RSS feedExcuse the partial reference to a Young Ones joke, but today I learned a new phrase. I like to think that I’m still a kid in a lot of ways and am up on current street lingo, but much like the time I was caught unwares by that great American word “cool”, I’ve now discovered “tool around”.
Back in about 1991, I heard the word “cool” used by some friends, yet refused to use it, images of Happy Days, and U.S. English once again intruding upon the Australian vernacular. Of course six months later, due to the risk of sounding old and uncool, I of course was calling everything cool as well. How cool is that? The point is however, that I missed the coming of cool, which taught me a valuable lesson in ageing, which was pretty uncool.
So today I heard “tool around”, as in “What will we do for the web site demo?” “Well, we’ll probably just tool around a bit.”
And to my surprise, tool around actually has an unofficial definition.
Verb 1. tool around – ride in a car with no particular goal and just for the pleasure of it; “We tooled down the street”
Well, I guess I could have worked that out, and may have just heard it once or twice in that context, but it was interesting to hear it in common use none the less.
So, it is cool to tool around. Not exactly the definition I thought of when I first heard it, believe me.