Teen Slang and Pronoun Madness

Every generation of teenagers comes up new slang that they use. It rarely involves coining new words (how would anyone understand a new word anyway?). Rather, it involves coining abbreviations (FR = for real) and acronyms for commonly used phrases; or using existing words to mean something else; or changing the form of an existing word to mean something (“adulting” = doing things an adult would do, a derogatory phrase meaning you are old and responsible (cringe)).

 

The reasons for this lingo are the usual. A sense of identity (distinct from adults in particular). Independence. Belonging within their peer groups. Code for certain commonly felt emotions.

 

I overhear a lot of this lingo when my 14 yo daughter talks to her friends. Of course, she isn’t keen to explain any of that slang to me. And even if she does explain it, she will insist I use it all wrong. And that I should stop trying to use such slang – I am not cool enough for it.

 

That, of course, is why I try and pick up all new teen slang every opportunity I get from serials, movies and Instagram (“Get off Instagram” is my daughter’s sage advice to me). Like recently, while watching the latest Now You See Me movie, I learnt that when something “slaps”, it is amazing or excellent (The drink slaps, for example). Every time I use that word, my daughter will give a withering look to convey I used it wrong and that I am embarrassing her and me both. Since I don’t feel the least bit embarrassed and get a kick if she feels embarrassed, you can understand why her “feedback” has absolutely no impact.

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The latest season of the popular Hindi secret agent serial, Family Man, has Manoj Bajpayee playing the eponymous character and the father of two teens (boy and girl). He experiences and does all the things described above (doing “vibe checks” and “peace bro” and receiving the same scornful stop-trying-to-be-cool-dad responses from his kids), so totally relatable. As he puts it in this Instagram snippet, all teen/Gen Z slang is for and by “lazy लोग जो पूरे sentence नहीं बोल सकते हैं” (lazy people who can’t speak full sentences).

 

At one point, the serial takes a shot at the American madness of recent times to let people pick what pronouns should be used to refer to themselves. The intent was to allow the LGBTQ (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transversals and queers) crowd to pick the pronoun by which they should be referred to (he, she or they). If you are wondering about the plural “they” on that list, it is because of the absence of a singular “वह” equivalent word in English. The pick-your-pronoun madness expanded to everyone (in the US) – even regular guys and girls picked  pronouns for themselves (Why do only the LGBTQ’s get to pick their pronouns? Why not the rest of us?).

 

At one point, our hero playing Srikanth Tiwari learns that his daughter wants to be called “they”. Having no clue of what this is all about, he will innocently ask his son, “Isn’t she a Tiwari? Why/when did she become a De?” His son will explain the whole pronoun picking madness to his dad. The father will have that “Aaj ka generation…” look, think for a bit and then ask his son what are the equivalent self-picked pronouns in Hindi? His son will pause and say Hindi doesn’t have any of this. Upon which his father will heave a sigh of relief, and say:

“चलो , हिंदी तो बच गई”