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candystripper -> Slang and Surpise (8/17/2008 11:42:36 PM)
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Pretty much everyone knows what 'slang' is. It's a use of the common language in new or unusally creative way. Slang is one way language changes over time, as all living languages do.
When I was a young fem, it was pretty common to expect only people about my age used slang, as if only we had the right to inventiveness. Any attempt by someone mature to use slang usually provoked a bit of a giggle and derision in the listener. These days a 94 yeard great-grandmother is just as likely to use slang as anyone else. I haven't a clue why it changed..but I experience slang in a totally different way than I was did because of the change.
Let me give some examples of weird reactions I have had to slang.
'Talk to the hand.'
I think I first hear this on tv sometime in the late 1980's or so. I had like *no* clue WTF it meant for a long time. Then one day, a person who was not an adult said to me
' Talk to the face, 'cuz the face dun wanna hear it.'
And all of a sudden I finally got it! But between the time when I first heard it and when the I figured out what it meant, I felt weird, as if I wasn't speaking exactly the same language as everyone else, LOL.
Then there was the word 'sweet'. I was listening to the tv one day when I head the phrase:
'this living room sweet'.
I was totally WTF? It was awhile before I realized this was some new pronounciation of the word 'suite' While 'sweet' and this new version of 'suite' are similar, they don't sound exactly the same to me, and the 'living room sweet' still gives me a mental hiccup.
Later I moved to Cleveland and heard the word 'sweet' prounced in this loud, weird, drug out way for no apparent reason. Almost (but not quite) like the way a person would say 'Eureka!'. I was so completely WTF? Were people in Cleveland prone to shouting 'Sour!' out of the blue as well?
Eventually I figured out that this new 'sweet' meant either 'great' or 'I agree', and nowadays I hear in on tv and no longer think of it as a Cleveland-thing at all.
Then there was the 1980's phenom that suddenly every noun was also a verb. People still 'ate lunch' but now they also 'did lunch'. Huh? How does one 'do' a noun? They did not 'converse' quite so often they 'confabed'. If 'confab' is something like 'conference' how does one 'do' conferense?
Some new slang words were infused with meaning or wit.
'Punk rock' was pretty funny. It had a flavor to it that 'rock' or 'rocker' never did.
'Goth' was instantly understandable and descibed all sorts of people, things and acts. 'Intsagoth' was a hoot.
Some slang I heard was as new was a function of moving from the north to south.
I had no idea what was meant by 'fixing to', as in 'I'm fixing to leave'. It didn't mean 'I'm leaving soon' It seemed more like it meant 'I'm in the process of preparing myself menatlly/physically/etc. to perform the act of leaving'. What the hell does that mean? I admit to this day I'm still not clear.
One day I was defending in a deposition. The other lawyer was an uptight bitch from NYC, and the withness had grown up in the north Florida area.
She asked him a question, like, did you consider doing (an act)?, and he relied:
'That dog (prounced something like dddaaawwyuuggg) won't hunt."
He sat there as if he was done and just waiting for her next question, and she and I just looked at each other like we were having a major blonde moment together. What made the whole thing especially funny is she spent about $500 of time trying to get him to explain what the sentence means, LOL. On the record!
It was priceless.
I remember being nagged as a kid for saying 'like', as in:
'I'm like, gonna go now.'
But that's not exactly the same sort of 'nuisance' slang I hear now.
"Whatever."
End of discusion, because a person is fed up to the teeth with the topic under discusion.
It's new morphed form 'Whatev.' Apparently implying further that the spreaker cannot even be botherer to make the sound 'r'.
Some slang that was ridiculed in my day is back in use and consider quite witty or desirable. When I was growing up, 'cool' (prounced 'cooooool') fell out of faver just like 'groovy' did, and anyone who said them was raher looked down on.
Now 'cool'( prounced without the dragging it out) thing is suddenly back and has begun to give 'okay' and a few other common relies a run for their money.
I love '411'. As in:
"What's the 411 on him?'
Meaning something like 'So what's his story?', which seems to have fallen out of favor.
A few more I can think of are:
"Solid'.
"That was a solid.'
Meaning 'that was a favor.'
'Crib', used to mean a type of baby furniture.
Now, my first thought is of one's home. That was a strange phenom to me.
Some slang we probably all remember has come and gone pretty quckly, but was fun while they lasted.
'Gag me with a spoon'
Meaning something like, "I don't like that idea' was just such a visual, it was instantly understandable and if someone said it, they implied a lot about themselves.
Others weren't as appealing.
'Playing the race card'
Meaning someone wasgoing to stand on there rights in a conflict of some type involing race. It just struck me like it could be traced directly back to the murder trial of O.J. Simpson. To this day, it just doesn't feel good to hear it, despite it's creativity.
Even the most vesatile word in the english language underwent change. Growing up, the most common usage was:
"f**king thing'
Meaning 'I'm really frustrated with something'. But later in my life I heard it used as a noun, and even said in a totally new way.
'The F word'
Also it is seems to be only about 15 years old to me.
''Throwing a f bomb'
seems like I just heard it yesterday.
Anyone else ever happen to notice anything odd about slang?
candystripper [sm=pole.gif].
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