Hello, my name is Emma, and in today's video, I am going to talk to you about slang.
I'm going to tell you what slang is, I'm going to teach you some examples of slang as well
as we're going to talk about why you might want to use slang and why you might not want
to use slang.
So, we're going talk about the pros and the cons of using slang.
Alright, so let's get started by talking about what is slang?
Well, it's informal language.
So, this is language you do not use with your boss or in professional settings.
This is the type of language you might use with your friends or your - you know, other
people in your age group socially.
We often use slang to fit in with the group, okay, so there's different slang for different
groups.
So, it's a way to show your identity with this group, and we'll give a little bit of
- we'll, I'll give you some examples of that in a little bit of time.
Slang is vocabulary that changes a lot.
So, it's popular vocabulary at a certain time that quickly becomes unpopular as time moves
on.
So, slang changes.
What is popular vocabulary now is not going to be popular vocabulary in five years, okay,
so that's important to remember, and we use slang to sound up to date or to sound cool,
okay?
So, a lot of younger people like to use slang, a lot of teenagers, people in their 20s, but
also some older people like to use slang as well.
So, I'll talk about that in a bit.
I'm going to give you an example of some slang and how it has changed over time so you can
really understand what I mean by this.
Take the word "good", okay.
You know, my experience was good.
That picture is good.
So, there are many ways to say "good" in a slang version.
So, for example, in the 1950s, in you wanted to say something was good, you could use the
word "neat", "Oh, that's neat!" and it meant the same thing, but this was the slang version.
Or you could use the word "nifty", "Oh, that's so nifty!"
People don't use those much anymore, okay?
In the 1970s, we used to say the word "groovy" to mean good.
"Oh, that movie was very groovy.
Your pants are groovy."
In the 1980s, some people used the word "tubular".
In the 1990s, sometimes people would say the word "dope", "That's so dope!".
And in 2018, some people use the word "lit" and some people use the word "Gucci".
"That's so Gucci!", okay?
So, as you can see, slang changes and it's important to be aware of that because if you're
saying "tubular" from the 1980s and it's now 2018, people might laugh at you because it's
old slang and, like I said, slang changes a lot.
So, now that you know what slang is, let's look at the pros of learning slang and the
cons, or the disadvantages of learning slang.
Okay, so let's talk about the cons first.
Why you don't want to use slang, or why it might be a bad idea to use slang, okay, so
you'll notice I wrote the word "con" and I have a sad face, because this is why you might
not want to use slang.
The first reason is, like I said, slang changes very quickly, and so it's easy to become outdated,
meaning the slang becomes old and if you don't know it, you might sound like you're - you
might sound like you're outdated.
So, you're not up to date with what's happening in culture, okay?
So, you might look like, a bit behind when it comes to talking about culture.
So, I'll give you an example.
Last year, I used this slang, "Let's bounce."
I said to some friends who were younger than me, you know, "Let's bounce, guys".
Let's bounce, when I was in high school, meant "let's go, let's leave".
Everyone looked at me and laughed and they said, "What's bounce mean?" and it was because,
you know, there was an age difference and the slang had changed and I didn't realize
that, so everybody laughed.
So, like I said, the slang I even still sometime use is not - it's not in fashion.
It's not popular nowadays, so you've got to be careful about that.
Sometimes, you might use slang incorrectly.
You might not realize the full meaning of what it means and so when you say it, it might
sound very silly or maybe you don't know how to pronounce the word, so when you try to
say it, you mispronounce it and it can lead to embarrassing situations.
I'll give you an example.
I had a friend from France who loved the word "awesome", and he always wanted to say this
word "awesome", but his pronunciation made it sound like a bad word!
So, whenever he would say "awesome", people around him would say "Did this guy just call
me an asshole?"
Asshole is a bad word in English, but that's how his pronunciation of "awesome" was, so
it was very embarrassing for him.
Okay.
