Even old people will just stop using them, like “groovy”.
Dude, that’s totes bogus. Get outta here with that whackness. /s
Yeah. Thankfully nobody says things like “epic fail” anymore
At least epic and fail are actual words.
What constitutes an “actual word”?
Ones that are not skibidi
What makes skibidi not a real word? Sure, it’s a nonsense word often used to replace other words, but it still carries some meaning, even if vague
Remember that linguistics isn’t just about high brow standard written/spoken language, it covers all types of language, including slang, body language and sign language
There are real linguists with real qualifications who have actually studied gen Z and gen alpha slang and gotten scientific conclusions out of it
I believe one linguist who studied it was able to either impress or embarrass a high school by speaking entirely in correct gen Z/gen alpha slang
A word that isn’t a direct code for another word is what I meant.
I still do 👋
Can’t speak for anywhere but where I’ve lived, but I’ve heard groovy on the US west coast pretty recently, though not regularly. There was a niche little clique of geeks out in east Texas that’d say it pretty regularly some years ago though. Hippie activist/tabletop enthusiast type vibe, that group. Good people. Groovy, even.
Yeah I feel like not hearing people use “groovy” is more because things aren’t feeling very groovy lately.
That mighta been me
Then we may have met before. I’d rather not be identified on this account, so I’ll just text some of the old gang, and if you’re on the list, you’re on the list lol
i mean, i say it, my cool brother says it, there’s a few of us.
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Groovy is acceptable, but only in the way Ash from the Evil Dead uses it.
Well I think it’s nifty.
Psssh, next you’ll tell me people aren’t saying “hail to the king, baby”?
“Cool” has had greater longevity than i expected.
Marvy fab yo
Yo dawg, that would be like totally tubular unless the geezers spaz out like lamo rents gettin all agro after gettin to tha crib and finding all da homies having a jammy jam in the hizzie. Ya feel me, cuz?
Word up, homie.
What does lamo mean? I understood the rest, and yes, my back hurts.
Misspelled “lame-o” is my guess. Though my spelling of it is a guess as well.
Misspelled? Letters used to cost money, you know. 160 chars/msg.bst to shrten evrything
Nice reference.
Btw Ali G came up nice. As in Sacha wasn’t left to be defined by Ali, went on to become Borat (which was also like the 20 years ago), has done some seriously good drama shows and now is looking like this:
fr
I’m 40 and I understand most of that, yup it’s old person speak.
C’mon Gen Z. You can’t have “tubular”. That’s clearly an 80s term, and thus belongs to the millenials. Same thing with “crib” and the 90s.
“Cuz” was early 2000s. I don’t know who that one falls to. All I know is I was about 18 before I heard it. So, basically on my last legs as far as being able to claim slang to my generation.
Geezers isn’t even my generation, or Gen X. It’s either the Boomers, The Greatest Generation, or The Silent Generation. Really pulling slang out by the roots on that one. What’s next? Are we going to take a trip to the Piggly Wiggly?
“Cuz” was early 2000s
Reminds me of reading Macbeth in high school:
My dearest cuz,/ I pray you school yourself – MACBETH, IV ii
The Yellow Stocking Tales blog has a neat list of words used by Shakespeare and how the meanings have changed over time (or haven’t changed, in the case for the word “cuz”)
Greatest generation is dead dude. Ok maybe a few are around but like, they’re 100+
…ok? Does them being dead today negate the slang they created when they were alive?
Or are you claiming old slang gets put in the free for all bin, for any generation can adopt as their own?
Because I wouldn’t mind picking up “bees knees” when that becomes available.
REDE
Totally tubular, dude! That’s like, the raddest thing ever, and I’m stoked to be part of it. It’s got that gnarly vibe that makes you wanna bust a move and just hang loose. You’re on point, and it’s all that and a bag of chips. Keep it up, ‘cause you’re totally on the money!
Safe.
Down with the rave police !
