Current teen lingo?

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I've been watching several commercials and other things on the TV and noticed a new piece (to me) of teen argot.  When someone is amazed or impressed by something they say

 

"Woe" or is it "Whoa" or "Wo" (Mandarin for "I" or "Me").  What is it really?

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Whoah is not that new. My mother used that when she was young. She also used duh/der/dur for "obviously." I can hardly keep up with the current teen lingo. YOLO, FOMO, etc.

--Ocram

[The Avatar 1,089]

It's spelled "whoa." The word itself has been around for centuries, but it has only been used in the context of surprise or shock in fairly recent history. I haven't heard adults say it as much, but I wouldn't say it's teen lingo. 

 

According to Dictionary.com, the history of whoa is: "1620s, a cry to call attention from a distance, a variant of who. As a command to stop a horse, it is attested from 1843, a variant of ho. As an expression of delight or surprise (1980s) it has gradually superseded wow, which was very popular 1960s."

[Odainsaker 2,137]

Truly a most excellent, non-heinous, cinema classic.  Wyld Stallyns Rulz!

Keanu totally built like...y'know...an estimated $470 million Hollywood career around that single word.  Yep, we have given him almost a half billion U.S. dollars to intone in the way that only Keanu can...

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

And I thought that horses had almost faded from the public consciousness, eh?  Now where are young people finding this expression from the horse and buggy days?  Have they been (secretly) watching old westerns on Netflix?

 

For the enthusiastic old western movie buffs, what was the name of Tom Mix' horse?

[philforhockey51 4,220]

  I forgot how many whoas you can fit in a couple of movies

[AkemiAzula 280]

Personally I use blimey because my father used it and whoa sounds way too rad for a listener of baroque like me.

Actually i find any exclamation rather demeaning and animalistic. Cor. You wouldnt hear me saying whoa.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

I don't know dudes, make fun of his acting all you want, but that dude hasn't had the easiest go of it, and he does, like, hella good things for his bros, yo.

 

I'm down with saying "whoa."  I'm hip.  I'm .

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

"Slow down, you're goin' too fast

"Gotta make this moment last.

"Trippin' down the cobble stones.

"Life, I love ya, feelin' groovy."

-- 59th Street Bridge Song (Simon & Garfunkel)

[Lyrics from memory.  Ed.]

[Sabretooth78 808]

A little colloquialism I had heard from a few people when I lived in New Hampshire was to call something "a corker" when it's surprising or unique.  I've never heard that anywhere else or since.  Maybe there are some other regions where it's prevalent?

[Titanicbuff 1,262]

I still can't figure out what "tokes" is. Man- I'm a child of the early 80s- I still remember a lot of 90s lingo from my teen years, not so much of the 80s lingo. But as a teen we used words like "Whateva", "Raise The Roof" "Whoa" was one then as well, I can't understand what todays lingo is even saying, so I tend not to use it.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I actually do know what totes (totally) and toke (smoke weed) mean. There are other words I am unfamiliar with.

--Ocram

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

I think "whoa" (I'm used to seeing it spelled "woah," but apparently this is the correct spelling) has been common as an exclamation for surprise for a while, although it's been popularized recently in movies (thanks Keanu).

 

As The Avatar mentioned, it's the traditional command in horseback riding to tell the horse to stop.  So I believe it came about as an exclamation of surprise because something amazing would happen, and saying "whoa" was sarcastically telling everyone to "stop for a second" as if they were a horse.  So back when everybody rode horses, it was the equivalent of saying "stop and look at that!"  I don't think it ever died out, I've seen it used in old 20th century books and movies; but I definitely think in the last few decades it has made a comeback.

 

"Wait" and "hold up" (slang for wait, stop) are also commonly used in this context in place of "whoa" nowadays.

 

You may not have heard of it in Canada if horses weren't so common in your area back then.  Everyone in the United States owned a horse in the 18th-19th centuries; everything became so spread out as people settled west that you absolutely needed one to get around.  Horse lingo is very common in our dialect even today:

 

- "Hold your horses" -- means wait; slow down, don't get ahead of yourself

- "Saddle up" -- let's leave, get ready to hit the road

- "So hungry I could eat a horse" -- common phrase when you're quite famished

- "Straight from the horse's mouth" -- getting word from the boss; message from the highest authority

- "Horsing around" -- mischievous fighting/playing by children

- "Get off your high horse" -- don't be so self-righteous

 

and there's countless others.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

When I was a kid horses were in common use.  This was during WW II and we had a milk man who drove a horse cart and a baker too.  Gasoline was rationed very strictly.  Many farmers used horses the same way they'd been used in the 19th century.  There is nothing odd about horses and equine husbandry for me, it is just a long time ago.

 

One of the expressions that was missed is "Never look a gift horse in the mouth".  You can tell a lot about a horse's age by counting his teeth and checking for wear from the bit.

 

I find it interesting that whoa has become a current expression on its own.  In my youth common expressions were "Whoa, Nelly" or "Whoa, Dobbin".

