Expert: Carl Fuglein - 5/2/2005

Question
Some say that God is groovy.What does that mean?Thanks!

Answer
Hi Randy,

You get the prize for the most unusual question I've ever received.  Thanks for writing.


Groovy is a slang word from the 1960's, the hippy generation.  The word means cool, great, neat, wonderful, and otherwise just marvelous.  Probably the closest word in today's slang would be phat, fly, awesome, or, not surprisingly, cool (which was in use in the 60's as well.)

Here's some discussion about slang that I found at http://www.completetranslation.com/idioms.htm
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Slang, also known as cant, jargon, lingo, argot, patois or vernacular, is difficult to define. As recently as 1989, the "Oxford English Dictionary" defined slang as "the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar type." Slang is also defined as "the non-standard use of words in a language", and "the creation of new words or importation of words from another language." Sometimes slang is confused with jargon, which is the collection of vocabulary specific to a profession, such as medical terminology.

But, how accurate is it to describe slang as non-standard usage? A "good thing" may have been 'swell' in the 1930s and 1940s, 'neat' in the 1950s, 'groovy' in the 1960s, and 'cool' in the 1970s. Using 'cool' as a slang term is probably nearly as common, if not more common, than using it to mean its literal definition. And although the term 'cool' may still be understood today, the popularity of swell, neat and groovy has diminished.

With the recent growth of text messaging, slang terms have even adopted commonly used spellings which do not conform to the rules of formal language; thus what a youth of the 1960s might have called 'groovy', a youth of 2004 might call 'phat'. Maybe we need to define precisely what standard usage is? Does it mean using it as the dictionary defines it? Perhaps we should say that slang is a usage "other than the dictionary definition".
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There's also an interesting article about slang here: http://www.allexperts.com/answerq_step2.asp

Here's some Thesaurus words that are synonyms:
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groovy

adjective

Particularly excellent: divine, fabulous, fantastic, fantastical, glorious, marvelous, sensational, splendid, superb, terrific, wonderful. Informal dandy, dreamy, great, ripping, super, swell, tremendous. Slang cool, hot, keen1, neat, nifty. Idioms: out of this world. See good/bad.
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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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As far as I'm concerned, I think God is pretty groovy myself, although I wouldn't necessarily use that in today's language.  I would more likely say God is awesome.

Hope this helps.  Please take the time to rate my answer.


blessings,

carl