According to Tom Wolfe, it was originally a Hells Angels' term for a bad motorcycle trip, but it eventually became a Hippy term for a bad LSD trip; what word is it?
Etymology, Etymology, and more Etymology
as well as grammar, usage, euphemism, slang, jargon, semantics (meaning), linguistics, neologism, idiom, word origin, syntax, dialect, lexicon (vocabulary), diction, pidgin, synonym, antonym, homonym, cant, argot, lingo, and redundancy.
The critically-acclaimed board game
MooT
consists of tough questions about the nuances of the English language.
Answer:
bummer
According to Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test:
"The Angels were adding LSD to the already elaborate list of highs and lows they liked: beer, wine, marijuana, Benzedrine, Seconal, Amytal, Nembutal, Tuinal. Some of them had terrible bummers — bummer was the Angels' term for a bad trip on a motorcycle and it very quickly became the hip world's term for a bad trip on LSD."
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as: "An unpleasant or depressing experience, esp. one induced by a hallucinatory drug." Note: The OED's first citation for the term is from 1967 (Joan Didion in the Saturday Evening Post): "I ask if he found a ride to New York. ‘I hear New York's a bummer,’ he says."
Please note that these are draft questions for the board game MooT.
If you spot an error or disagree with anything I've said here,
please let me know and I'll fix it.
(the Mootguy)
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Also Common Noun "Bummer" one who "bums" cigarettes (always smoking others' supplies). Slang in India late sixties
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