Conversating with slang.
We all know that sometimes, trying to talk to our teenagers is like trying to tame a wild beast while riding a tricycle and balancing spinning plates on your nose. Sometimes, they just don’t want to chat. Hell, sometimes, the last thing WE want to do is talk to them, too. But we all make an effort in order to keep those lines of communication open - even if it means learning an entirely new language.
Back in my day, my poor mom had to figure out if “bad” meant bad, or good, and suffer through many renditions of “Gag me with a spoon!” and “grodie to the MAX” and “like, omigawd!” because here in Alaska, we apparently wanted to be Vally Girls. Or something. There were a lot of outs - hanging out, making out, staying out, getting out - though coming out came along later, fighting for our right to party, and hundreds of other things we all said that I can’t even remember now. Then this new generation is here, and suddenly I find my brow wrinkled in confusion with the oh so smart sounding “…huh?” that follows.
TrendCentral has the newest list of slang that we might hear around our kids - how many can you explain without reading the descriptions?
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Povo (po-vo)
I hadn’t heard this one, as it apparently comes from an HBO series that I don’t watch because I’m mean and don’t have HBO. It means lacking funds, as in “My pay cut has left me totally povo.”
Ex-hole
Ha! I know this one! It’s the almost polite way to call your ex an asshole without your mom reaching for the soap! Of course, we all know my stand on cursing, so this one just makes me laugh.
Cupcake
Mmm chocolately goodness… no? No. This is the new word for cuddling, or so they say. What I wanna know is what’s wrong ith saying “cuddling”? Is it too sweet? Then why replace it with Cupcake? And dude, I totally want a cupcake right now, and I don’t mean a cuddle, either!
PWN!
As in “You’ve totally been pwn-ed!” This one’s been around for a while, and looks like it’s gonna stay. Any gamer knows this one -means to “power own” or to generally just NAIL your competition to the WALL. Now everyone says it. Even LOLCats.
Epic Fail.
The opposite of PWN. Dude. If you really messed something up? It is 100% an Epic Fail. Just ask the LOLCats again.
Geequals
This is new to me. You can find you’re Geek Equal, and get geequal.
Myselfish
HAHAHA! I love this one. Incessant Facebook status updates and TMI twitter feeds, all to get noticed. Because we totally need to know you’re at the gas station taking a pee. Annoyingly Myselfish.
Hate-cation
Taking a vacation from being a hater. It’s up there ith a moral cleanse.
Obama/Not Obama
Apparently Londonites have decided our new President is synonymous with “cool”
Alt-worthy
Cool and trendy
‘Kward (kwerd)
Because saying “AWWWWKWARD!” is SO last year.
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Ya know, our words were PERFECTLY OK - why they gotta go and make up new ones? I think that’s TOTALLY myselfish, and sometimes makes conversating a little ‘kward. Just sayin’.
January 30th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Huh??
January 31st, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Wow. I AM a teenager and I’ve never heard of most of these (the exceptions being “pwn” and “epic fail,” but then, I’m a geek). Of course, that’s probably cuz I spend more time avoiding other teens than talking with them. ^-^;
Mostly, I just confuse my parents with tech talk; it’s not that I mean to. I just forget sometimes that people who’ve never turned a computer on in their lives won’t have the same kind of knowledge or technological instinct as a teenager studying computer programming. >.>;