The Sharpest Knife

The death of any slang term is a sad affair, but you can console your distraught children by explaining that the passing of a particular word or phrase is all part of the cycle of life. "No diggity" may have gone up to heaven, yes, it's truly sad, but look! What's this that's sprung up? Why, it's "No dizzle"! And look, there's another one, "No Dizzy"! And don't worry, kids, "No Diggity" will never die in our hearts, minds, and our future sense of ironic nostalgia. Why, I bet when you kids are grown up and in college, all the boys and girls will be tossing it around in a flip gesture of admiration/scorn for the bygone nineties.

One such term long in need of such a resurrection: Blade. As in "dashing youth."

I first encountered it in "The Gold Diggers of 1933," an old Busy Berkeley musical. In it, a pugnacious stuffed shirt of a character actor says something along the lines of "We came down from Harvard, a collection of young blades out for a good time..." Since then I've seen it pop up in various settings, nothing much dating after the fifties. Interestingly enough, it seems to have been wiped away completely, not even surviving as a museum piece like "Peachy Keen" or "Hepcat." I'm guessing that's probably because it wasn't particularly widespread to begin with. There's something sort of literary and upperclass about it. Etymologically, it probably comes from the usage of "blade" as "swordsman," and it seems as though these swordsmen and their exploits were probably popularized by novels.

Anyway, that's all conjecture. My main point is that its total disappearance from popular parlance makes it perfect for a comeback. It just needs someone to bring it back, and it's too bad that Method Man has no credibility left to blow, because he would have been perfect. Frankly, I don't think Mike Jones is up to the task.