To Gleep, Or Not To Gleep
Many times, outsiders seeking to chronicle the language of a tribe are lied to. I suspect this was the case with this 1963 article on campus slang. While many of the terms are well-documented, I can find no online references to the act of "gleeping" and suspect some researcher was getting his leg pulled.
Or maybe the reporter felt it would be a prank to make something up and insert it and see if anyone noticed.
Comments
No, we used it almost ubiquitously on a daily basis but it went more like "Gleep you you gleeping gleephole!"
Oh... wait... that should be "beep" not gleep. Sorry :down:
Oh... wait... that should be "beep" not gleep. Sorry :down:
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 05/29/16 at 10:52 AM
I think there's a reference or two in the classic historical Pixar drama, Finding Nemo...
Posted by s on 05/29/16 at 03:19 PM
For some reason this made me think of the green martian from the later Flintstones cartoons.
Posted by BrokeDad in Midwest US on 05/30/16 at 12:35 AM
So gleeping is what football players are doing when they bang their helmets together to psych themselves up before a game.
Posted by Fritz G on 05/30/16 at 08:18 AM
I found a 1964 article (Kokomo Morning Times - Sep 8, 1964) that provides two alternative teen-talk definitions for 'gleep': 1) to pursue and conquer; 2) a glamorous creep — "beautiful, dumb and dangerous around loose boyfriends."
Posted by Alex on 05/30/16 at 02:27 PM
Excellent sleuthing, Alex!
Posted by Paul on 05/30/16 at 03:41 PM
But the question remains -- was gleep a real slang term? And what was its actual meaning?
Personally I like the toe-standing definition best.
Personally I like the toe-standing definition best.
Posted by Alex on 05/30/16 at 04:26 PM
I found two entries for gleep in Cassell's Dictionary of Slang: please see them at this link:
https://books.google.com/books?id=5GpLcC4a5fAC&pg=PA607&dq=gleep&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiN96jQ0YLNAhXI7YMKHfD9CfE4ChDoAQgvMAQ#v=onepage&q=gleep&f=false
I think the first definition, making fun of the way a Chinese speaking person would say the word "creep", has possibilities. (By the way, HDAS, which suggested this definition, stands for Historical Dictionary of American Slang.) The second definition, about using "gleep" to mean "steal", doesn't seem as likely, at least to me.
https://books.google.com/books?id=5GpLcC4a5fAC&pg=PA607&dq=gleep&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiN96jQ0YLNAhXI7YMKHfD9CfE4ChDoAQgvMAQ#v=onepage&q=gleep&f=false
I think the first definition, making fun of the way a Chinese speaking person would say the word "creep", has possibilities. (By the way, HDAS, which suggested this definition, stands for Historical Dictionary of American Slang.) The second definition, about using "gleep" to mean "steal", doesn't seem as likely, at least to me.
Posted by Fritz G on 05/30/16 at 04:53 PM
@BrokeDad That would be the Great Gazoo.
Posted by GFinKS on 05/31/16 at 11:59 AM
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Category: 1960s | Universities, Colleges, Private Schools and Academia | Slang