Kiddo slang at warp speed
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"Mewing, Beta Maxing, Gigachad, Baddie: Parents Are Drowning in New Lingo", Katherine Bindley, WSJ (2/5/25)
Slang is sprouting at a dizzying speed, leaving adults constantly unsure if they’re being insulted; ‘Omega is like the lowest rate you can get’
The article includes many examples of parents from diverse backgrounds and various locations confronting this flood of juvenile jargon. Here I give only one instance:
Cecilia Hermawan has text chains going with other parents to stay up to speed on the words and phrases catching on among their children. Still, the Boston-area resident was taken aback after hearing the word “mewing” come out of her 9-year-old’s mouth.
“I didn’t know what it meant so I had to Google it, and I had to ask my friend Emily to reference check,” said Hermawan, 41.
The startup founder was relieved her daughter and her friend were referring to a type of facial exercise and not something inappropriate. “You look at yourself in the mirror and you mew,” she said. “It’s supposed to enhance your jawline.”
Incidentally, out of the half a dozen or so cases of confused guardians cited by Bindley, two are identified as a "startup founder", a designation I had heard of before and had an idea of what it meant, but recognized it as representing a certain type of person who is full of aspiration and audacity. Maybe the environment and mentality fostered by such individuals would be conducive to speedily mutating hip parlance on the part of their offspring.
The meat of this post is to inquire of the assembled worthies whether slang is really changing faster now and at younger ages than it did for previous generations. If so, may we attribute this rapid, radical change to the technologies in which we and our children are submerged day in and day out? Finally, where is it leading?
The Second Coming
By William Butler Yeats
By omitting the second stanza (with its Christian imagery), I realize that I have interpreted Yeats' immortal poem in a way that he himself may not have intended or contemplated, but — as a serious, worshipful devotee of this ethereally creative verse — I take that as my reader's prerogative.
Selected readings
- "AI and slang" (10/29/23)
- "Welp, sup, yep, yup, nope" (5/29/20)
[Thanks to John Tkacik]
Francois Lang said,
February 7, 2025 @ 11:58 am
It would have been helpful if the article had defined or explained all the terms in question rather than forcing those of us in the unwashed masses to google them all!
aha said,
February 7, 2025 @ 12:37 pm
having recently witnessed an elder use "rain check" to a youthful audience of telecomm missionary door-to-door workers (verizon fwiw) falling flat on its face, and the ensuing collapse into chaos between the conversational partners (the lads exiting the conversation from the miss puzzled whatever it could mean, genuinely perplexed), i am unsure it is more problematic what is being added to linguistic practices than what is being lost.
Ethan said,
February 7, 2025 @ 1:44 pm
So "to mew" means "to produce a moue"? I suspect an etymology involving egg-corns, spellcheck errors, pronunciation failure, or translation error.
Chris Button said,
February 7, 2025 @ 1:52 pm
I've recently been hearing my kids describe things as "goaded".
It took me a while to realize they were using G.O.A.T (greatest of all time) as an adjective.
Terry K. said,
February 7, 2025 @ 2:00 pm
@Ethan
According to multiple sources on the web, to mew, in the relative sense, comes from a surname, specifically, British orthodontists John Mew and his son Michael Mew who created the technique.