V is for Vamoose

So we’re getting to the letters that are somewhat limited in slang selections. I feel bad for the last five letters of the alphabet sometimes. You know, they don’t get the the lion’s share of words like S and T. Y gets some vowel love occasionally, but nowhere close to the amount E gets. I scoured through the sites I bookmarked for American slang. Heck! I even looked at British and Australian slang and I was still hard pressed to find words or phrases that I really loved.

So once again, I settled. But the words I settled for work for me.

I can’t tell you how many times this month I’ve gone through the slang list and found words that I use all the time. Today’s word falls under that coincidence. When I was in high school my mom ran a daycare out of our house. So many little feet pitter-pattering up and down the hall, through the kitchen, around the dining room, back to the kitchen and then with a loud voice (to be heard over the rugrats) my mom would tell them all to, “Vamoose-a-boose!” as she was making their lunches.

When my daughter was born, vamoose-a-boose became part of my regular lingo. It’s shortened a bit over the years to just vamoose. More specifically, “Come on, let’s vamoose!” is my regular cry in the morning as I’m trying to get the girls out of the house for school.

Vamoose is a verb from the 1830s that means to leave. In an interesting side note, how cool is it that slang from the 1800s is still part of my normal everyday vocabulary? Pretty cool, right?

Example: Victoria vented violently to Vincent, “We’ve got to vamoose, Vincent, we’re late for our Voyeurs Anonymous meeting!”

This post has been brought to you by the Letter V and the fine folks at Blogging A to Z. Check out more A to Z blogs here!