I don’t know how this happened. I used to be so cool. I was groovy." "This was before we met, right?" quipped his better half.

Joe just looked at her.

"Why don’t you wear a pair of Dockers and nice Oxford shirt?"

"That may be okay for dress-down Fridays, but I’ll look like an idiot at The Spot. Business casual is meant to impress my boss. It won’t impress anyone downtown."

"Just who are you trying to impress downtown?"

"No one … everyone. I don’t know. I just want to be with it. I’m tired of being out of it."

"You’re out of your mind."

Joe paid no attention. He was already planning a shopping trip to outfit himself in some of the more contemporary apparel than what comprised his current wardrobe. His wife was probably just concerned about the attention he was bound to receive from women more sensitive to the importance of fashion than she. He could have reassured her that his head would not be turned, but he decided that a little concern would do her good. At least it might do him some good.

At the local mall, later that day, Joe bypassed the stores where he had been buying his clothes for the last several years. They had become too stodgy, their styles too watered down. He even bypassed The Gap. Instead he entered The Zone. He tried not to feel disoriented.

"May I help you, sir?" The young shop assistant brimmed with respectful politeness. The silver spike in her tongue made her lisp a little. Joe tried not to stare at the rings in her eyebrow and nose. He still was not used to being called "sir."

With all the congeniality he could muster, Joe said, "I’m looking for a couple of pairs of pants and tops. Something bad; something hip." "Yes, sir. Is this for a gift? Do you know what size you’re looking for?" Now that was even worse than being addressed with respect. He smiled through his intensifying angst and succumbed to cowardice. "It’s for my nephew. He’s just my size."

The assistant’s eyebrows knitted for a beat, then she showed Joe some things. He eventually settled on two cotton sweaters and a pair of cargo pants. The assistant talked him into choosing cargo pants that were a size too big.

"That’s how everyone wears them. Your nephew will like them that way; it’ll make his tummy look smaller."

Joe nearly choked. The sweaters were also a size larger than Joe would have bought on his own.

As he walked toward the exit after paying for his purchases, Joe spied the shop assistant conversing with another girl. The two of them seemed to be sharing a joke. He walked over to say a final word and was nonplussed when the girl turned to him suddenly and said, "We’re not dissing you, honest."

Joe wasn’t sure what she meant. He just turned and left. That evening as he was trying on his new outfit, Joe discovered that to reach his wallet in the hip pocket of the cargo pants, he had to reach down below the bottom of his right buttock. He caught a glimpse of himself doing that in the mirror and keeled over laughing. He began to have an inkling of what it meant to be dissed.

As they were setting out that evening, Joe’s wife turned to him and said, "For my money, you look hot in a button-down shirt and khakis."

Many of the terms used today to mean fashionable or popular either began in the Jazz Age of the 1920s or evolved in reaction to terms that came into use then. This was the time when popular culture in America overtook high culture in importance. Knowledge of popular culture became a significant personal attribute, so expressions were needed to describe the state of this knowledge and the importance one attached to it. Groovy means "functioning smoothly." This term grew out of the Jazz Age expression in the groove, referring to a phonograph record of good jazz music.

Because popular culture is continually evolving and changing, it is a challenge to remain aware of the latest developments. The terms that carry the greatest respect are the ones that describe those who either lead this evolution or are the first to find out about it. These folks are with it.

When you are with it, you are "up to date." This term became popular with teenagers in the 1950s. The real question here is what is it? It has been used to describe an unnameable, but desirable quality in people for much longer. As far back as 1904, Rudyard Kipling had a character say, "‘Tisn’t beauty ... nor good talk necessarily. It’s just It. Some women’ll stay in a man’s memory if they once walk down a street." I believe the term with it has its roots in the 1926 serialized novel It by English author Elinor Glyn. The it in this story was "sex appeal." The novel was made into a hugely successful movie of the same name in 1927. Clara Bow starred as Betty Lou Spence, a salesgirl with plenty of it and was known ever after as the It girl.

Out of it has two principal senses. One means "not in possession of one’s faculties," as in drunk or high on drugs and came into popular usage during the 1960s. The it in this case is "one’s mind." An older meaning, still in use, is "not in-the-know" and probably began to be used in this sense in the 1950s. Here, the it could mean "sex appeal" again, but most likely means "knowledge" or "the popular clique."

Something is bad in "gangsta" culture if it is especially good. The disenfranchisement felt by some Black youths leads them to invert the meaning of words as a way to express their rejection of the culture of the majority. It is a continuing irony that mainstream culture soon appropriates these same terms with their inverted meanings.

A person who was hep in the 1920s and ’30s was "in the know." Some experts believe this term came from the name of a worldly and wise bartender in 1890s Chicago. In this scenario, hip is a variation of hep. Others believe that hip is the original term, arising from on the hip, used by opium smokers to describe themselves. (The addicts generally reclined on one side while consuming their drug.)

To diss someone is "to insult" or "say disrespectful things about." This term arose in Black America, and is a shortened form of "disrespect," which was first turned into a verb. At least some credit has to go to Aretha Franklin’s huge hit song from the 1960s, Respect. Hot came to mean "exciting" or "popular" in the crowded jazz clubs and speakeasies of the 1920s. Hot jazz was what got people up on the dance floor working up a sweat and making the place literally hot. Hot has meant sexually aroused and by extension, sexually appealing, for almost as long as it has been an English word.

Black American culture has been providing cutting-edge slang since at least the Jazz Age. The last 20 years of the 20th century may one day be known as the Hip Hop Age. Many current slang terms originate with those who practise and follow Hip Hop and Rap music.

S. D. Liddiard used to be with it. Back then he was pretty cool. Now he’s just out of it.