Retard.
I’ve been hearing this a lot more within the last ~14 months.
I hate how that word became pejorative, because it was used correctly. By the way, it’s still used in plumbing. Retard is a verb which means to slow, e.g. retard the flow. When you call a person who is developmentally disabled that, yes it’s rude, but it means their mental process is slow. The word was being used accurately. It’s just not nice to say.
I don’t think “window licker” was ever accurate, but for some reason it’s slightly more socially acceptable to say (or imply, e.g. “I will say this for him, his windows are always clean”).
It doesn’t mean their fucking mental process is slow. It refers to developmental retardation, as if the person’s body is just going to “catch up” one day. Which is why it was a stupid thing to say all along.
I really try not to say this out loud. Im mostly successful. Its deeply imprinted.
“Everyone’s always asking me: ‘What are you doing, retard?’, but nobody ever asks 'How are you doing, retard?'”
How are you doing retard?
❤️
Maybe by you… Unfortunately.
Eh, I use it for very stupid people. Obviously devoid of ableist intent.
I feel as though the context matters with this. For the genuinely evil and criminally unintelligent I would use the clinical “Mentally retarded”.
“Retard” and music (low volume) on buses are the controversial hills I’m willing to die on.
Pick better hills.
Maybe later, for now I have petty culturally unpopular positions that I will maintain. They are few but they are mine.
Syke. Or psych. Early 90’s kid slang, had a definition akin to just kidding or fooled you but more mean spirited. Said to mark the previous statement as intended purely to mess with the listener’s mind or psych them out. Similar in spirit to ending a sarcastically spoken sentence with “NOT!” though distinct.
“Yeah man, you can drive my car. Psych! You’re not touching my ride.”
The more I type about it, the less “psych” looks like a valid English word.
We spelled it “sike”. No clue why.
Cause the cool kids didn’t read
This is truer than you might think. A lot of slang developed out of a need to express oneself without having the vernacular (or even desire) to clearly articulate. It leads to innovating interesting (and in some cases more practical) new ways to say something in a way others (typically in your in-group) can understand easily.
I suspect a lot of that crazy Gen Z stuff comes from kids getting into social media well before fully developing their own social skills, so it just started manifesting through terms and phases they picked up from video games and such.
Wow, interesting explanation. It makes a lot of sense
Supersingular isogeny key exchange (SIKE) is very secure post-quantum replacement for Diffie-Hellman…
SIKE!
Because it started in grade school, and grade school kids were not aware of the word “psych.” So they spelt it how it sounded. Sike or syke, they’re both equally incorrect, but the point is the kids who used them were using them correctly.
The only thing remotely weird about it was when they learned the word “psych” and thought they meant two different things (like they don’t believe “psyching someone out” is a thing, like it does not click for them).
To add to the confusion: For 2 weeks/year I help out the local ballet studio with stage crew. We have this big white backdrop curtain, and colorful lights are pointed directly at the curtain to make dramatic and moody changes to the background during certain dances. When I heard the name of these, I assumed it was the “psyche curtain” and “psyche lights” because that’s how it is pronounced.
Turns out the box is marked “Cyc.” I have to assume that the people that sold the curtain are way less amateur than I am, so I would like to add this third potential spelling.
OMG, I haven’t thought about one of those since I stopped taking ballet. Learned all those French spellings, never thought about how to spell the “Cyc” curtain/scrim, only that we were to stay well clear of it because it was super expensive and can’t be repaired. (Expensive bc huge seamless fabric stretched on a curved frame, and any repair would ruin the seamless illusion.)
I had always assumed it was humorously mis-spelling the word. Like people who would spell it “kool”.
Could be. I just figured since it started in grade school, it wasn’t intentional.
Of course it is. Go rewatch a few episodes of “Psych!” to cure yourself of doubt.
You know I know that you’re not telling the truth.
🍍
Dude, don’t try to psych me out! You and I both know it’s:
🎶I know you know that I′m not telling the truth,
I know you know they just don’t have any proof.
Embrace the deception, learn how to bend
Your worst inhibitions tend to psych you out in the end🎶
The more I type about it, the less “psych” looks like a valid English word.
…because the word is ‘psyche’: “I psyched him out.”
I think it’s Greek origin, and it’s like “psychology”.
One’s psyche (2 syllables) is one’s soul/personality/mind. It’s not a verb.
They all come from the Myth of Psyche (also 2 syllables) a princess loved by Cupid and disliked by his mom.
Psyche (mythology) - Wikipedia https://share.google/kjpSB8R9ySQPDwx6k
“Psyche” is a different word to “psych” in English. “Psyche” is a noun, pronounced “sye-kee”; “psych” is a colloquial/casual verb, pronounced “syke”.
I still use most of the hella tight slang I grew up with
I feel like hella was the west coast version of wicked.
That was hella wicked.
hella
i picked this one up from living in california for 15 years and it keeps tripping up the people i talk to everywhere else i’ve lived since then.
i don’t even notice that i do it until someone points it out to me. lol
I called something “the bomb” the other day and my mind did a record scratch, like, did I actually say that unironically??
My nephew’s initials are b.o.m.b unintentionally.
He’s the bomb.
I dig your vibe, dog.
Who you calling a dog, dawg?