So, that's another reason, if you can't pronounce it, it might be embarrassing.
You also might - like, I said, different groups have different slang.
So, teenagers might use a certain slang versus somebody in a certain profession, you know,
maybe in the music industry, there might be different slang.
So, you want to show you belong to a certain group and one thing you might do by mistake
is use slang from a different group that might be embarrassing to you.
So, for example, "OMG", this is something a teenager might say.
"OMG!"
Now, if a 40-year-old man who doesn't know that teenagers say this, you know, he might
look, you know, a little silly.
It might be embarrassing for him, or maybe somebody, you know, says something that's
supposed to be, you know, it's from gangster culture, for example, but they didn't mean
to say that.
So, you need to know what group the slang is from so you can choose what kind of slang
you want, that best represents you.
Slang can also - it's not really professional.
So, if you're at work, maybe, you know, you're in a meeting or you're with your boss or employees
and you use slang, you might not know its slang.
So, you might have learned a new word, you might be really excited to use it, but it
sounds informal and not professional.
So, you have to be conscious, or you need to know when slang is not professional.
Also, you know, I think people should be able to say whatever words they want at any age,
but the way society looks at people is sometimes they think certain words might be too young
for somebody to say.
So, I want you to think about somebody in your family, maybe your grandfather or, you
know, your grandmother, imagine them using slang.
You might find it embarrassing.
So, sometimes it's important to think about those things before you use slang, because
maybe you might be too old for certain slang.
I think it's fine, but maybe other people might laugh at you if you use it, so you gotta
be careful.
The other thing about slang, another con is some slang is only used in text, or text messaging.
So, it's not used in conversation.
It's just used when you're writing a message.
So, you don't want to get confused and use it in conversation because nobody will know
what you're talking about.
For example, "bc" means "because".
Now, if I say, "I did this bc to...", you know, for whatever reason, people won't understand
that I mean "because".
But if I write in a text, people who know that slang will understand, so you have to
be careful if slang is for a text versus in conversation.
So, these are the reasons why maybe you might want to be careful using slang or maybe you
don't want to use it, but now let's look at why you might want to use slang, because it
can be a lot of fun.
Okay, so what are the pros, or the good reasons why you might want to use slang?
Well, first of all, slang can be very fun!
So, for example, for some people who really like the 1950s, you know, they like watching
movies about the 50s and, you know, they feel a connection, they might want to use the word
"nifty", even though it's old slang, they might want to use it to sound ironic or it
might be fun for them to use.
So, they might not care that it's outdated, they might just like the word.
Another fun word, I think, is "Gucci".
So, this is one I just learned a couple of weeks ago from my younger cousin, Renee, thank
you Renee for teaching me "Gucci", but you know, it's sort of fun to say "Gucci".
It's interesting, you know, to mean "good".
Or the one I really like that Renee taught me was "tea".
Whenever I think about "tea", I just think of drinking tea, but it actually means gossip
in today's slang, so it has two meanings, but in slang, "tea" means "gossip", so you
can tell somebody to "spill the tea" meaning "tell me the gossip".
So, to me, learning these slang words keeps the language very interesting and fun.
Slang can also teach you about really funny ideas.
Maybe ideas you've never thought about because sometimes, English doesn't have a word for
something and then a new word is created to explain this idea.
So, for example, a couple of months ago, I heard this word for the first time: voluntold.
So, what does "voluntold" mean?
Well, it's slang for a situation where they're looking for somebody to volunteer to do something,
meaning the person is doing it because they want to, but you actually have somebody telling
you to do it, like a boss.
So, it's this weird idea when your boss or your mom or, you know, somebody in a position
of power tells you to do something but they try to make it seem like they're asking you
to do something, like you're volunteering, but you don't actually have a choice.
So, it's a really weird concept but for example, "I was voluntold", so it's a verb, "I was
voluntold to plan the party at work."
This means the person didn't want to plan the party, but they were told to do it, but
it made it look like they volunteered, but they didn't.
