A ‘Grumpy Old Man’s’ Guide to the Language of Young People
The writer reflects on young people’s slang, prison language and the words that take over a culture.
Ethan Cassidy
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Culture
Call me a grumpy old Baby Boomer, but I can’t understand young people. Or more specifically, young Queensland males. Literally.
They seem to have their own language, or dialect – barely intelligible to a carefully educated person over the age of 50. Perhaps the most ubiquitous word of this cohort is ‘mad’.
This word is now used for any positive reference. It replaces delicious, plentiful, interesting, humorous, beautiful, beneficial and thousands of other adjectives. ‘Mad’ has negated the need to know any other word which could broadly be construed as ‘good’.
For example, “I had a mad sandwich at the courthouse,” “he said the new jail is mad,” “the magistrate gave him a mad sentence,” are all expressions of a positive experience. Note that ‘mad’ lacks degree. Something is never ‘very mad’ or ‘somewhat mad’.
But ‘mad’ is far from the only culprit in this drive to simplify the mother tongue. At least if it’s used as an adjective replacing other adjectives. Unlike the following.
Recently a youngster arrived in our residential unit and took his first shower. He emerged from the bathroom, thankfully with a towel around his waist, and declared loudly: “that shower pressure is gangsta”.
Knowing the shower, I understood that he meant ‘strong’ or ‘good’ or ‘powerful’.
So unlike ‘mad’, ‘gangsta’ is a noun replacing an adjective and thus an entirely different bird.
Another word one hears in every other sentence is ‘bro’ or sometimes the full ‘brother’. I liken the use of ‘bro’ to the way ‘comrade’ was used in Soviet Russia. It’s a handy term for use in jail where chaps are not generally keen to remember names. Everyone directly addressed is ‘bro’ while every person referred to is ‘old mate’. As in “bro, he snores mad, word”.
“Who?”
“Old mate.”
The other term required to master is ‘word’, which seems to be a contraction of ‘by my word’, indicating the veracity of a preceding statement. It is used with great frequency, perhaps suggesting that before its introduction a lot of lies were told.
Obviously the elephant in the cell, to appropriate a cliché, in any commentary about the language of young inmates, is the proliferation of swear words. However, such conversation topics are not suitable for such a respected publication such as About Time.
Viewing a news item recently where the American President was speaking on the acquisition of Greenland (or was it obliterating a civilisation or disparaging the Pope?), I asked the young chap alongside me what he thought of Donald Trump. He replied “he’s mad, bro. Word.”
I was not sure in this instance if he was using the adjective in the traditional or the modern sense.
Call me a grumpy old Baby Boomer, but I can’t understand young people. Or more specifically, young Queensland males. Literally.
They seem to have their own language, or dialect – barely intelligible to a carefully educated person over the age of 50. Perhaps the most ubiquitous word of this cohort is ‘mad’.
This word is now used for any positive reference. It replaces delicious, plentiful, interesting, humorous, beautiful, beneficial and thousands of other adjectives. ‘Mad’ has negated the need to know any other word which could broadly be construed as ‘good’.
For example, “I had a mad sandwich at the courthouse,” “he said the new jail is mad,” “the magistrate gave him a mad sentence,” are all expressions of a positive experience. Note that ‘mad’ lacks degree. Something is never ‘very mad’ or ‘somewhat mad’.
But ‘mad’ is far from the only culprit in this drive to simplify the mother tongue. At least if it’s used as an adjective replacing other adjectives. Unlike the following.
Recently a youngster arrived in our residential unit and took his first shower. He emerged from the bathroom, thankfully with a towel around his waist, and declared loudly: “that shower pressure is gangsta”.
Knowing the shower, I understood that he meant ‘strong’ or ‘good’ or ‘powerful’.
So unlike ‘mad’, ‘gangsta’ is a noun replacing an adjective and thus an entirely different bird.
Another word one hears in every other sentence is ‘bro’ or sometimes the full ‘brother’. I liken the use of ‘bro’ to the way ‘comrade’ was used in Soviet Russia. It’s a handy term for use in jail where chaps are not generally keen to remember names. Everyone directly addressed is ‘bro’ while every person referred to is ‘old mate’. As in “bro, he snores mad, word”.
“Who?”
“Old mate.”
The other term required to master is ‘word’, which seems to be a contraction of ‘by my word’, indicating the veracity of a preceding statement. It is used with great frequency, perhaps suggesting that before its introduction a lot of lies were told.
Obviously the elephant in the cell, to appropriate a cliché, in any commentary about the language of young inmates, is the proliferation of swear words. However, such conversation topics are not suitable for such a respected publication such as About Time.
Viewing a news item recently where the American President was speaking on the acquisition of Greenland (or was it obliterating a civilisation or disparaging the Pope?), I asked the young chap alongside me what he thought of Donald Trump. He replied “he’s mad, bro. Word.”
I was not sure in this instance if he was using the adjective in the traditional or the modern sense.
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