But slang is often a different creature. Slang, by its definition, often deals with concepts that are illicit, taboo, or not for the ears of outsiders. In many cases, slang terms are created for things that already have perfectly capable words attached to them. Such neologisms are not created to fill a niche or clarify a concept, they are simply to rebrand a universal concept, to keep it arcane, mysterious, or endemic to a particular subculture.
Slang is there for you not to get.
Because you are not cool, dig?
Teenagers (and teenage subcultures) are usually the breeding ground for slang. You can invent your own way to describe alcoholic beverages for example (hooch, booze, crunk juice, what have you,) but if the teenagers don't start saying it, it never catches on. Teens are purveyors of slang, even if they themselves do not tend to create the terms themselves (that's what celebrities are for.)
Teens take this role because language is one of the few areas of their lives that they have any control over. Others (parents, school, The Man,) may tell them where to go and how to dress, but language is one of the forms of rebellion it is nearly impossible to stop. You may punish a kid for vulgarity, but they can just create new words for things that already exist. They do not need to use such words, they do it because they are not your words. Dictionaries are for squares, after all, and the looks of confusion on parents' faces is all the justification required to rewrite one's personal lexicon.
This is all academic of course, until you come up against it. When we are teenagers, we all used slang, but those were logical, reasonable words. Our parents didn't get it simply because that particular generation was inflexible and hidebound. We, our own intellectually limber generation, were able to adapt our minds, and thus we need never fear being caught off guard, we will simply adjust to the times. We can adapt, we can remain current, and we can be cool.
Riiiiight.
When I first started as a substitute teacher during last millennium, I was confident I would have no trouble relating to the kids of the day. After all, I was a fresh faced twenty six year old, who still listened to modern music, still watched the same TV and movies that were pitched to the 18-35 demographic, and still understood how the world worked for young people. I was hip.
But I discovered that I was most definitely not 'bout it bout it.'
Because as a teacher, you have to deal with all the kids, from every little subculture. When you are in school, you hang out with the kids whose outlook (and style) matches your own. But when you are at the front of the class, it doesn't matter that you are up to date on the newest Blink 182 album, if you can't quote Master P, who's got time for you?
But more than that, in the eight years since I'd graduated high school, language (slanguage?) and youth culture had made quantum leaps forward (the direction is always debatable, but the movement is undeniable.) I was so far behind the curve, nobody knew what 'behind the curve' meant ("is that a sex thing, Mr. Crumpler?"*)
But so what, right? I'm just another crusty old grown up who doesn't get what the kids are saying, certainly nothing new there. But here's the thing; I have been watching over the past decade plus, and it's accelerating.
I'm not merely saying that there is change, I am saying that the delta, the rate of change, is increasing at alarming speeds. I mean "sci-fi disaster movie look at this computer projection and notice how the whole map turns red in four or five stages" level of alarming.
I used to make a joke with my classes. It started as an unplanned outburst of frustration one day, but I continued using as a rallying point about ridiculous use of slang. I told the kids that just as the rug of language had been pulled out from under my own feet, and the feet of all those generations before me, they too would one day have to deal with children of their own, who would come home with words in the wrong place. And when they would confront their children with their confusion, those hypothetical future kids would roll their eyes (hard to do with the cornea piercings that are surely in development now,) and say:
"Oh Mom/Dad, You're so chair."
And we would all have a good laugh at the thought that a simple, innocuous word like chair would one day be applied as a pejorative adjective.
But I can't tell that joke any more. Because the reality is so much more stupid than that. And before you say "but surely our parents and their parents thought the same thing?" No. I am telling you, that I have been watching and studying, and I am telling you people, the slang is getting dumber.
Think I'm crazy? Consider this: for generations, people came up with new terms for something by comparing it to something else. It was never random, it was based on basic form of logic. Think about the slang terms you know.
'Cool,' as a descriptor for a person makes perfect sense. Traditionally, a cool person acted with reason and did not lose their temper or control. Such traits are desirable, so the term comes into general use to describe something favorable and preferable.
