Language In S.E.Hinton’s

The Outsiders

Eeva Niklander Jenny Perttola

The Novel

• The Outsiders tells the story of 14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis, his brothers and the gang of friends they belong to. • Set in the 1960’s in the rough part of an American city, the story is a convincing description of the social and ideological conflicts between East Side Greasers and West Side Socials.

• The Outsiders is the first novel by S.E.Hinton, and was published in 1967. She was then eighteen.

• The story was inspired by Hinton’s own high school experiences in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

• The novel has also been published in Finnish by Otava in 1969, as Me kolme ja jengi.

• The Outsiders was adapted into a movie by Francis Ford Coppola and was released in 1983.

The Story

”We’re poorer than the Socs and the middle class. I reckon we’re wilder too. Not like the Socs, who jump greasers and wreck houses and throw beer blasts for kicks, and get editorials in the paper for being a public disgrace one day and a asset to society the next. Greasers are almost like hoods; we steal things and drive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations and have a gang fight once in a while.”

In Ponyboy’s world, there are no ordinary people, there are only Socials and Greasers. And being a Greaser means that you have it rougher than others – or at least, that’s what Ponyboy thinks.

When the story begins, Ponyboy and his two older brothers, Darry and Sodapop, have been orphaned less than a year ago, when both their parents were killed in a car accident. As Darry strives to hold two jobs to support his underaged brothers and Sodapop drops out of high school to help him, Ponyboy is going through a mental crisis. He is painfully aware of the barriers his social status puts in his way and which any amount of hard work and study fails to eradicate.

The Story

In the course of one evening, Ponyboy’s life takes a tragic turn, when his friend, Johnny, inadvertently kills a Soc in self-defense. The two boys have to go in hiding, and this is the beginning of an avalanche of events, that finally leads to Ponyboy’s writing of his life’s story.

”It was too vast a problem to be just a personal thing. There should be some help, someone should tell them before it was too late. Someone should tell their side of the story, and maybe people would understand then and wouldn’t be so quick to judge a boy by the amount of hair oil he wore.”

Language

• The story is narrated by Ponyboy, and the language in the novel reflects the way Greasers speak and think. Ponyboy is more educated than most of his friends, and his writing is likewise more literary. However, in describing his everyday life, Ponyboy uses everyday vocabulary, and this makes his writing a bit more speech-like than in novels in general.

• In the following slides, we will cover the book’s vocabulary (arranged thematically), syntactic structures (for example Adjective in place of adverb) and other points of interest.

• The page numbers given refer to the HarperCollins edition, thirty-fourth impression of The Outsiders from 1991.

Language - Vocabulary

• Words relating to violence slug (sb) 10 ”--the one on my chest slugged me a couple of times.” hit belt (sb) bang (up) 23 29 ”--Dally had turned around and belted him so hard it knocked a tooth loose.” ”We were used to seeing Johnny banged up.” hit beat (up) clobber rumble (also: to rumble) skin rumble whip stomp bopper, rumbler bop-action 67 14 97 20 81 101 ”I'd like as not get clobbered over the head.” hit ”A rumble, when it's called, is usually born of a grudge fight--” ”Nobody ever gets really hurt in a skin rumble.” ”--who could whip who--” ”When we stomp the Socies good--” ”He a pretty good bopper?” gang fight gang fight without weapons beat, take on beat fighter 101 ”--you take a guy that calls a rumble 'bop-action'--” fight

Language - Vocabulary

• Words relating to drinking and smoking cancer stick crocked soused pickled stoned 61 31 38 43 82 ”Gotta cancer stick, Johnnycake?” ”--Two-Bit was half-crocked when he gave me the lecture.” ”I think I'm a little soused.” ”--I figured they were reeling pickled.” ”--everybody can get stoned.” cigarette drunk drunk drunk drunk • Some words have gained additional meaning over the years or else have changed their meaning.

• For example, the word weed would nowadays mean marihuana rather than cigarette. Also, the word stoned now refers more often to drugs than to alcohol, as in the book.