I’m finna get my homeboys to whoop your ass, you dig homeslice?
Yo Bro, cool your jets.
Calling others gay or disabled as a slur.
Also using it for situations of inconvenience. Eg, “The next train is cancelled.” “That’s fuckin gay!”
Sure that’s not just an age thing you and your peers have outgrown?
Both is unfortunately still in use by youths here, but just not once they are grown-up.
We had a campaign in Canada called “‘That’s so gay’ is so yesterday” when I was in school. A lot of classrooms had stickers or posters with that quote. IDK how well it worked in general but definitely had an effect on me, especially since I was at an age where I didn’t really understand what homosexuality even was, and one of my first exposures to the word was that it’s not okay to use it as an insult.
I grew up in the 90s, theses were used by everyone all the time. I still use these, even though I don’t like to. Though, if any of an excuse, I don’t use them to denigrate those disabled or homosexual.
“Retard” is used for any person or thing that is hard to work with, complex to use. Anything complex that takes up a lot time, not simple to use. My oven clock is “retarded” as it isn’t intuitive when trying to set the time. I am “retarded” for not taking the time to pull out the manual and learn how to set it after the power goes out.
“Gay” is for anything or anyone that is dramatic, causing a situation or problem when there isn’t one. For people who are overly sensitive, who take offense at “sub conscious facial micro aggression” of others.
I grew up beating up the bullies of disabled kids. When I got older, I became a lgtbq advocate and donated time\money to charity that supports them. Am I trying to excuse my behavior by still using these …?..
Jew got used a lot in my area in a similar way. It’s horrible looking back and it got used in a lot of ways, one of the weirder uses was in football/soccer, where doing a sideways pass to a teammate for an easy goal was called ‘jew-ing it’.
Information superhighway
Surfing the world wide web. Sounds so dumb now.
Surfing the world wide web. Sounds so dumb now.
I dunno I still kinda love it. In part I think it might sound a little dumb now thanks to how big money has turned the primary web interaction into “Schlorping at the Centralized World Trough.”
But web surfing is still a thing with the Indie Web, and it can still be an apt description because you can catch and ride “waves” of various networked pages and find really neat stuff. There was a sense of exploration to it, the whimsy that you could get carried really far from where you started and potentially have a lot of fun along the way.
I still like to surf the web. Cowabunga. :)
You just described going down a Wikipedia hole too. Always a good way to procrastinate
And the act of traveling on said highway was…surfing. For some reason. The 90’s were stupid, and I’m from there.
Now we sail the high seas.
We were so full of hope.
Now it’s just a series of tubes
It’s more like four tubes and then a whole bunch of tiny little hose pipes.
it’s a free country!
Grody.
I still call things grody, but it’s apparently twee and shit to say now.
Grody to the max.
Nobody says "cool’ anymore. It feels weird when I say it unless I’m trying to be tubular or bodacious.
Or I’m hanging with my boys Fido Dido and Cool Spot drinking a nice glass of Sprite.
I say “cool” though
I have some bad news for you…
oooooh, I played a lot of Cool Spot on the megadrive back then. It was fresh
All that and a bag of chips
I once had a coworker who said she was all that and a bucket of chicken. Black lady, too. I would not repeat it… to her. I’ve since picked it up. “All that and a b_____ of ch_____” is the new saying, and anything that starts with a B that makes sense with something that starts with ch- fits. I haven’t actually heard any others, but I noticed that pattern was maintained across the two.
…“All that and a board of cheese”? Maybe…
Mint
Dope
Beefed it / Biffed it
I still say ‘biffed it’ sometimes.
Ex: “You fucking biffed it hard on that last jump there, bud.”
Dope isn’t a thing anymore? My heart sank a little…
It’s alive as long as dope motherfuckers like you and me keep using it.
I say that shit all the time and teach my kids too. Pretty much has gradually settled into a term of serious admiration for particularly tasty art (of any kind).
Back in the 70s we used to say “fuckin-A” as a kind of agreement
Are you surprised at my tears, sir…?
Bummer man. That’s… (hits joint) that’s a bummer
I still use it…
It was pretty common when I was in high school in the 90s. But for some reason the kids I knew insisted it was fuck-a-nay.
I didn’t learn until an embarrassingly late age that you shouldn’t say “jewed them down” or “I got gypped” when discussing prices, etc. Once it dawned on me what I was saying, I felt pretty mortified, but I grew up hearing them as normal words. It was just a thing you say.
Same with me. Didn’t even think of where it came from.
DL
Short for down low.
Never really hear it anymore.
Also
The bomb.
No one says that anymore.
And
Phat.
To refer to a thick gorgeous woman.
Phat.
That has morphed into thicc.
I recall “Phat” being problematic. Especially since it was applied to thicker women.
Since it sounds like “fat”, its use was generally followed with a “phat with a p” to clarify.
Making the short slang word void for being used easily and casually.
I did respect the approach of trying to change a word that’s usually used to demean someone as a way to complement someone. But it just didn’t stick.
Phat to me in the '90s meant either good, or big. But specifically big, gnarly stuff. Like jumping your mountain bike and getting phat air.
I once got made fun of at work for using “hella” about something. People are stupid.
The only person I’ve ever heard say it is Eric Cartman
Yeah, hella has always been cringe.
