Or did you spend your entire career driving tractor trailers and using a CB in the only county in the country where calling another truck driver a “Good Buddy” is NOT considered an insult?
So....was it flat or van? If flat, step? Skateboard? Drop? Low boy? Gooseneck? Or were you in the Parking Lots? Lift gate? Or tanks? Smooth bore or baffled? Maybe you did wiggle wagons? Bed bugger? Bulk? Coal bucket? If van, dry? Reefer perhaps. Or was it Hot shots? Did you stay on the big roads or were you most often running through the woods? Being as well versed in trucker vernacular as you clearly are, I’m sure you know precisely what each and every one of those terms refers to without the need to Google them.
You said:
Then there's radio. Do they still use CB ham radio? "Hey, good buddy..." They must have a way to communicate with each other, still.
Which is, for such a short statement, loaded with ignorance.
"Good buddy" has a standard definition. The term has been around for many decades, and is composed of two common words that have existed for centuries. I was referring to the 1970s use of the term, when CB radios were at the height of popularity. Of COURSE, I was using the term as a throw-back to those days, and I used the correct term, which was not a derogatory word.
Using that expression in an off hand way as you did is tantamount to calling a complete stranger a “Faggot”. THAT’S WHAT IT MEANS. “Referring to the 1970’s use of the term” means you are clueless as to how the term has evolved and is currently used, PERIOD. It wasn’t a derogatory term until the movie “Convoy” came out and the popularity of CB’s soared. Then every schmuck with a radio in their car thought they were “The Rubber Duck” and the rest of the industry got sick of it. It took all of 6 months for the meaning to universally change. Using that saying in the way you did, without proper context, displays an understanding of Trucking culture and CB slang as deep as a mud puddle.
"Good buddy"....noun
Citizens Band Radio Slang . the operator of a CB radio; fellow operator (often used as a form of direct address while broadcasting).
Informal . a trusted companion or colleague; friend.
Except that’s not what it means to every truck driver in the country older than 45, which is the vast majority of them.
Wikipedia:
CB slang is the distinctive anti-language, argot or cant which developed among users of Citizens Band radio (CB), especially truck drivers in the United States during the 1970s and early 1980s.[1]
The slang itself is not only cyclical, but also geographical. Through time, certain terms are added or dropped as attitudes toward it change. For example, in the early days of the CB radio, the term "Good Buddy" was widely used.[2]
That is not only selective editing, it is inaccurate and shows you didn’t really do the research.
Googleling the term “Good Buddy” gives a shitload of results that clearly explain that it is most assuredly a pejorative.
Good buddy...... In the 1970s, this was the stereotypical term for a friend or acquaintance on the CB airwaves.
Yeah.
In the seventies.. Do you often make references to disco as if it is common or something that everyone regularly participates in?
"Good buddy" now has an urban dictionary meaning, created by some urbanites. But here in the south, "good buddy" means what it always has. An out of style way to refer to another trucker using a CB radio
Keyword “out of style”. Yeah. No shit. By at LEAST 30 years. “23 Skidoo” and all.
Don't know why you're going on about ham radios, since I didn't mention those at all. A hobby of yours?
Actually, you DID mention those, as I highlited above;
“Do they still use
CB ham radio?”
There is no such thing as a “CB Ham Radio”. CB and Ham are 2 different radio types, using different frequencies. A Ham radio can call around the planet, basically. A legal (unmodified) Citizens Band will barely reach 5 miles. If you want to sound like you know what you’re talking about, at least try and get
some understanding of the subject matter.
I took issue with this because I, like millions of other professional drivers, are sick and fucking tired of people thinking that throwing around the term “Good Buddy” makes them sound as if they are in the know, when all it does is display a profound ignorance of the industry and culture shared by over 4 million of your fellow Americans.
If you still think I’m wrong, and that the term is harmless, go to any large truck stop, get on a CB and ask “Are there any good buddies around?”
Try it. I dare you. You’ll get an earful you won’t soon forget.
A HERETIC I AM (23,990 posts) 
58 replies
So who did you drive OTR for?
