Go-Go

I receive a couple weekly newsletters that deal with the origins of words and phrases, one of many dorky subjects I’m interested in. One of them, World Wide Words, featured a discussion of the word agog this week.

After explaining that the word derived from Middle French en gogues, which meant ‘in good humor’, the writer moved on to this:

Sixties-style go-go girls

Incidentally, a related Middle French form was à gogo, uninhibitedly or joyfully … This is still in the language and appeared in Paris in 1952 in the name of the nightclub and pioneering discotheque called the Whisky à Gogo (that is, Whisky Galore) … The entertainment format became fashionable and it and the name were brought into English, leading to the modified version a-go-go appearing all over the place during the 1960s as a fashionable creation.

‘Go-go’ bars became a very big deal in the mid sixties. These were the forerunners of what today are called ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ or ‘cabarets’. They featured ‘go-go girls’, dancers in (usually) bikinis.

The most popular of these bars in Phoenix was called The Hi-Liter. Cleve Cavness, my best friend, and I managed to get in one night though we were underage (which means it was prior to 1968). We had barely gotten settled, though, before one of us (I say it was Cleve, but he may remember it differently) knocked over our beers onto the floor and the bouncer threw us out. An ignominious end to what was looking like a breakthrough evening for us.