Explaining the modern use of cooking sure, I can see that but y’all acting like “your goose is cooked” isn’t an old ass idiom.
Is the modern use of “cooking” as slang even new? In 1978, Van Halen used the term in what seems to me to be the modern way: “You think you’re really cookin’, baby”
Edit: Curious if there was similar precedent for the slang usage of “cooked”, I searched for the phrases “he’s/she’s/they’re/I’m/we’re/is/was cooked” on songsear.ch, which is my preferred albeit imperfect lyric search engine, and filtered for each 20th century decade. In order of oldest to newest, the best matches for the slang usage I found were:
A Frank Sinatra song from 1955: “You’re hooked, you’re cooked / You’re caught in the tender trap”
A song by The Cure from 1987: “I’m smitten, I’m bitten, I’m hooked, I’m cooked, I’m stuck like glue”
A song by Roughhouse from 1988: “Don’t look or you’ll get hooked, your ass is cooked”
I’m not familiar with the song.
Personally I haven’t seen cooking used in slang until Breaking Bad became obnoxiously popular.
But that’s just my experience.
I don’t think it was used as slang in Breaking Bad, they were just cooking meth. Maybe the whole “We have to cook, Jessie” quote gained new meaning after the fact, but that line and others like it are just about making meth in context.
In the show is wasn’t but pop culture ran amok with that one.
I’ve heard the phase “now you’re cooking with gas” for as long as I can remember, which has approximately the same meaning as “cooking.”
Idk I feel like they have a bit of a different meaning.
“Now you’re cooking with gas” feels like you just hit the Nos button and are supercharged
But when I hear “let him cook” or “she’s cooking” It’s more in the context of a slow simmer/wait for the good thing.
Probably just personal semantics or my exposure to how it’s being used by the general public.
To be fair, I’m much close to the age of the manager in the story than the young person, so I probably don’t have the best grasp on the modern meaning of “cooking.” I just associated it with the phase I already knew.
TIL
Honestly I’m absolutely no expert either. It’s just slowly been seeping into the vocabulary of a few gamers I watch on YouTube.
I’m open to be corrected if anyone has a clearer definition.
“Let Russ Cook” was a catchphrase in the NFL a few years ago, talking about Russell Wilson. There’s even a Know Your Meme entry on it which says:
essentially meaning let Russell Wilson be himself and do his thing,
This apparently originated from a 2019 tweet but can be traced back to:
a YouTube fan video set to a Lil B song uploaded on July 14th, 2010. The video is titled, “LIL B BASED COOKING (LET THAT BOY COOK),” and features YouTuber Jordan Collier doing a stirring motion with his hand as he dances to Lil B’s track “Suck My Dick Hoe.”
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/let-russ-cook
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/let-him-cook-let-that-boy-cook
In a way, it feels like we worked backwards to “cooking.” I’ve heard “cooking with gas” for ages, but just “cooking” feels more recent.
Tbf, they’re kind of the same thing, but at different levels of speed/intensity.
If your friend is working on something and they’re in the zone, they’re cooking like a trendy zoomer. If they’re absolutely plowing through whatever project they’re working on, then they’re cooking with gas like a crusty gen-x-er.
What about whatever it was that the Rock was cooking? We didn’t have smell-o-vision back then so I never found out what it was.
TIL.
https://grammarist.com/idiom/goose-is-cooked/
Originates in the 15th century but gained popularity in the 1800s
You’re one of today’s lucky 10,000!
“It is a cook or get cooked world”
