Vol.V, No.11
www.realestatenewsline.com
When You Sling Slang Is It New Or Old By Pat Farrell
PRSRT STD U.S. Postage PAID San Antonio, Texas Paid Permit #1590
Though we were all teenagers at one time or another and probably knew the whole slang vocabulary currently in use by the other teenagers in our area, that does not mean we can understand the slang that the teens (or Millennials) are using today. Slang can often be so fluid that by the time it has been entered into a glossary of slang words, such as the Urban Dictionary, it may be no longer in use. While some hold that the word “slang” is truly not definable, the Cambridge Dictionary does cite slang as a “very informal language that is usually spoken rather than written, used especially by particular groups of people.” Not only do slang words come and go but some of the words that are considered less than “formal” not only stay around over the years but also change their meaning. A good example would be the word “joint” which we all know means the point at which two parts come together
whether it be in the human body or in construction. However, back as far as the 1880s people used joint to mean a place of some kind, especially an opium den, and by the 1920s it referred to a club, usually selling alcohol or to “the joint” which was jail, but in the 1960s its more common meaning became a marijuana cigarette. So now one could say “Joe got into a big fight over in Murphy’s joint and when the police came they arrested Joe and sent him to the joint where the guards were kind enough to let him occasionally have a joint to relax.” The Urban Dictionary lists 210 words that have been used to denote a woman, and as you might imagine some are too defamatory to be mentioned here. Through the years a woman has been referred to as a gal, dish, filly, dame, babe, chick, moll, femme-fatale, bimbo, floozie, broad, doll, vamp, toots and bag, to name a few. However, the same dictionary lists only 77 words to refer to a man, a few of which are sport, guy, chap, spider, champ, pal, codger, mate, dude, fella, bro or slick. But remember, for every gold-digger there’s a sugar-daddy, for each armcandy there is a dreamboat and for every cougar there’s a babe-magnet. You just thought the answer to a question should be simple but when someone is asked about something for which a “yes” answer is expected, according to the Urban Thesaurus you could get all sorts of responses depending upon the decade in which the question was posed, like: sure, you betcha, affirmative, damn skippy, okey dokey, fo sho, darn tootin, absofreakinlutely, mmm-hmmm, is the Pope a Catholic, indubitably, tru that and yessireebobarooney are a small sampling of the 1140 words that could be considered answers related to “yes.” And should you
expect a “no” answer you could get one of the 1443 related words, some of which are: naw, nein, hell nah, oink, false, say nay, niet, nuh-huh, wong-a-loo, low budget or that’s dead. And if you find some of those to be weird just look at how we have identified things that we consider to be good or special: cool or kewl, groovy, bodacious, sweet, dilly, boss, choice, fab, gone, neat, nifty, outta sight, primo, the most, far out, funky, radical/rad, stellar, tubular, all that and a bag of chips, fly, phat and da bomb dot and during certain more recent periods bad and wicked are also considered “good.” From the “flapper” days of the 1920s along with bee’s knees and cat’s pajamas you might hear kipper’s knickers, elephant’s adenoids, cat’s meow, ant’s pants, gnat’s elbows, tiger’s spots, bullfrog’s beard, caterpillar’s kimono, turtle’s neck, duck’s quack, monkey’s eyebrows, oyster’s earrings, snake’s hips, clam’s garter, eel’s ankle, leopard’s stripes, tadpole’s teddies, sardine’s whiskers, canary’s tusks, pig’s wings, cuckoo’s chin, and butterfly’s book from among a whole slew of others. But, if one thought things definitely were not so special it was not uncommon to hear: Grody, (or grody to the max), gross, bomb, chintzy, crap, the pits, rinkydink, spork, tacky, yuck, whoopty-do, spappy, crag, ranksaurus rex, sucks, bar tar, ugly, crummy, pit rats, tuna boat, wicked, godawful, diabolical, gankily, hairy, fiendish, beastly, lousy, desperate, slauce and groditha. Many of the latter slang words give credence to the idea that they are often used to show that one can be different though often irreverent and perhaps clever or witty. But, “meanwhile back at the ranch,” while most slang words come and go you may at times hear some from past genera-
November 2019 tions come from the mouths of today’s younger population as they have been used repeatedly for so long they have become words expected to be found in today’s regular dictionaries, like the organized “mob” or a whole “slew” of things which are slang words started in the 1800s. As has been common throughout the generations, today’s millennials use words in a way that most older folks do not understand, but isn’t that the point? For example, when you hear that someone was spilling tea you may not know that they have been telling secrets or gossiping and that when someone is “woke” it doesn’t mean they just got out of bed but rather that they are aware of the current political scene. Most linguists agree that slang is a phenomenon that comes about as an attempt to cope with new things and experiences that result when confronting modern changes and is present in all subcultures worldwide. While a slang word usually replaces an acceptable synonym, it is also considered a “no-no” for use in writing and is usually applicable only within a specific group or culture. Today if one finds something exceptional it is “lit” and if you’re in a bad mood you’re “salty.” Many of the slang words in current use are a result of one of the latest ways to communicate, that is texting, where many of the teen phrases are shortened for convenience such as someone considered outstanding may be G.O.A.T (the Greatest of All Time) or “I can’t come over, I’m too busy rn” (right now) or “Hey, I’m at your house, wya?” (where you at?) or “He dumped me, ima kms!” (I’m a kill myself). The list of current slang words can go on and on so it’s best to quit now since many of them have already worn out their welcome and have probably been discarded. So, “I’ll see you on the flip side!”