Lately I’ve been feeling my age pretty keenly. It’s not that I’m old, but I am solidly middle-aged, not yet quite to the morning/evening pill divider, but well beyond the days of waking up without back pain. For the most part, I don’t mind too much. Getting older, after all, beats the alternative, but I do sometimes marvel at the fact that I have no idea what the young’uns are talking about.
Because middle age also falls somewhere between no longer being able to hear what the kids are saying and no longer understanding it. This, more than anything except perhaps for the regularity with which I ask my sons to help me fix whatever stupid thing I’ve done to my computer, makes me aware of my age.
It doesn’t help that I celebrated a birthday last week, in that way middle aged mothers do. The hubs, bless him, slaved away over the grill to make me a special meal that we ate alone because my teenage sons each made plans to not celebrate their mother’s birthday.
That’s fine because they’re sigmas with rizz and they got that drip, so it stands to reason they’d have plans extending beyond their dad’s bussin steak. Too bad for them because it slapped. No Cap.
Yeah, I don’t know what I just wrote, either, though I’m fairly certain I used every bit of that gen Z slang just a little bit incorrectly.
And that’s kind of what it’s for anyway. The term slang has existed since at least the 1740s when it referred to the speech of thieves and beggars rather than teenagers, but I’m betting the concept has been around pretty much since the dawn of speech, with each generation’s drive to distinguish itself just a little bit from its elders.
Personally, I used to really enjoy slang. I was a totally rad preteen in the 1980s. Then as a teenager in the 90s I was all that and a bag of chips. I chillaxed through my twenties in the 2000s, and in the 2010s this thirty-something was a little bit extra.
But now in the 2020s, I’m mostly just tired of all this skibidi Ohio brain rot. As far as I’m concerned all these sus kids are delulu. But now I’m just talking out of pocket.
I think.
Author Sarah Angleton 
A very happy birthday for last week, zilch candles but lots and lots of cheers
Some 55-60 yrs ago I bought slang dictionary mostly and am just now wondering how often on would have to be issued now (were it possible) and what words would make it to more than one edition!
Thank you! I imagine there’d have to be fairly frequeYouupdates, but what a cool resource that would be! I did use a dictionary of 19th century slang when I was writing stories in the 1830s and 40s. It was put together kind of like the OED with the earliest usages that show up in print.
Sounds great. Mines a 1977 reprint of a Penguin History of Slang which works on the same basis and seems to have an edition in 1997 but can’t find one published since since.
How would one define historical now? Last week? 10 yrs ago?
happy belated!
Thank you!
Belated Happy Birthday! Thanks for the first laugh of the day and for teaching me a few new slang words. Knowing you, they were used correctly. Don’t worry, I’ll never try to use them.
Thanks! I read the post out loud to my youngest, and he said, “I’m so embarrassed that you used those words right.”
How totally awesome is that? LOL!
hahaha all I can do is laugh.
Right?! I work in a middle school ow, too, so I hear these words regularly, in context, and I’m still not convinced I know what they mean.
Happy birthday, and thank your lucky stars you and your husband can still remember what date it’s on! The slang I know is so old-fashioned that I suspect it’s as incomprehensible as your sons’ slang. A most enjoyable post, Sarah!
Thank you! I look forward to the day when my future grandchildren start using words my sons can’t understand.
Happy birthday! I don’t understand Gen Z slang either. Here in NZ it seems to be the same as everywhere else these days. Previously we had our own slang, which left English a bit munted but hey, it was ours (and only some of it pinched from Australia).
Thanks! Munted? I suspect I’m much too old to tackle New Zealand slang.
Happy birthday! I can’t keep up with slang either.
Thanks!
Happy Birfday! This post was the bee’s knees! I noticed in one of the comments you said, “when I was writing stories in the 1830s and 40s…” This might make you a bit past middle age but it’s all in how you feel, I guess. Oops. Guess I’ll 23 skiddoo now…
Ah, those were the days. 😀 Thanks!
Happy Belated Birthday . . . 100 percent! 😉
Thanks!
Happy belated birthday! It’s so nice to know that I’m in good company when it comes to today’s slang. I know my grandkids spend a crazy amount of time working on ways to confuse 😵💫 me during conversations. My son and DIL stand by anticipating the confused look on my face and my inevitable next question-“what’d they say?”
I work in a middle school, surrounded by it every day, and I don’t think I’ll ever figure it all out.
I do know from listening to my teenage granddaughter and her friends that it is a compliment if they call your teenage sons a snack (attractive) or a full meal (extremely attractive).
Gross.