I learned many interesting lessons in my linguistics studies, but the one that arises most often is the ‘fact’ (it could be apocryphal) that the word "cool," as slang for “intensely good,” is the oldest idiom to mean “intensely good” that is still in use in English. My condolences to “groovy,” “rad,” and “tubular.”
Feel free to disagree with the “record” aspect of this fun-fact, but it’s hard to argue against the following subsets of the claim: 1) cool, as slang, is still in use today, and 2) this ‘counterword’ has been in use since the 1930s, which means it’s about to celebrate its 100th birthday!
I just turned 43, and while I can picture myself living another 47 years, I cannot imagine staying relevant for half that time, let alone appearing “cool” to the majority of Americans from The Greatest Generation, to Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, and, so far, Generation Alpha!
I mean, that’s pretty cool, right?
Now that I think about it, there is a lot of nuance to this topic. For example, feeling cool isn’t the same as being cool, but that’s hard to explain. It’s like the time the Supreme Court said you have to see porn to know if it’s porn. I think you have to witness cool to know if it’s cool.
But even that explanation is circular. I’ve known people “I witnessed as cool” who didn’t feel cool, so even if you’re cool, it doesn’t mean you feel cool. This explains some celebrity suicides. Like it or not, how you feel is what matters. How others think you feel and what they project on you? That’s fool’s gold.
Perhaps the best way to explore cool is with real, living examples.
We’ll start with Mick Jagger. The guy is in his 80s, yet millions of people in 2024 are still lining up to pay top dollar to see him perform. There’s no competing explanation for this. He’s cool.
Now, picture Woody Allen. Also an octogenarian, he’s made 61 films, won 4 Oscars, and he’s worth 140 million dollars. However, no one, not nobody, has ever thought the guy was cool. Yet, even when you consider his ‘troubled legacy,’ many would still say he’s led a cool life, and his career was cool.
Even more complicated, is the way time and distance plays with our perception of cool.
Growing up, Jimi Hendrix was my definition of cool. However, as I get older, he seems less cool. Why? Because dying young from living-too-hard sounded cool in my adolescence, but now, as a dorky dad, his death seems unbearably sad, just like Janis Joplin’s, Jim Morrison’s, and others like them.
My final example for cool is undeniable, and most likely the G.O.A.T., and he also supports my theory that race was invented by bitter White people to explain why Black people are cooler than them (Relax, I’m kidding. OK, I’m not, but still, relax. I’m OK and you’re OK and we’re all gonna die, OK?).
I hereby submit for your cool approval the one, the only, the indefatigable Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr!
Huh? What? Who?
I’m talking about Snoop, D.O. double G, duh. A man who, just like the word cool, has managed to not only stay relevant for many decades, but, unlike the word cool, or Mick Jagger, or every other cool person I can think of, Snoop’s done this without ever reinventing himself.
Seriously, Snoop is so cool that society has had to reinvent itself around him.
From marijuana to Martha Stewart, Snoop has successfully navigated more weird mainstream terrain than anyone else. Who would of thought that this “bad boy” felon, who stood trial in 1996 for first-degree murder (the case they gave him), would become an all-ages-appropriate network TV star?
How cool is that?!
Before I started writing this essay, I would have said cool (as slang) means “being someone others admire as a person who doesn’t care what others think about them, but only in a positive way.” However, after much contemplation and research, I’d now define it quite differently:
Being cool means being comfortable when others don’t think they would be. But, there’s a weird, quantum physics entanglement that arises with my definition. This means that to be cool involves an object and a witness. One cannot be cool unless another is judging them from their perspective.
Being cool requires an audience, which is sort of the great, cosmic joke I’m leaning into as I continue to age out and be less cool, yet also not give the slightest f*** about either situation. In fact, were I to observe myself as an outsider, I’d say I’m finally cool, now that I don’t give a sh** about being cool.
TLDR: I used to want to be cool, but wasn’t, but now that I’m cool with not being cool, I feel cool all the time, because I’m not trapped in the “coolness paradigm. So take it from me, the least cool person on Earth: If you wanna be cool, that’s not cool, but if you wanna feel cool, stop trying to be cool. We cool?
This week on Coffin Talk: Marianne Coleman is an artist, published illustrator, and retired nurse who specialized in Cardio-Thoracic and Vascular surgery. Spiritually, she has always had a fascination for all things that go bump in the night or haunt your dreams. This started from a very young age when she had her first experiences with Star People, which are ongoing to this day. Want more? listen here!
How cool is that!