Pimp Your Vocab - the ‘Teenglish’ dictionary that demystifies slangs!
September 16th, 2009 - 5:26 pm ICT by ANI
London, September 16 (ANI): Baffled parents trying to make sense of words coming out of their teenage children’s mouth have help at hand, for a guide demystifying the slang used by youngsters has been published.
Lucy Tobin, the author of ‘Pimp Your Vocab’, revealed she was hit with the idea of a new dictionary of “teenglish” terminology while at university, when a tutor was left puzzled by the term “IM-ing”.
“So after we students explained IM-ing - when you ‘talk’ to friends online via instant messaging - I started to think: do adults ever wonder if it’s a good thing when a student says they “got owned”?” the Telegraph quoted her as saying.
“Do tutors consider whether they’re being complimented when someone calls them teek? On discovering a pupil talking about being fraped, should you call the police?
“So I wrote down a guide to the language the kids use. It might not get on to the linguistics reading list for a while, but it could help staff-student communication,” she added.
Tobin hopes the dictionary would help bridge the communication gap between staff-student.
She said: “Language changes fast and that can scare the hell out of parents, teachers and anyone who no longer braves the clubs on Friday night for fear of being ‘too old’.
“In communicating with a Teenglish-speaking randomer (that’s an outsider to your social group) their words can seem like a new language.
“Meaning is not an exact science, but depends on mutual agreement between reader and writer, speaker and listener, teenager and adult.”
Some teenglish terms explained:
Allow (that): means “absolutely no way”.Big up: to praise or congratulate someone.CBA: “can’t be arsed”Frape: a compound of Facebook and rape, describing someone’s social networking profile being hacked into and changed.Neek: a combination of nerd and geek.Obv: abbreviation for obvious.Owned: to be humiliated or embarrassed, usually after being shown up or exposed in some way.Smacked it: to have done well at a particular activity.Teek: adjective for very old - older. Derives from “antique”.Wagwan: a greeting. Stands for “What’s going on?”Waste: someone who acts in an idiosyncratic way.Woop woop: a noise made to denote happiness or congratulate someone. (ANI)
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Tags: cba, communication gap, exact science, facebook, language changes, linguistics, networking profile, new language, outsider, reading list, september 16, slangs, social group, social networking, staff student, student communication, teenage children, tobin, vocab, youngsters