So, it's a kind of confusing idea, but like I said, you know, slang can be used to create
new words for new ideas.
Also, sometimes knowing slang is important for avoiding embarrassment, okay?
So, using slang might lead to embarrassment, but not knowing slang can also make a really
embarrassing situation.
So, for example, a lot of people are using this expression these days: Netflix and chill.
I'm not going to tell you what that means but it has a sexual meaning, but if you didn't
know anything about slang, you'd look at this and say "Oh, Netflix and chill", not realizing
that there's a sexual meaning there.
So, sometimes it's good to know slang so you don't say something that seems, you know,
you think it means one thing but it actually has a different meaning.
Another reason to learn slang is you can learn about another culture or other group ideas,
okay?
So, for example, this has become popular to say: woke.
I'm woke.
So, what does it mean to be "woke"?
Well, it means that you are aware of racism, of sexism, of social problems, you're aware,
you're woke, and you're probably going to do something about it.
So, a lot of younger people today are using this, "I'm woke".
Now, you have another term that other groups, maybe more conservative groups might use called
"snowflake", and you know, when you think about a snowflake, I always think about this
really happy, you know, piece of something coming down from the sky.
But in slang, "snowflake" is an insult.
If you call somebody a snowflake, it means you think that they're weak and fragile and
they get offended or upset by everything everyone says.
So, right now in culture, you have some people who talk about being woke and then you have
other people who call those "woke" people "snowflakes", so you can kind of see these
two different groups and you can see the slang and how they think of each other based on
slang.
So, you can learn a lot about a culture based on the slang.
Sometimes, slang becomes very common.
So, for example, "selfie" started out as slang and now everybody uses the term "selfie".
Same with the word "fam", which is short for "family".
You know, a lot of the times now when people are talking about "Oh, what are you doing
this weekend?"
"Oh, I'm visiting the fam."
They mean the family.
So, a lot of times, these words become very common.
You can also show that you identify personally with another place or a culture.
So, for example, sometimes different cities or different countries have their own slang
to talk about that place.
For Toronto, some people like to call Toronto "the six", so for example, there's a musician
Drake from Toronto, and he calls Toronto "the six" and a lot of younger people like this
word.
Other people hate this word and they think it's terrible.
So, why do some people call Toronto "the six"?
Well, if you use the telephone, you would call "416" to connect to a Toronto number,
so "the six" comes from the last number of the area code, okay?
So, some people will think this is stupid, a stupid nickname, but some people really
like it, so you can kind of show your identity using these words.
Finally, it might be an idea, maybe you don't want to use slang, but you might want to know
slang, meaning you might not say it in conversation, but maybe you want to know what these words
means so that you can listen to music better, you can understand movies better, and you
can understand what's happening on social media better.
And that's okay too, you don't have to use slang, but you can still learn it.
So, for example, a lot of musicians will use the word - this is a new one for me - "bae",
to talk about their boyfriend or their - the person they have a crush on.
So, whenever you're reading celebrity gossip, you might see this word, "Oh, my bae, blah
blah blah is great, this is my bae" and so, by knowing slang, I wouldn't use this, but
by knowing it, I can understand what other people are talking about better.
So, main points here are if you decide to use slang, be careful because of what I said
in the cons, but also realize using slang can be fun.
So, it's up to you to make the decision as to do you want to use slang, and if yes, what
kind of slang do you want to use?
There's a whole bunch to learn, there's a whole bunch of different vocabulary, so it's
really exciting to use those different words.
So, I want to thank you for watching.
I'd like to also invite you to check out my website at www.engvid.com . There, you can
actually find a quiz about this topic and you can actually practice what you've learned
here.
I also want to invite you to subscribe to my channel.
There, you can find a lot of resources on all sorts of different things including slang,
expressions, idioms, vocabulary, all sorts of things under the sun, so please check that
out.
Thank you for watching and until next time, take care.