Consider 'dope.' Dope (from the Dutch,) originally meant a thick, soupy mess. This was used to describe the semi -liquid variety of opium that was commonly smoked. From there, it came to mean all drugs, and to describe someone as 'dopey' or simply 'a dope' made logical sense, since drugs do not elevate one's apparent intellect while under the influence. Flash forward to a culture that idolizes (and idealizes) the culture around marijuana, the drug meant when one says dope today, and it's a no brainer as to why you would describing something positive in the context of counter culture as 'dope' ("that's a dope rhyme, yo.")
Hell, even Cockney rhyming slang makes sense once the convoluted backstory of each term has been laboriously explained. 'Bread' as a term for money comes from the phrase 'bread and honey,' which rhymes with 'money.' Stupid, but logical.
Most terms undergo this long etymological vetting process. Even if modern users are unaware of the (completely logical) origins of these phrases, they are merely deepening the the wheel ruts in the linguistic backroads of slang.
But now, people are just pulling this shit out of their asses.
The writing was on the wall for me when kids started saying things that they liked were "off the hook." The first time I heard that I was genuinely staggered. I thought the kid who said it was just sorely confused (well he was that also, but that was more of an everyday thing for him.) I explained that he'd gotten it wrong, because that phrase meant "no longer in trouble for," or "no longer considered responsible or culpable for" something.
But no, it was everywhere. "That party was off the hook," "that beat is off the hook," "this toasted pine nut and herbed goat cheese pizza is off the hook." Maddening.
But it didn't stop there. Sure you still get the occasional 'crunk,' or 'skeet' (just take my word for it, and don't ask,) but for the most part, nobody can think of any new slang terms any more. They just reappropriate older terms, either slang expressions or normal words with common, established meanings.
Which brings me to 'ratchet.'
For those of you blissfully unaware, this term is used to define an individual (usually a female,) who behaves in a manner unfit for polite society. The specific behaviors that this term denotes are those frowned upon by the urban, African-American community, and are presided over by the females of that population.
Such behaviors include, but are not limited to:
- having one's lace front misaligned
- allocating food stamps for fashion accessories
- possessing out of date personal communications technology
- lacking moral substance or being 'fake'
- utilizing synthetic materials in one's hair additions
Basically, it is a new term to call someone 'ghetto,' because that term is no longer stigmatized. And that is fine, perhaps it was time for a new term, but 'ratchet?' Why 'ratchet?' Ratchet is already a word, it has a meaning, hell it has many meanings. Most people think of it as a tool used to tighten bolts, not realizing that it really refers to the principal of a device allowing rotary motion in a single direction, utilizing a gear and pawl.
How the hell do we get from there to "one of those girls you see at the club and you are just all like 'I gotta take her picture, she whack'!'
Ask the kids, and they have no idea whatsoever. And they simply do not care. This is the part that infuriates me; that they have zero curiosity regarding the etymology of their slang, and become irritated when you question them (these kids today, no respect for misanthropology.)
There's no reason to it, no guiding rationality. It's maddening, it's insane, it's enough to drive you into a frothing, impotent rage. It's just so... so...
Chair.
It's FUCKING CHAIR! YOU ARE ALL CHAIR! HA! DOESN'T MAKE SENSE? TOUGH NODULES, HIPPOCAMPI!
You see, I can reassign words too, and I know a metric fuckton more words to mislabel than you do, seersucker.
So you davenports can go ostracize your kraters in each other's phylogeny for all I care. Because you will never be as cheeseburger as me and my kennings. The more you nutsack the language with your igneous words, the more stelae like me will overcoat your efforts.
And when the wordpocalypse finally arrives, and no word means anything anymore (except 'fuck,' which is like the Highlander of oral communication,) and it becomes necessary to reboot the entire language, I and my fellow word nerds shall emerge from our shelters and spread forth upon the wasteland bearing the truth of the OED. We shall reignite the guttering flame of English into a piercing beacon, to guide all forward into the light.
Word.
*Yes. It is.
*Yes. It is.
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