origin of the phrase "tripping balls"?

[deano88]

Excuse me? I'm having trouble locating in my posts statements that are me being emotional and throwing a tantrum. Can you be more specific if you are going to make such accusations? I'm especially hard pressed in finding an example of me throwing a tantrum. I would also think it would be hard to throw a tantrum on internet as tantrums normally include some sort of physical out burst. Now, I'm not aware of what type of computer you have. Maybe I'm behind the times since you can some how see what I'm doing even when my webcam is off...

Now I'm starting to feel silly since I'm bothering to take the time to respond to you.

edit; if me finding something funny constitutes being considered emotional, then yes, I was being emotional, but humor is hardly bad thing.

[insults removed - please keep it civil ]

i always thought rolling refered to when someones eyes roll back when they mashed on E? its not a term used in the UK at least where i live anyway, neither is balls think its just the hippy/ surfer type yanks that use it

[Cloudy]

excuse me? Can you post something more a little bit more substantial. I'm feeling hard pressed to find any sort of meaning in your post. Can you be a little bit more specific? Your post means nothing unless you can clarify what the heck you are talking about.

Xorkoth has the right idea, as slang gains meaning when there is a mutual acceptance among a group of people to accept a common or culture meaning, just like a dictionary company (from my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong) who gathers a group of analyst to determine whether a word is accept among the official English language.

If a word is able to describe a meaning as well as any other "official" word in a given language, why shouldn't it be accept as an appropriate word to respond with in a given situation that exemplifies the meaning of the "word". Slang isn't slang unless there is a group of people who use the word in roughly the same meaning, so as long as the group of people who are in the midst of communication are able to comprehend each other, it shouldn't be worth any less than some bullshit "official" words or phrases that exist in the English language (or any language for that matter).

I feel as we all are, or at least most of us are, drug users, we should be able to comprehend the fact that, just because their isn't some official acceptance of what ever the fuck we enjoy or understand, that what we believe in or understand isn't worth anything less.

When I'm trying to communicate with an individual of course I'm going to try an speak a similar language or dialect to allow for a mutual understanding between one another. In my experience tripping balls allows for a strong understanding of one another. There isn't a problem with using any other sort of description to describe your current condition, but tripping balls is very well known among psychedelic drug users, and describes a realm/state of mind similar to many drug users psychedelics experiences. I know if I posted in the PD social thread saying that I'm tripping balls most everyone in the thread can understand if not relate to the situation I'm describing.

Also I don't watch star trek, sorry to disappoint you.

I can't comprehend how you can assume I don't have a life from a 9 sentence post. Are you saying I spend all my time on bluelight looking out for people who diss drug slang? Please enlighten me. Btw, I'm trying my hardest to not sound emotional, but I may have just fucked up again (I don't know how not to laugh at life.)

[Jesusgreen]

I didn't understand it until I started TRIPPING BALLS. Then it made perfect sense

Hah, probably the best explanation actually.

In all seriousness though, as people have said, "balls" can be added to the end of anything, as for where tripping came from - the act of taking a trip. Though additionally there's the trips and falls after a huge dose when you're trying to find your way to the bathroom hah.

[Roger&Me]

It sounds like yet-another linguistic-degradation introduced by Surfer-Slang.

How arrogant...

Language isn't an entity set in stone, where any deviation from the norm equates to a 'degradation'.

Language is a constantly evolving process that relies on input from all speakers. Slang is an integrally important part of language: it always has been, and always will be.

[Jamshyd]

The funniest thing of all is that all of you giving me slack for using the word "degradation" think that I am doing so because I'm snobbish. Would you be happy to learn that, at least technically, English is NOT my native language?

And by "degradation" I did not mean to look down: I meant taking two normally unrelated words and fusing them to create a new, nonsensical expression.

I don't know why people have taken so much offense to my comment. Maybe I plucked a thread that I shouldn't have? I didn't even say anything w.r.t. my opinion on slang.

You people need to take me off of the pedestal you built for me and stop imagining that I'm talking you down.

[Cloudy]

If that was the message you were trying to get across, I'm sorry I miss understood you. The problem is that degradation doesn't mean, taking two things and fusing them together to form a nonsensical expression.

[Xorkoth]

It sounds like yet-another linguistic-degradation introduced by Surfer-Slang.

I wondered about how you managed to hyphen together yet and another, and now I think maybe you were trying to be clever. Which if so, it was.

But I gotta say, I didn't read the comment as anything but snob. If you really didn't have anything like that in mind when you wrote it, you should probably evaluate your word choice.

[thenightwatch]

jamshyd, you're just all out of whack. not even sure what to say to you to put things into the proper perspective for you... i hope you figure it out buddy.

[Jamshyd]

Whatever, this thread is now about Jamshyd's snobbery.

[Roger&Me]

^Please report for political re-education immediately.

[Xorkoth]

Yeah, the situation, if it was one at all, is over, so let's keep this on track. If anyone has anything else to say about the origins of words or this particular word.

[Teotzlcoatl]

I made it up, duh.

It was ME.

You people need to take me off of the pedestal you built for me and stop imagining that I'm talking you down.

How could somebody possibly talk bad about about a stupid fucking druggie term like "tripping-balls"?

Hahaha, y'all are just too much for me, I can't believe y'all gave him shit for that, even if he said "tripping balls" is the most retarded term on the face of Earth.

