Cowabunga is a slang word in 1960s surfer culture, used as an expression of exhilaration when riding the waves. Slang is the non-standard use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. ... The 1960s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ... Surfing outside Kaneohe Bay, Hawai‘i. ...

Origin

The word evolved from "kawabonga," a word used by the character Chief Thunderthud on the United States children's television program Howdy Doody in the 1950s. "Kawagoopa" meant "good", and "kawabonga" meant "bad". By the 1960s, surfers who had grown up watching Howdy Doody adopted it for surfing use, turning it to "Cowabunga." Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob Smith, promotional image. ... // Events and trends This map shows two essential global spheres during the Cold War in 1959. ...

1970s through 1990s

Another U.S. children's television character, Cookie Monster of Sesame Street, began to exclaim "cowabunga!" in the 1970s. The character Snoopy from the Peanuts comic strip also made popular use of the word. The word reached greater popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s when used by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Michaelangelo and in the early 1990s when used by Simpson family member Bart [1]. Cookie Monster (right) and his mother in a season 33 Letter of the Day segment, 2003. ... From A Celebration of Me, Grover, showing much of the main cast of Sesame Street. ... The 1970s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1970 and 1979. ... USPS stamp featuring Snoopy as the World War I Flying Ace This article is about a comic strip character. ... Charlie Brown is the principal character of the Peanuts comic strip Peanuts was a syndicated daily comic strip written and drawn by American cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950 to February 13, 2000. ... The 1980s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1980 and 1989, however in a pop cultural sense The Eighties sometimes includes at least some aspects of 1979 and 1990, or more or less the era between the end of the Disco era of the 1970s and... The 1990s refers to the years 1990 to 1999; the last decade of the 20th Century, but in an economical sense The Nineties is often considered to span from the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 to the 9/11 attacks in 2001. ... The Teenage Mutant Ninja Vinays (TMNV) are a fictional group of four anthropomorphic turtle brothers, who, as one might infer from the name, are also teenagers, mutants and ninjas. ... Michelangelo (original movie incarnation) Michelangelo (or Mike or Mikey or Rooish) is one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT). ... Homer, a safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, is a generally well-meaning buffoon whose short attention span often draws him into outrageous schemes and adventures. ... Bartholomew Jo-Jo (Bart) Simpson (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) is a fictional character featured in the animated television series The Simpsons. ...

Recent Use

The term has become more common in its usage in the general media in the United States. A press release for The National Human Genome Research Institute read "Cowabunga! Scientists To Start Bovine Genome Project", and a MSNBC article has been titled Cowabunga: Manure becomes electricity. In biology the genome of an organism is the whole hereditary information of an organism that is encoded in the DNA (or, for some viruses, RNA). ... MSNBC logo MSNBC (a grammatical blend of MSN and NBC) is a 24-hour cable news channel in the United States. ... Animal manure is often a mixture of animals faeces and bedding straw, as in this example from a stable. ...

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