Slang Parents Hate
Q.
Want to see a teenager cringe? Encourage Mum and/or Dad to throw in some ‘hip’ slang during carpool.
“Oof. That sounds sus. He just salty because of your drip. Bet!”
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🤦🏽♀️
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How to rescue horrified teens from parental slangicide?
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A.
Perhaps the best slang words are those that parents despise too much to steal and butcher?
In a 2023 survey, Preply asked 682 parents of teens aged 12 to 18 to identify the teen slang they hate the most. Survey said..
2023. Slang Parents Hate Most
i. Bussin’
ii. Finna
iii. Cap
iii. Yeet
v. Simp
vi. Bougie
vii. Cheugy
viii. Rizz
viii. Drip
viii. Turnt
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We’ll let Preply take the lead in defining what the slang actually means: Text Slang of 2023: Surveying Parents of Teens on the Latest Slang (preply.com)
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What were some 19th Century words that rankled parents and delighted teens?
Hard to say for sure, but – in John Stephen Farmer and William Ernest Henley’s 1890-1904 ‘Slang and its Analogues Past and Present’ – we found old slang words that share at least some meaning with the much-hated list above.
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Bone
Just so good, excellent. Thief lingo. Thought to be based in the French word for good: ‘bon’.
To go full chisel
To dive in. To go at it full bore.
Cobber
A big old lie. See also: fibbery
Amuse
To throw dust or snuff in the eye of some poor innocent before you rob them
To grease someone’s boots
To over-flatter or fawn over someone
A bit of stuff
A man who is overdressed, and overconfident in how he looks and what he can do
Just come from the barber’s
Someone who is paying just a little too much attention to how they look
Bunky
Awkward
All in fits
Poorly sewn clothes
Bankers
Clunky boots or shoes. Called Beetle Crushers when they are thick-soled
The biggest toad in the pool
The leader to whom others are attracted
Bugaroch
Pretty. Handsome
Altitude
Super excited, could well be from drinking alcohol
Brick in the hat
Drunk. See also: Been in the sun, Bung-eyed, Be-angered – and that’s just the Bs
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A few other interesting finds…
All moonshine
All talk. Not to be trusted. Full of it
Billy-noodle
A man who mistakenly thinks he is particularly attractive to women
Boodle
Can mean a crowd (the whole kit and caboodle?) or money
Buffle-head
Not so bright
Burnanded
To steal plots, e.g. of plays or books
Carry me out and bury me decently
What?! A big reaction to a big story
Cut dirt
To flee. To escape
Grannam’s gold
You inherited all that money
Nuppence
Nothing
Paddington Fair
A hanging
Picksome
Fussy
Quackle
To drink, eat, or choke. 👀
Quidnunc
A know-it-all.
Raise mountain
Ugh. This is a person who won’t stop bragging
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Header Art: Fernando Botero. A Couple.