Tripping balls...HA! I donno bout y'all but my nuts don't hang down far enough for me to trip on them. y'all must be blessed with exceedingly large testicles.

[Irmarose]

i believe it comes from the latin words tripnus (to fry) balsinus (nuts)

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Madhatter4]

I coined that phrase back in 1995

[Flarestar89]

I always figured it was not a reference to genitalia, but more so a matter of... "balls of sweat." Sort of like... you're stressed/high enough to be sweating? Haha.

But I'm also a woman, who's not super fond of genital slang...

[Roger&Me]

^You could always say "I'm tripping labias" or something like that.

[Ralf_4]

have to say at one time or another ive been known to say 'dude i'm balls to the walls tripping!'

[Leftley]

I love saying Im tripping balls when I'm tripping with friends, for me its just that thing that says "you're still half-sane, you know you're tripping" while alerting your friends that you're having a blast. :P

[Xorkoth]

Tripping balls...HA! I donno bout y'all but my nuts don't hang down far enough for me to trip on them. y'all must be blessed with exceedingly large testicles.

Ha! A friend of mine in college had these freakishly large testicles*, like you can't even imagine. At parties he would unzip his pants and flop them out and fold the skin over them and pull it so it basically took up the entire fly area. He called it "the brain" and he'd surprise people by walking out from behind a door or something when you went out into the hall, just walking by and he asks if you want to see something, and he shows you "the brain". Or he'd just starting running at you with it. Pretty intense guy.

*Do you ever see the word testicles as an ancient Greek name, pronounced testuh - CLEEZ, pronounced sort of like Hercules? I do.

I suppose we have wandered off topic...

[Leftley]

theres no off topic in a topic like this! :P

i dunno, tripping balls has that ring to it, it sounds so funny when you're trippin bawlz :P

[silver_tree]

This phrase was explained to me, back in 1985, as referring to the practice of pocketing some little object after dosing which could serve a sort of grounding, talismanic function if the trip became too intense. "Superballs," the rubber bouncy balls bought from gumball machines and such, worked particularly well for this. I'm not suggesting that this is the primary origin of the phrase; "balls" is a universal intensifier, as others mentioned. Rather, I think this kid or a friend of his, being very serious about their tripping in that quasi-mystic, ZOSO-meets-suburban way, took and added meaning to the phrase.

And I'll tell you, it works! It did for me, anyway, years later on the swift ascent of a shroom trip seeming way too strong. In my pocket was, not a ball, but the cap of a 35mm film canister. A nickel had gotten wedged into the bottom side--heads up, natch-- and I held it and kind of said 'you'll get through it & come out good' and the like.

I'd had a pretty catastrophic bummer a couple years previous on an LSD & mushroom combo, and hadn't had but maybe a couple mild trips since. It set me right, little cappy did, and the trip went phenomenally well, with my friend and I having a loooong bike ride through the late-night streets of Hate City. (Note: cycling while tripping, etc., dangerous, don't do it!!!) ;^D

[thenightwatch]

psh, americans don't have accents, everyone knows that. =P

[silver_tree]

"Tripping face," I don't know, I always made the GD "He's Gone" association also. I know it goes back, I first heard it used at the Dead shows in Greensboro, '91 (I like language, slang & usually recall first hearing a word). Some kids from Rochester that we camped next said it over and over and over again, with a "tripping your face off" thrown in on occasion.

"Rolling," first heard in ~'93, from some tour folks who stayed with us for a bit. That one made immediate sense to me so far as describing the ebb & flow of MDMA sensation. The first time I tried it a friend of mine had gotten 1g of powder straight from Texas. Quartered it and put in glasses of water, he and I and two girls. We were sitting on the floor in the girls' dorm room, and when it came on what I felt at first was a tremendous rush of pure speed-feeling. High voltage, total anxiety, beading sweat etc., and getting stronger every second. This was a kind of blind-date scenario for me, although I had seen the girl and found her quite attractive. Certainly not someone I wanted to go to pieces around (I'd never done amphetamines or speed of any kind at the time, possibly why I felt it so strongly-- ?)

I made a quick decision to get out of there-- no sense bringing everyone else down-- and rose to leave, stammering some excuse. Soon as I was up on my feet--whooosh-- the tension broke like a giant wave, and the sensation rolled over me from head to toe.

Of course there's the lovey-dovey aspect also-- "to roll" has for centuries been used in a sexual way-- roll in the clover, roll in the hay, and later rock'n'roll, old jazz slang for fucking. Which, we didn't, that night, the girl and I. We did a good bit of weeping, though, and moved in together like three days later

The other couple dated five or six years, got married, and are married still.

[Solipsis]

I think it comes from this classic:


Plus the fact that when you are really tripping balls walking gets so hard that you trip over your own balls, if you manage to keep your posture you can be certain that you are now 'tripping balls'.
If you could not catch yourself and flop down into a face plant, you are then 'tripping face'.




though

being srongly under the affects of LSD or psychedelic mushrooms. this is a superlative of tripping, and a contraction of the phrase "tripping one's balls off". unless someone is new to the drug, or very sensitive to it, at least 5 or 6 hits are necessary to trip balls.

unfortunately thats to authority.
We need the tripping calls authority - could someone please call the TB committee?