A hip chick in a snicker is a smart, alert girl dressed in her “do-it-yourself” oilcloth rain cape on which her friends have scrawled funny sayings.
As fads go, it’s surprisingly practical—waterproof, a good windbreaker, and loose enough to slip comfortably over layers of heavy winter clothing. From a 54 inch square of oilcloth, the chick or cat makes a hole in the center just big enough to slip a cool head through. And that’s that—except for trimming the neck and edges with waterproof tape in a matching or contrasting color, and letting friends run wild with an indelible, waterproof magic marker.
A teen who is really “neat” might also make a snicker slicker hat out of oilcloth, something like an updated sou’wester. Those who are extremely “far out” may even sport matching book covers and umbrella holdable. “Kick the bucket,” for example, shows no sign of doing so—even though the expression dates from 1785!
“Button your lip,” a frequent injunction in World War II, was first used as a warning in 1787. “Bones” as a slang term in “dice” is at least as old as the 14th century; the poet Chaucer used it in 1387.
If you think of yourself as on the ball, you’re old hat—but the latter expression is surprisingly new. There’s also some indication that “endsville” and similar “ville” terms are now used by the “Mickey Mouse” (square) and not by the true hipster. Nor does a cool cat refer to something as the “end”; to express satisfaction he may now say “Everything’s everything.”
But as long as slang keeps growing and changing—the word “slang,” incidentally, was used in 1916 to mean “watch chain”—one thing is sure: whatever is “the end” at any given moment is only the beginning.