Sling Slang Slung
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
I've seen a lot of panty-bunching on social media lately about slang. Because apparently people are getting totes cray over totes cray. I've also noticed the perrenial bunched drawers over the downfall of any generation younger than that of the complainer.
You know what both of these things have in common? You're old. Don't act like cray is somehow worse than the fact that you said 'bad' when you meant something was good. You don't really think the way you're using 'awesome' is the intended meaning, do you? Unless you really do think that getting a free coffee at Wawa 'inspires an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration or fear', it's not actually awesome unless you mean it in the Urban Dictionary sense.
The beauty of the English language is that it's constantly being manipulated and changed. There are slang words and phrases that convey a meaning that you're not going to get through Merriam Webster approved words. 'Throwing shade' is much more concise than 'to insult or judge someone discreetly or indirectly', and 'twerking' is going to give you a very different visual than 'the rhythmic gyrating of the lower fleshy extremities'. (Actually, I might be wrong there. The visual is pretty much exactly the same.)
Your problem isn't with slang; your problem is with new slang. The kind that those crazy kids who are younger than you use. Because the next generation is always the downfall of society according to the generation before it. People hated on flappers, hippies, beatniks, punks; the list goes on. You probably thought those old haters looked pretty damn silly for raining on someone else's parade. Don't turn into an old hater just because something grinds your grits; that would just be totes cray.
