20 Odd Slang Terms and Activities from the Roaring Twenties That Prove Young People Have Always Been Confusing

20 Odd Slang Terms and Activities from the Roaring Twenties That Prove Young People Have Always Been Confusing

Larry Holzwarth - August 9, 2018

20 Odd Slang Terms and Activities from the Roaring Twenties That Prove Young People Have Always Been Confusing
Brazil’s Ambassador to the United States handcranks a Ford Model T, one of the most popular modes of transportation in the 1920s. Library of Congress

Transportation

Flivver was a reference to an automobile, usually a Ford Model T, though there were many other terms which referred to that manner of conveyance. Teens especially drove jalopies, and often painted a name for the vehicle on its side. The car could also be a hayburner, a reference to poor mileage which was also applied to slow horses at the race track. The word chassis was common in the 1920s, but rather than applying to the automobile it referred to the female body, with classy chassis, when directed towards a girl in a car, referring to her and not the vehicle. Old cars were also called a bus.

A bus was called a jitney, which fit any vehicle designed to carry several people on a planned route. Open jitneys and convertible cars were called breezers. Jitneys usually charged a fare of five cents and were thus also called nickels. You’re on the nickel, along with you’re on the trolley, were both expressions which meant you are correct. Those who didn’t own a car and lacked the nickel for the nickel were forced to ankle (walk) to their destination, often arriving with dead dogs (tired feet).

Advertisement