I’m never gonna stop calling people “dawg”
One of these days I need to go and read through the Calvin and Hobbes collection I bought for my bookshelf when it was on a steep discount. I remember reading them all the time as a kid.
A relatable situation; when my kid can read a little better I mean to very enthusiastically introduce them to it.
Though honestly they might enjoy the beautiful artwork without bothering to read. Or it might encourage them to practice. Hmm.
Either way is good IMO. Even if they just look at the pictures and imagine their own stories I have to believe that’s good for a developing mind.
“cooking” in the context of doing something well has been around for a long time. Think, “now you’re cooking!” Or the less common “now you’re cooking with gas!”
I think it’s just in more frequent use currently. It will be interesting to see if people stop using it after it goes out of fashion with the youth.
Let him cook
Right analogous in some contexts (American sportsball) to “Let him eat”
Does that come from getting paid and therefore being able to feed oneself
Yeah sort of like, “They are performing at a high level and carrying the team, let them get stats (==better contract)”
Language is freaking fascinating.
I personally think cooking will have serious staying power.
Nurse! I vibe coded in my pants again
Gyatt so Ohio, on god.
Cooking is not new slang. That shit goes back decades.
Yup
Phrase what’s cooking? “what’s up, what’s going on” is attested by 1942. To cook with gas “do well, act or think correctly” is 1930s jive talk.
The expression “NOW YOU’RE COOKING WITH GAS” has bobbed up again — this time as a front page streamer on the Roper Ranger, and as the banner line in the current advertising series of the Nashville (Tenn.) Gas and Heating Company, cleverly tying gas cooking to local food products and restaurants. “Now you’re cooking with gas” literally took the gas industry by the ears around December 1939 — Remember? — when it flashed forth in brilliant repartee from the radio programs of the Maxwell Coffee Hour, Jack Benny, Chase and Sanborn, Johnson Wax, Bob Hope and sundry others. [American Gas Association Monthly, vol. xxiii, 1941
That would be rad…
Totally gnarly
NOT.
Forsooth.
Foshizzle
Grouse!
Not as rad as the Commodore 16 Starter Pack !
One might even say “tubular”.
As an old person today, I have no clue what these words mean. Assuming cooking has nothing to do with food. I’ve never heard rizz. I’ve at least heard people use based, though I don’t know its use.
Rizz = Charisma
Based = Cool; Awesome; Good.
Cooked = Fucked (as in up, not sexually).
Cooking = Doing something (usually good, but does not necessarily have to be).
Sincerely,
A 40 year old Millennial.
‘cooking’ specifically implies either creativity or efficacy (or both, some novel solution that results in success)
Ah but then there is the phrase “let him cook,” which tends to be used when someone starts doing something that seems foolish. I would think it at least somewhat relates to “cooking.” If you fail, you are “cooked.”
Edit: To clarify, this phrase is commonly seen after someone says something like “hey, don’t do that;” I did not mean to imply the phrase itself has an inherent good/bad connotation, merely what has been pointed out that they want to “wait and see” the results before making judgement.
This version of cook seems aligned with “hold on.”
As in “it’s not yet apparent that what’s happening makes sense/is good.”
Where’s that tiktok linguist kid when ya need him.
Cooking - you are doing something good
Cooked, getting cooked - someone is messing around with you and you fall for it, kinda like this maybe could be better explanation.
“You are cooking” - you made a song, for example, and it was great song.
“You are cooked” - kinda like when you, as a child, do something bad and your parents are going to be mad when they find out — you are basically cooked.
I’d say “let him cook” is foolishness-agnostic. It could be good or bad, but it’s definitely unexpected
“Let him cook” is more like “I wanna see where this is going”
that is the creative part of the equation
Based also sorta meant woke for a bit before woke
And then it swung the other way and meant being racist pos for a wide minute, too
Based is like ‘unpopular, but I agree.’
I thought it was recognizing that the person acted/spoke their conscience, more or less
Temba, at rest.
Shaka, when the walls rizzed.
