Rare non-comic post...

Been looking up 1940s slang. Because it's fun. I've been finding mostly gangster and "hardbroiled" slang (i.e. from detective novels). Which is awesome. Not quite teenage slang, but I'm sure I can find that too.

Besides, teenagers *always* want to sound street-tough, so it's not a total loss.

And it's so colorful. "Bindle stiffs" and "Eggs in the Coffee", "Highbinders" and "Alderman"...only good can come of knowing this, I truly think. :-)

Now if I were writing something involving superheroes and sidekicks in the forties, (like a period piece or flashback), one that I'd really like to use but would probably never be allowed to is "Gaycat".

Which means pretty much what you probably think it does, literally: "A young punk who runs with an older tramp and there is always a connotation of homosexuality" .

Crime-fighting hero, teenage sidekick...you *know* they'd have heard it. :-) Besides, maybe it wouldn't be such an old joke in the forties. :-P

Oh well, there's still a lot of useful stuff here. Yay! Now the trick'll be to watch a lot of old movies and get enough practice with it to make it sound natural. :-) That'll be a trick, in and of itself. Also to avoid the temptation to go overboard with it

...though at the right moments the complete incomprehension of the more "out of touch" characters could be decidedly entertaining...