Friday, September 28, 2007

Hopelessly Befuddled by The New Hip Slang?

Don't worry, my poor unhip friends. There's a hero on the horizon, and he's coming to help you out. He knows what he's talkin' about.


Take it away, 300 year old Bill Safire:


Word-blending is big in campuspeak. “He’s sort of a nerd, but he’s just so adorkable” combines adorable with dork, the amalgam defined as “endearing though socially inept” by Prof. Connie Eble of the department of English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Another blend is fauxhawk, combining faux, “artificial,” and Mohawk, defined as a “hairstyle achieved by combing all of the hair to the center to give the appearance of a Mohawk without shaving the head.”


Apparently, Bill has been working on this thing for quite awhile, because while the information is accurate I'd say there are some issues in terms of the usage of the phrase "recently emerged" or the word "new", for that matter:

The most frequently used new term at Chapel Hill is sketchy, “of dubious character; shady, potentially dangerous.” Usage: “Those middle-aged men are so sketchy. They creep me out.” It is being substituted for the long-lasting ninja of the 1980s, from the Japanese for “stealthy, secretive.” Yesteryear’s in your face has been replaced by all up in your grill. Sources elsewhere tell me that the adjective crunchy applied to health-conscious, environmentally correct types is being overtaken by the attributive noun granola. Anyhoo (nobody says “anyhow” anymoo), at Rice University the blended compound adultalescence has for the past few years been defined as “the state of moving back in with one’s parents after college graduation.”

Man, take it from me, and the many many women I creeped out in college that "sketchy" has been around for at least 10 years, and I swear it has been around longer than that. And by the by, nothing replaces "ninja", man. Nothing. That's like saying "bumpin'" has been replaced. And it hasn't, dammit. It hasn't.

via Best Week Ever

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