These words and phrases can lose favour very quickly and be replaced by completely new ones. Photo / 123RF
These words and phrases can lose favour very quickly and be replaced by completely new ones. Photo / 123RF
OPINION:
I feel many parents of young people will appreciate a guide to teen-speak.
Some of the words or phrases I will mention have been around for some time now and might even be called mainstream or, worse still, old hat but I'm including them for those who have alreadyfallen WAY behind.
You're probably up with the main acronyms: GOAT (greatest of all time), OMG (oh my goodness/oh my God!), TBH (to be honest), BF/GF (boyfriend/girlfriend), BFF (best friend forever) and YOLO (you only live once). And LOL (laugh out loud) is probably firmly entrenched in your own lexicon.
But you might appreciate help with 53X (sex), CU46 (see you for sex), WTTP (want to trade photos?) and LMIRL (let's meet in real life). I'm very sorry if those have opened up some worrying concerns for you but TBH YOLO.
It might help you to know that if you hear your teen asking for tea it's probably not the infused beverage you think of. Tea means gossip or news. And if the tea is about someone being thirsty, no need to administer the aforementioned infused beverage because thirsty means trying to get attention.
Bruh, bro and dude are all gender-neutral and to curve is to reject someone romantically. Curve is related to ghosting but what that is I shudder to think. (As you can already see, I'm not fully up with the play yet.)
Fam or squad can both be used for a group of friends and if you think two people should be together, you can ship them. There's nothing maritime about this, it's just a shortened version of relationship.
If someone is sus (suspicious or shady), you might want to throw shade (give them a dirty look). This wouldn't happen to a person with whom you are tight.
More positive in meaning is snatched which means looking good, perfect or fashionable. Apparently it replaced on fleek but I'm afraid I missed that linguistic development.
Combining two (or more) words into a new one is nothing new (think humungous) but you might need help with some and, of course, I'm here to help. Crashy combines crazy and trashy, crunk combines crazy and drunk (possibly as in getting high and drunk at the same time), hangry combines hungry and angry and tope combines tight and dope.
If you're going to be out for the night and you hear your young one phoning a friend and asking them over to Netflix and chill, be warned that movies won't necessarily be involved. They might also phone the plug to organise some supplies. Sorry, that's all I'm saying.
There are online sites you can visit to look up your words (if you can understand the spelling) but I cannot guarantee their effectiveness or efficiency. Urban Dictionary, for example, operates by crowd-sourcing so within reason anyone can post anything. Take it all with a grain of salt.
You could also check out Slang Dictionary or Chat Slang Dictionary but be warned that they are not dictionaries in the strict sense you are probably more used to. To offer just three examples – more than enough I feel sure – from Chat Slang, ewi means emailing while intoxicated, omik means open mouth, insert keyboard and hhoj means ha ha, only joking. Enough said?
I need to close with a warning. These words and phrases can lose favour very quickly and be replaced by completely new ones. If you try to be a dope dude and use any of these with your teen, be prepared for raised eyebrows, rolled eyeballs and the comment that your chosen word or phrase is "so last week".
• Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.
