Slangwatch

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
To discuss new coinings, trendy terms, the shifting meaning of words etc.

Prompted by noting the ongoing reappropriation of the word "snowflake" BY liberals to annoy conservatives.

What current slanguage do you rate, and wot do you hate?

What does the slang tell us (if anything) about the world as it is, as it isn't, as it wants to be...
 

version

Well-known member
The main thing that strikes me about slang is that it's often a negative appropriated as a positive. If you call something 'bad' it can mean diametrically opposed things.
 

Leo

Well-known member
I seem to recall "social justice warrior" originally being a positive description of a liberal, then appropriated by the right as a disparaging remark. also the flip-flop in the opposite direction for "deplorables": Hilary's condescending term embraced as a badge of honor by the trump base.

also slang that was common many years ago that in retrospect isn't very PC, or even racist. it wasn't uncommon to hear people refer to a lawyer as a shyster, that would fly nowadays.
 

version

Well-known member
It's sometimes difficult to tell whether something's been recently popularised or you're just late to the party.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
ok, boomer.

I wonder if this at all derived from "OK Google".

An aspect of we slang that might be notable is how relentlessly juvenile it is. Maybe I don't mean slang so much as... Argot? The BuzzFeed tone.

And a good percentage of ppl using this slanguage can't be that young, either. Nobody wants to be old, especially in the ok boomer you ruined the planet era.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
It's nor really slang, more a verbal tick or prop, but I get quite irritated by this thing people do on TV and radio now, usually in interviews, of beginning every answer or statement with "So..."
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
It's nor really slang, more a verbal tick or prop, but I get quite irritated by this thing people do on TV and radio now, usually in interviews, of beginning every answer or statement with "So..."

So, here's the tea: an entire social-media-mediated idiolect now exists that is simultaneously cutesy, knowing and melodramatic, full of world-weary eye-rolling as well as smol puppers that are wholesome af, and it's so problematic that I just can't. Yikes.
 

luka

Well-known member
That's mostly the gays that disgust you tea by the sound of it. And then everyone else adopting that argot.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
That's mostly the gays that disgust you tea by the sound of it. And then everyone else adopting that argot.

Nah, it comes partly from tumblr, which tbf is intersectional af, but I don't think it's specifically from gay slang.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Having said that, "yass queen, slay!" is pretty unequivocally from drag culture.

Where's HMG with some alt-right memes when you need him?
 
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