1.13.2006

See You On the Flip Side (the Un-Made up version)

After much skepticism and almost as much confusion, I felt the need to put a certain issue to rest. And that is the meaning of the phrase, "Catch/see you on the flip side." Now I have always known the meaning of this term and have used it during certain corny moods to say "see you in the morning" or "see you later." I used it in my last blog and Carissa noted that she never understood what that meant, her exact words being, "what is the flip side and how can i see you on it if i don't even know what it is?"
So I responded by saying that it dates back to when there were disc jockeys and they played records on radio stations. The record would play a certain amount of time, and then he'd say "see you on the flip side" meaning "see you later" because by the time that side of the record ran out, it would be later. I have mostly used it for "see you in the morining" because it makes sense that the flip side would be in the morning, since the record ran all night. Is this not logical?
Well, Angela doubted my unending wisdom and asked if i made this up or if it was really the origin. I am here to tell you that i was mostly right. Here is what I found upon research of the phrase, "catch you on the flip side":
In most cases, it is used to say "see you later" and it was used by dj's in reference to records and the flip side of the record.
However, here are a few variations that i found to this definition:
www.phrases.org says that "The disks [records] have two sides -- on a 45 RPM disk, sides A & B. The song that the record company wanted to promote most heavily would go on the A side. So when a DJ played that side, he'd (they were always "he" back then) sometimes say, "And now on the flip side...", and play side B, the lesser known track."
this site also says "There is another use of flip side, derived from the gone-and-best-forgotten CB radio fad of the '70s, (Do they still exist?) Long-distance truckers, and trucker wannabes, speaking from truck-to-truck. "Catch you on the flip side" was CB slang for "I'll contact you on the return trip" ... the metaphor of a record turning being applied to you trip from Point B back to A."
www.beatlelinks.net gives a rather peculiar definition, that I don't entirely think the phrase primarily came from. They say that "See you on the flip side" is another older expression. It has cultural meaning only for those who've ever worked at a business where the counterhelp was separated from the clientele by a flip-up partition. Visiting with friends at work has always been frowned upon by management, and when the occasional friend did drop by for a quick word or even legitimate business, one or the other would say "See you on the flip side" as a way of saying, "We'll visit more when we're both on the non-business side of this flip-up partition..."It also got reversed when co-workers would run into each other outside of work as a "see you at work tomorrow (or the next time we're scheduled to work together)"."
I don't like that last definition, but it does add an interesting element. I'm still going to use it as in "see you later" like the record definition.

So, Carissa and Angela, I'll see you on the flip side!

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