 

General American and General Canadian are both English dialects that have evolved and continue to evolve as time goes on.  The last time I took a look at it there were over 800,000 entries in the Oxford English Dictionary (around 1980).  They keep adding new entries so I wouldn't be at all surprised if some thirty plus years later if it isn't over a million.

 

It seems that the new generations are the generators of new expressions coming into the language.  Sometimes coined words like 'chortle' take root.  It is a nineteenth century portmanteau word coined by Lewis Carroll in the poem Jabberwocky included in Alice in Wonderland.  Most words don't enter in so formal a fashion.

[Odainsaker 2,137]

I remember way back using "radical," "gnarly," "funky," "to da max," and even "dyno-mite!"
 
Imagine my giggles when the show "Gintama" a year ago offered this translated and subtitled gem:


 
Say what?  "Fo' shizzle ma nizzle"!!!  Dude, no way!  Yo, just what was that in the original Japanese?

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

snip 

Say what?  "Fo' shizzle ma nizzle"!!!  Dude, no way!  Yo, just what was that in the original Japanese?

 

I totally want to know that.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Doesn't sound repeatable in mixed company.

[TheCjm1999 11]

"Woah" isn't an entirely new phrase or statement. Many people, besides teenagers, have used the term for several decades now. Current teen lingos are...

 

-"Swag"

- "YOLO" - (You Only Live Once)

- The use of hashtags to describe something or someone. For instance, "bigswim2015"

- Another habbit is to describe something with the use of "that" or "dat". For example, "that kick" or "that shot".

 

Personally, I think the current teen lingos are crap and I have never used them. As far as I know, most of the current teen lingos are inspired by social media. 

[AkemiAzula 280]

i reckon yolo's pretty rad

after all...

yolo

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

"Live! Live!! Live!!!  Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death." -- Mame Dennis in Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis.

[jmsepe 2,039]

These terms are not really rare at all, welp I'm 19 so that must say a lot of things about it. I am more concerned with social groups making their own lingo i.e. gay lingo, friendship lingo, et al. Really, now can we just stick to one lingua franca? 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Unfortunately both local dialects and local customs influence much of this.  The universal access on the Internet may play a role in smoothing things out, but there are several language blocs that will develop there own modern vernacular.  Living languages tend to change with the times.

[EyeofMobius 27]

Just for clarification I subscribe to the belief that YOLO stands for "You Obviously Love Owls."

 

I work with youth so new lingo is put to challenge in my presence. I ask them to use it in a sentence, provide a definition, would they use it in an employment interview, would they put it on a tshirt, would they eat it on a boat, with a goat?

 

I find my vocabulary to be very fluid as a person though and seem to mish mash and inventify words with some regularity. I seem to get away with it moreso with younger or easygoing folk; I feel this has a lot to do with the magic of saying more through intonation and body language.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Well, you know that LOL used to stand for 'Little Old Lady'. 

 

Other expressions in English have been 'updated' as well.  Remember the song 'Our Heats Were Young and Gay'?  It has nothing to do with homosexuality.  I really hate to see ordinary words get twisted, but what the heck, it is a living language.  'Queer' for gay has too many semantic negatives, so one can't blame the change to something with happier semantics.  However, I am puzzled that the term 'gay' now seems to mean male homosexuals only.  I suppose there is a historic precedent for the appellation 'lesbian' since it is rooted in Greek history, whereas there seems to be no equivalent in that historical context for men.  However, among the Acheans is was not unusual for men to have a male lover, at least before marriage.

 

A considerable amount of the current 'new speak' seems to be driven by the need to say it on Twitter, which restricts text length.  IMHO, Twitter is for twits.

[TheCjm1999 11]

Just for clarification I subscribe to the belief that YOLO stands for "You Obviously Love Owls."

Interesting. Here in Australia, YOLO has always meant "You Only Live Once". It is only a new "teen lingo" or abbreviation, however I have never heard anyone refer to YOLO as "You Obviously Love Owls". I suppose the general definitions and meanings of these abbreviations vary with different countries.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Interesting. Here in Australia, YOLO has always meant "You Only Live Once". It is only a new "teen lingo" or abbreviation, however I have never heard anyone refer to YOLO as "You Obviously Love Owls". I suppose the general definitions and meanings of these abbreviations vary with different countries.

 

I think You Obviously Love Owls is more of a joke meaning for YOLO, because so many people think YOLO is such a stupid term. 

[jmsepe 2,039]

YOLO can actually mean different things as it depends one saying it and the receiver. Even the term "You Only Live Once" can denote several interpretations, Just take a short trip in tumblr and see what I meant. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Just remember that a lot of this acronym stuff got kicked of by three magic initials: IBM, which besides standing for the corporation has been tranlated as "Itsa Big Machine", "I've Been Moved", "International Brotherhood of Magicians", and some things not postable on this board. 

 

Anyone besides me remember the days when the computer game could be summarized by the phrase "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"?  If IBM was Snow White, who were the seven dwarfs?

[AkemiAzula 280]

Way before your time we had this cool acronym that was so hip you'd see it everywhere:

SPQR

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Senatus Populusque Romanum?  The motto of the Roman Republic.