parlez vous teen?

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Parlez Vous Teen?
Decoding Millennial Slang
by Michele Ranard, M.Ed.                                                                
615 words

 I live with teenagers. The other morning at breakfast, my 15-year old son mentioned sorrowfully he may have “tossed a fork.” I grimaced. Because I have grown so accustomed to feeling clueless for what my kids and their friends are talking about (“Dude, that song is way sick widdit stupid hotness yo!”), I assumed “tossed a fork” was new lingo for “blew chunks.”

 In reality, my son literally threw a piece of cutlery in the trash. Clearly I over-analyze, but it feels like every day new jargon from their ever-evolving vocabularies is introduced. Here are a few terms with definitions learned from my teen sons, my experience as the parent of millenials, and the world wide web:

Going Screensaver: When you notice a coworker spacing out or dozing off in a meeting.
“Check it out, look at Joe. He’s going screensaver.”

Rosetta-stoned: One who gets so high, he or she begins to speak in a foreign language.

Phone-yawn: The act of taking out a cell phone from one's pocket or purse, resulting in other people in the vicinity taking out and checking their phones as well.

Ballin: The term has been thrown around our house (pun intended) for years so I am sort of a ‘ballin’ connoisseur. It means to be living the high life, to be well respected, to be wealthy or to be a basketball player. “That dude is ballin.”

Tranq: 1. A sedative, or the act of sedating. 
2. Any chemical substance used for calming a human or animal through injection or ingestion.
n. "The TRANQs are kept in the emergency medical locker by the gauze."
v. "The bear was TRANQed so that officials could safely transport it back into the wild."
v. "You need to TRANQ out, man, it isn't the end of the world."

Totes:  Short for totally.

Facebook Ammo: A humiliating or incriminating photo saved on a friend’s camera to be potentially posted on Facebook for blackmail purposes.

Generation TMI (Too Much Information): While not slang, it is a concept parents of teens likely understand but may need a term for. Urbandictionary.com defines it roughly as kids overloaded with too much information because of the rapid growth of technology and the incessant need people have to share information online.

Text Anxiety: The worry after texting someone when they don’t text right back. Are they alive? Mad? What could possibly be taking so long?

Text Away Your Dignity: Familiar with drunk dialing? It’s the equivalent with texting.

Throw Down: (NOTE: Pay close attention to this one—throw down or throwdown means a million different things depending on context!)

 #1:  To contribute money to pay for something.
Colton: “Dude, I’m gonna make a McDonald’s run, want some?”
Jake: “Sure, dude, I’ll throw down.”

#2: To mosh or slam dance.
He totally threw down in the pit.”

#3: To street fight, like “throwing down the gauntlet.” 

#4: To throw a large party. (WARNING: it may not be ‘dancing’ they’re planning to do this weekend if you hear your kid mention throwdown on the phone.)

#5: To drink excessively; see warning in #4.

Tiger’s Wife Mad: Or TW Mad. So angry that you find the item which the object of your anger cherishes the most and proceed to beat him/her with it.
Did you see that dude ask for the manager at Taco Bell? He was Tiger’s wife mad with the burrito!”

By the way, do not under any circumstances try out these expressions on your teens! Trust. They could easily become TW mad and reach for…whatever. Use this knowledge solely to decode, sympathize, and delude yourself into feeling cool. (If you parent a teen, you already know a delusion is the closest you’ll come.)

Because Michele Ranard is paranoid, she still worries ‘tossed a fork’ is secret code. She is an epic sick blogger at http://hellolovelyinc.blogspot.com and http://hellolovelychild.blogspot.com.

 Sources: The Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com) and sons

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