And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming: Is it really Hip to be Square?

We all know (or should know) that a square is composed up of 4 right (or 90 degree) angles.  That's important but not as interesting as the slang that as evolved from the term "square".


What's a square you say?


Well are you asking for a square?  If so, you're likely asking for a cigarette.


How about saying: "Lemme give you the $20.  I owe you.  Now we're all square" .  You would be using "square" to say that we're even.  


Also, commonly used - I won that hat fair and square! Which has an element of honesty to it.


Now here's a little spiel taken from Wikipedia: 


In the parlance of jazz, a square was a person who failed to appreciate the medium, more broadly someone who was out of date or out of touch, hence the saying "be there or be square". In the counterculture movements that started in the 1940s and took momentum in the 1960s a "square" referred to someone who clung to repressive, traditional, stereotypical, one-sided, or "in the box" ways of thinking. The term was used by hipsters in the 1940s, beatniks in the 1950s, hippies in the 1960s, yippies in the 1970s, and other individuals who took part in the movements which emerged to contest the more conservative national, political, religious, philosophical, musical and social trends


Then there was the Huey Lewis video in the 80s "Hip to be Square".    This song was also used in American Psycho which portrayed the scariest square guy in the history of man.





Do I think it's "hip to be square"?  Well, I would have to say that although I do not seem very square at all, deep down inside I do have some old fashioned tendencies.  I also tend to really rather like "square" people.  (ie: Meg and her strict adherence to rules.).  However, I never really think of myself as a square.  I'm more of an octagon but we won't talk about THAT until February!