Why we should bring back 'horny', 'franga' and 'hickey'.

“Geez, I feel horny.”

I remember the day a slightly sweaty, love-lorn Romeo, aged about 16, said this to me. I was flattered – I mean, who wouldn’t be? Silver tongued devil. It was all I could do not to throw my 14-year-old self at him for a bit of a pash. Maybe even some enthusiastic pubescent frotting.

But – and this might come as a surprise – I’d forgotten all about it until I was at the gym last week. One of the pay channels – Channel V? – was serving up a heavy dose of nostalgia, and there it was: Mousse T beating out the catchy tune I’m Horny.

And the moment came flooding back. So did another incident, a few years later, when my sister was propositioned with the immortal words: “I’ve got the H.'” To which she relied: “Yeah, I’m hungry too.”

I went home and asked the 16-year-old I Iive with this: "If I said I was horny, would you know what I was talking about?" She screwed up her face, which I took to mean 'no'.

"What about if I said 'franga'?

"Barf?"

"Pigs?"

By then she'd run from the room mumbling something about how she didn't understand half the things I said anyway. Like, EVER.

The next morning, walking to the bus, I saw the angry remnants of some graffiti. 'Kill yuppies!!!' it urged, albeit now in a faded, half-hearted kind of way.

And I realised she wouldn't have a clue what a yuppie was either. At that point, I realised just how much our language has changed.

So here are 10 words I loved and used every single day when I was in my teens and early 20s. To my eternal sadness, I hardly ever hear them now.

1. Frenchie: As in 'Did he used a frenchie?', that being a condom and something you really hoped he did use if you'd gotten randy (see 'horny'), chosen to engage in a bit of rumpy-pumpy and didn't want to get (I'm sorry, I have to say it) up the duff.

'Frenchie' was short for 'French letter'. Sometimes we said 'franga'. And we all sang along to a Red Gum song about same called Roll It On Robbie. People smarter than me give this as the origin of the term:

"The most likely origin of "French letters" lies in an interesting but now obsolete verb let, ‘to hinder or prevent’, as in "without let" or hindrance and the more familiar tennis expression "let ball" (where the progress of the ball is hindered by the net). . .a letter could refer to someone or something that hindered. The purpose of the French letter is precisely this - to hinder or prevent in this case conception or to prevent the spread of venereal infection".

Watch the Redgum video below. Post continues after video.

2. Yuppie: Dismissively, as in 'Oh God, they are such a pair of yuppies.' The term stood for 'Young Urban Professional' or 'Young Up-and-coming Professional'. They usually lived close to the city and earned HEAPS more than you, which wasn't hard since I was at college and made a great fuss of spouting for the proletariart, even though I secretly wanted to be a yuppie and have a posh car. Again, not hard to have a car posher than the one I had, which was a tan, second-hand Datsun.

3. Dead set: An exclamation of admiring disbelief, as in "Are you dead set?!" or a serious proclamation of the truth of some matter: "I rolled the van. Dead set."

I find this hard to believe, but dictionary.com says the phrase originated sometime around 1840-50 in America, and I suppose if someone is dead they are pretty set on their views, so that date is a possibility. But if you want the truth, it originated in north-west NSW in about 1970.

4. Goober: As in "Piss off, ya goober." You didn't want to hang out with a goober. They were daggy and friendless, and possibly a little slack and dribbly around the jaw. There was one in every classroom, and they probably had to sit alone.

I feel sorry for goobers now, and hope they've all succeeded because we were so mean to them.

5. Hickey: As in "Did he give you a hickey?" We wanted hickeys, aka love bites, aka blood bruises left by someone sucking grimly on your neck or boob to show they cared.  I came home with one from the pool one day. Mum made me put haemorrhoid cream on it and dad ranted a bit. The pool - in fact, anywhere outside our yard - was off limits for a time after this for fear I'd be sucked again. I spent most of those long weeks admiring my hickey in the mirror.

I didn't know this, but in the printing world, a hickey is also a blemish where the ink has failed to fix. Unlike the boy attached to your neck. Use of the word 'hickey' really kicked from about 1969, as this handy graph shows:

6. Fuzz: As in "Run!!! Here comes the fuzz!!". The fuzz were the police -  the pigs, the cops - but even now, noone knows why they were called that. Some say it's because of the static on their radio, other say it's a corruption of the word 'force', others say it was because the pigs 'fussed' over the small stuff.

And some say it was never used in general conversation. To that, I say: You didn't live in north-west NSW. It was teeming with fuzz, and not the beardy kind.

7. Olds: As in "What did your olds say?" The Olds, 'mum and dad' if you wanted something were just that - off-the-scale aged folk who knew very little and understood even less.

To my Olds, I'd like to say 'sorry'. Turns out it was me who knew little and understood less. But you would have loved the way I postured when I said it  ...

8. Zit: As in "Can I squeeze your zits?". Zits were pimples, the makings of a 'pizza face', and they didn't seem nearly as revolting back then as they do now. I find it hard to believe I'd squeeze my own pimples, let alone anyone else's. But I clearly recall sitting around like a tribe of volcano-faced chimps, digging and erking and occasionally admiring the whitish issue.

I know. Revolting.

9. Barf: As in "He drank so much he barfed everywhere." To barf was to vomit. Best use ever? Rizzo in Grease: "Miss Goody-Two-Shoes makes me wanta barf." Hard to disagree - Sandy was a bit too skippy-preppy-nice until she turned into a Pink Lady.

10. Stoked: As in "What a top present! I'm stoked!!" If you were stoked, you were happy beyond belief. The Urban Dictionary describes it thus: "stoked" - adjective - to be "stoked" is to be completely and intensely enthusiastic, exhilarated, or excited about something. Those who are stoked all of the time know this; being stoked is the epitome of all being. When one is stoked, there is no limit to what one can do."

I was stoked when I got my first car. I was stoked when I got a truly fantastic paisley dress that I wore with JC sandals. I was not stoked when I got my first kiss. It was slobbery.

I want to bring these - and so many other - words back. What have I missed? What else do you miss? Tell us below.

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