Language - Vocabulary

• Words relating to gangster life hood(lum), JD cooler tuff swipe fuzz heater outfit 14 15 15 17 20 63 43 ”The shade of difference that separates a greaser from a hood wasn't present in Dally.” ”I didn't know you where out of the cooler yet, Dally.” ”Tuff means cool, sharp – like a tuff-looking Mustang or a tuff record.” ”He doesn't need half the thing he swipes from stores.” ”--nobody in his right mind wants to be around when the fuzz show.” ”I started carryin' a heater...” ”--the Shepard outfit liked the alleys down by the tracks.” gangster, thug, juvenile delinquent jail cool steal police gun gang turf mop mug 78 78 79 ”--(he was) far from his own turf--” ”What little squaw's got that tuff-lookin' mop of yours, Ponyboy?” ”They'd never believe that a little greasy-lookin- mug could be a hero.” territory hair hood

Language - Vocabulary

• Other words holler (at sb) 7 ”Like he's never hollering at me the way Darry is--” bub y'all 15 24 ”No sirree, bub.” ”Y'all sit up here with us.” trap doll broad 21 22 24 corn-poney beef peel out 51 67 109 yell, shout, scream boy, man (term ”Take your feet off my chair and shut your trap.” ”Man, your brother is one doll.” you mouth attractive person ”Not any greasy broads for us, but real Socs.” ”He sounded as corn-poney as Hank Williams.” ”If something beefed him, he didn't keep quiet about it.” girl (often offensive) unsophisticated annoy, bug ”He vroomed the motor and peeled out.” drive off

Language – Syntactic structures

Adjective in place of adverb

• ”I sweated something fierce.” (9) • ”I was scared so bad.” (10) • ”I kept my mouth shut good.” (12) • ”I liked Sandy just fine.” (17) • ”Don't take him serious.” (18) • ”He's been hurt bad sometime.” (28) • ”Darry is awful sorry he hit you.” (62) • ”You sure can cuss good.” (62)

Language – Syntactic structures

Double negative • ”He don't mean nothin'.” (18) • ”I ain't got nobody.” (42) • ”Dally won't tell me nothing.” (62) • ”I ain't never been in the country before.” (65)

Leaving out the verb

• ”You cold, Ponyboy?” (18) • ”You in love with Sandy?” (18) • ”Where you headed?” (38)

Language – Other

Lonesome, lone it

• ”What were you doin', walking by your lonesome?” (15) • ”I've stayed by my lonesome before.” (82) • ”I usually lone it anyway.” (7)

Make

• ”Make like a farm boy taking a walk.” • ”You don't need to make like every mouthful's your last.”

Exclamations

• Glory!

• Gosh!

• Golly!

• Gee!

• Boy-howdy!

• Shoot!

• Welup!

Language – Other

Language – Names

• Many of the Greasers have unusual given names in the book - given either by parents in the birth certificate or given by friends as better fitted than the official name. The Curtis boys - Ponyboy, Sodapop and Darrel Shaynne - were named by their father, "an original person", as Ponyboy describes him. And Sodapop's petname is, of course, Pepsi-Cola.

• Keith "Two-Bit" Mathews is never called by his real name: Ponyboy thinks even his teachers have forgotten what it is. His name gives the reader an insight into his personality. "You couldn't shut up that guy," Ponyboy writes, "he always had to get his two-bits worth in." Among the East Side characters are also Dallas and Curly, as opposed to Bob, Randy and Paul of the Socials.

• Johnny Cade, Ponyboy's best friend and the unofficial little brother of the whole gang, is often called Johnnycake or Johnnykid by his friends - a marker of affection. Some kind of abbreviation of the official name is used for nearly every member of the gang: Pony, Soda, Darry and Dally.

References

• Hinton, S.E. The Outsiders. London: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 1991.

• Biography. 21 November 2007. URL: www.sehinton.com/bio.html

On this YouTube clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T1Cx2JbTEg you will find a sample of the language as used in the Coppola movie The Outsiders (1983).