I have been dipping into 'lady behave' again and found this wonderful quote about modern slang circa 1956.
Slang is no longer 'distinctly common' but it is distinctly dating. Today's young men around town currently use Pa, Ma, the Chums, madly, the hols, blissful, the chaps and Charley...their parents used to say, 'Let's make whoopee tonight, ducky', don't be a twirp, you talk absolute bilge', or 'we'll beetle along to the flicks'.. none of it is a question of 'the best taste' any more. It is just a question of age group. (I am not sure what 'Charley' is referring to in this quote but 'Charlie' in current speak is slang for Cocaine).
I got into this topic after a conversation at work where we were talking about the modern dialect that children seem to use now. It is a kind of mix of West Indian and Cypriot accent with a ghetto slang mixed in. As far as I can tell there are very few consonants. (Last weekend I was at Ian's and two young lads were walking up the road behind me. I really couldn't follow any of the conversation although I guess that was the idea! Perhaps they use a lot of high tones that us oldies can't hear!)
On searching for modern equivalents I came across the following phrases that I had never heard of! : (They apply to Generation Z - People born between 1990 and 1999)
Backup - A close friend who you would be willing to marry, at a certain date or age, if things don't work out with someone else.
Fives ("I call 5's") - declaration that an occupied chair or sitting space is reserved for a short time, at least 5 minutes
Four Twenty (4:20) (420) (4-20) - Twenty minutes after four is known as the time to smoke pot, generally parents aren't home yet.
ifter - whereas "after" assumes that a certain event will take place, "ifter" grants some leeway about the events leading to a possible outcome. ("We'll talk about the trip later, ifter you get your parent's permission.")
MILF- a mother i'd (typically a teenage boy) like to fraternize with
Poppins - perfect, like Mary Poppins, in every way
Umfriend - One with whom one has a sexual relationship, introduced as “This is Chris, my... um, friend.”
I suppose the principal of slang has not changed!
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3 comments:
Thank you for the definitions, I had come across MILF, with no idea what it meant, in people's requests for Scrabble on facebook!!! Also have no idea what ***abuser*** means, but you may not wish to define it here, even if you know what it means!!! I love the umfriend one. V x
I don't know what abuser means! I entered it into Google and Google slang translator but didn't want to enter the sites that came up as could probably get arrested for downloading porn!
It always has the three *'s at each end of it! i dont really know where to look, not that bothered, and havent seen it on Scraulous recently, as they have created an adult games section! how ridiculous, it is just Scrabble, for heaviens sake but people use it to start things via webcams etc!
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