Riddhi, Week #1- The Meaning behind Meaningless words

                                                                  Image credit: bark.us

“Bro I am actually cooked”. To me, this makes perfect sense, however to someone who has not been online much would probably think I am getting tanned under the sun or having a kitchen crisis. That’s what makes slang so interesting, everyone shows a different perspective of what they think the word means and we become a slightly distinct version of ourselves with others through the specific words we use. For example if I am talking to a friend, they would perfectly understand what I am saying “yo ts new lingo lowk gas” however if I say that to a teacher, she would probably ask me to stop and translate what I am trying to convey.


That is the funny thing about slang language, these words that have never existed before have suddenly become the biggest part of my vocabulary. I feel humorous and cool while using them, but sometimes even embarrassed, like if I say “I am the biggest alpha” in this day and age, I am probably going to cringe everyone in the room, their expressions most likely containing a frown. Sometimes I wonder how people even came up with these crazy creative dialects, such as the term “larp” which means to fake it but has no correlation with the original term at all, even the alphabets are not similar.


That is what I find so fascinating, people do not need similar sounding words to understand the meaning, they just get it like it is another language they learnt from social media or their friends. But slang isn’t just some random internet vocabulary, these words show who we spend our time with, what shows we watch, and where we feel belonged. It shows the different sides of us. I might talk completely different with my teacher than with my friends, however both of those versions are still me. Maybe slangs aren’t meaningless after all, maybe the strange sounding words came from a moment, person, or a group that gave it meaning.


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