I consider ‘based’ an opposite of ‘sour’ or ‘acidic’. That is, being alkaline and having high pH is considered socially desirable. Mixing based and sour personalities will naturally produce salt, that is, dried tears.
Cooking is a term for any time-consuming chemical reaction, which happens to include food preparation.
I have no chemistry-related explanation for rizz. Something to do with sparks?
Yep me too, I bet as it’s young people it’s mainly texted and in txt spk
txt spk
Ahh, the first Kid Pidgin.
Based has been around forever, it’s not some new slang.
forever
Maybe like 10 years? That seem about right?
Some searching seems to suggest that “Lil B” started the words come back around 2010
Lil B in quotes like he’s a massively obscure figure from the past. The years really don’t stop coming.
Never heard of him.
¯\(ツ)/¯
My 34 year-old brother says “rats!” when something bad happens. He learned from our grandpa.
I make it a point to adopt some of my grandpa’s lingo. Funnily enough my 18-20 year old students can smell 30yo slang from a mile away and will point out it ages me, but they’ve never said anything about the random 50s teenage slang I incorporate.
Oooh, I like that, I’m terrified of rats, so that would be a great replacement, for the usual word, when around kids, too.
they already are in black communities, teens see tiktok comments and go wow new slang, a lot of this shit isnt new tho, like bop wasnt new but everyone acted like it was a new tiktok word, neither was thot on twitter or many others, rizz isnt new, its been around, cooking and based? not new at all
What is “bop”? Are bop-its popular on TikTok?
A song that is good, or goes hard.
That makes sense, I guess. Thank you.
Absolutely! I’m old, but somehow I am still semi-“hip”
I’m old, but I was homeschooled so not once was I hip.
In fact I’m pretty sure my actual physical hip is failing.
the song one is common, but it also used to mean a hoe and means that again, ppl on tiktok comments were acting like that was recent but I remember it being used in that context as a kid
Nothing is new under the sun.
I heard that once in a bible class and it’s stuck with me ever since. And imo it beautifully encapsulates humanity’s trends and fads.
Language is an ever-evolving thing, but at the same time, how many variations of something can be made before we’ve made all of them? Humanity has been around for thousands of years; I find it hard to believe that just about any word we could come up with is actually brand new and no other human has heard it before.
How is rizz not new? I’ve never seen it until tiktok.
Where do you think tiktok slang comes from? It’s just popular slang someone uses in a comment that middleschool kids who are from different areas, that have never heard it before parrot, because they literally just copy popular comments bar for bar hoping to get likes
I’ve heard it plenty, california
What year did you first start hearing the word rizz?
rizz comes from African Americans Vernacular English and has been around for decades…. white kids on tiktok recently learned it…
I’ve been around for decades too, even living in California, and the first time I’ve heard the word is recently with the new generation of tiktok people.
well slang is very regional, as well as specific to different subcultures… like gamers have tons of slang/jargon…
seems like kids like to appropriate slang from elsewhere (often black slang, probably from music), then they assume they invented it and gatekeep it, then it progresses to boring or becomes part of the language like “cool”….
but whatever, i’m down with it… it’s totally tubular!
How the fuck would I remember a specific year
I’m cooking spaghetti for dinner tonight. Yes, I’m old.
Who has a problem with spaghetti?
GenZ HATES spaghettis because their not WOKE like “bucatini” or “far fale”
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in the nursing home talking about how I rizzed up the nurses (i didn’t)
I’m old and “cooking” was old when I was young.
Nah. It was just cooking
They are already getting there. Hearing forty year olds say it means kids are now stopping saying it.
Wazzuppppp, fellow youths!
It is time for a rap!
This is what I strive for in my old age.
I hear more millennial YouTubers using this language than I do highschoolers.
I would imagine because you spend way more time watching millennial YouTubers than you do hanging out with high school ers
Yeah! Screw me for not wanting to hang around the little shits after having to deal with them at work right?
