Mike's Top 10 Uncool Things To Say

10   Scoping the "Bettys"

Remember the good ole days?  The days where it was cool to hang out at the mall, drink some sodas and be Scoping the Bettys.  Now that the internet has its claws clamped firmly in American youths social circle gone are the days of meeting at the local 7-11, talking to your friends on the phone all night long and basically making a fool of yourself in public trying to score with the chicks.  Scoping Bettys has been replaced with the A,G,L? question.  (Age, Gender, Location for those of you less than internet savvy.)

9   Na Nu-Na Nu

Robin Williams smashed into American pop culture with his debut of Mork from Ork on Happy Days.  The next season the character had its own show.  Every where you would turn people were wearing rainbow colored suspenders with the little white hands with a pointy finger.  This was accompanied with the tee-shirt of Na Nu-Na Nu, with a hand with its fingers spread open like Spock.  (This was how you would shake hands with an Orkan).  Nowdays if you walked up to a youth and said Na Nu-Na Nu you would get a Forgezzy my Nezzy for an answer.

8   Bad

Bad, the simple three letter word that for some reason in the early 90's did a 180 degree turn on its meaning.  I still remember parents trying their best to understand that if a skateboard was Bad, it was good.  I imagine there were thousands of unwanted gifts received by young Americans because the parent heard it was bad, and thought they would be cool and get the item for their children, of course this was 2 weeks after October 12th, 1993 when the meaning of the word reverted back to its original meaning.

7   Cowabunga!

Pop culture hero Bart Simpson made this the catch phrase to say in the late 80's.  Previously linked to southern Californian surfer lingo.  It was not unusual to see a 6 year old child flying down a sidewalk screaming "Cowabunga" moments before he hit a ramp made of water damaged plywood that would crush under the weight of the child as he flew across it, sending said child flying headfirst into the concrete.  Ahh, the good ole days.

6   Whaaazzzzzzzuuuuupppp?????

Budweiser brought to us this great piece of pop culture vocabulary.  Unfortunately it hit critical mass when there were commercials of women older than my grandma yelling Whazzzupp across the nursing home. Grandma was the nail in the coffin to this cool thing to say.

5   Phat

Closely related to the previously mentioned uncool word, Bad, Phat was another word that meant opposite of what it sounded like.   Phat trumps Bad though with the new spelling of the word, Phat with a PH, not an F.  I think this could be the root of the problem that women have today complaining about being fat.  Perhaps Phat was said to them as a compliment when they were of a young, impressionable age and they have had a complex ever since.

4   Bitchin

Notice a trend going on here.  In the dictionary Bitch is listed as:

A female canine animal, especially a dog.

A lewd woman.

A man considered to be weak or contemptible.

Slang. A complaint.

Slang. Something very unpleasant or difficult.

Notice that none of these are what was meant to be said when it was cool to say it.  If you scored an A on a test, it was Bitchin or you could own a Bitchin car.  This in converse to what the actually meaning of the word is.  There must have been some great reversie drugs going around in the late 80's early 90's.

3   Totally "Anything"

Please feel free to  insert any word after "Totally" here.  Bitchin, Awesome even Tubular.  Now explain to me how a great event could be "Totally Tubular".  This expression was made popular by the great Jeff Spicoli, A.K.A. Sean Penn in the 80's version of Animal House, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  He was a brain dead, pot smoking surfer dude who ordered pizza to be deliverd in class, and had dreams of Van Halen playing his birthday party.  Impressionable young men trying to emulate this cultural god single handedly dropped the gross national I.Q. points by 3. 

2   Rad

We take a trip back to the dictionary for this one:

Rad;  Excellent; wonderful.

You could possibly score a triple word score in a game a Scrabble with this one!  I can hear the arguments now that Rad is not actually a word, and the pride that would have to be swallowed when Webster was pulled out.  Stop the madness!  We must band together, organize a march to the gates of the Webster Dictionary company and have a nude strike that the networks will televise world wide.  All this must be done to kill the no longer cool word Rad.

1   Gnarley

This word was cool to say for about 2 weeks in the summer of 87.  Again we will go to the dictionary for the true meaning of this word:

Used of old persons or old trees; covered with knobs or knots; "gnarled and knotted hands"; "a knobbed stick

"That was a Gnarley trick dude!", "These tater tots are totally Gnarley".  And who could forget "That chick is Gnarley in the sack"?  Lets think about the true definition of this word, and then look upon the context in which it was used.  We were a sick and troubled society in the 80's.