November 19, 2005

• My “Xangaversary” is a few days away. In honor of the countless hours I’ve spent on Xanga over the past year, I’m re-posting five of my favorite posts (one a day) from the last twelve months. Here is offering number 3:

  
  

   

  
  

  Friday, April 15, 2005

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  NEATO, GEE-WHIZ, GROOVY, FAR-OUT, AND RIGHT-ON!   If you’re old enough to have ever seriously used one of the words or phrases above in everyday conversation then, like me, you are probably hopelessly out of touch with the hip new jive talk the kiddos are speaking today.   I discovered this recently when I looked up the Xanga sites of some High School students I know personally. After reading through pages and pages of their posts, the burning question that was on my mind was, “huh?”  I mean, it was apparent they were speaking English, but it was also apparent that none of the words they were using meant what I’ve always thought they meant.   Thinking that these students I knew might be suffering from some sort of shared brain fever that was altering their cognitive abilities, I began to link to more and more student blogs to see if all High School students were speaking in this strange new dialect. That’s when it became apparent; the contemporary slang train has left the station and I’m no longer on board.   In the interest of inter-generational communication, I immediately launched into an exhaustive study of these strange new speech trends. The result is a short dictionary of common terms that might help us all to understand what the hell it is these kids are talking about.   Before I begin to list specific definitions, I’d like to point out that the first thing I noticed about their speech is that it has a distinctive black-urban flavor. It’s as if they are all trying out for a guest spot on Def Poetry Jam. I find this humorous because the students that I know are:               A.        so white they glow in the dark, and   B.        so upper-middle class that their idea of “roughing it” is having to drive mom’s Lexus to school because their Beemer is being detailed.   With that in mind, I offer the following three definitions: (more will follow in later posts)   BITCHES   I’m old enough to remember when people actually used this term to describe canines of the female persuasion. I remember being nine years old and visiting an uncle that raised bird dogs. My uncle made the comment that he had to “tie up his bitch because she was in heat.”  I began to giggle under my breath because I thought that was the naughtiest thing I’d ever heard an adult say. My uncle just looked at me like I was crazy because, to him, that statement was no more scandalous than saying he put the car in the garage because it was raining.   Most of the folks in my generation have used the term to describe women who have personalities that are somewhat less than congenial.  Neither of these uses could be farther away from the current meaning which is:   Bitches   noun, plural    1.         A term of endearment referring to a small group of close friends or acquaintances.  Example sentence:  Me and my bitches are taking daddy’s Jag down to Starbucks for some lattes.     GHETTO   If the first thing that pops in your head when you see the word “Ghetto” is Elvis Presely singing:   On a cold an gray Chicago morn A poor little baby child is born In the ghetto (in the ghetto) and his momma cries.   Then you need to push yourself up with your walker and go grab a pen and a piece of paper because I have a new definition for you:   Ghetto   adjective   1.         A term describing anything that is of extremely poor grade or quality. Example sentence:  I just scuffed these $300.00 sneakers my parents bought for me, so I guess I’m going to have to throw them away because now they are freaking ghetto.   PIMP   When most adults hear the word “pimp”, it conjures up visions of a man in a purple hat with an ostrich feather, wearing a mink coat, and driving a 1972 Eldorado with fur on the dash. If that’s true for you, you’ve been watching too many re-runs of blaxploitation movies from the 70’s, because the new definition is:   Pimp   adjective   1.         Opposite of Ghetto. A term describing anything of extreme quality or anything that is very desirable.  Example sentence:  The new tattoo that Haley has on her ass, which is clearly visible because her low-rider jeans don’t come up far enough to cover even half  of her thong, is defiantly pimp.   Next time: The “F-word” and how students are able to use it as a noun, verb, adjective, and adverb, all in the same sentence!   If you are unsure of the definition of any words that you’ve heard teens use, please leave them in a comment and I’ll get my crack team of researchers working on it right away.   In conclusion I’d just like to say that all my bitches need to leave some comments because comments are pimp, and people who don’t leave them are freaking ghetto.

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