So back in the 50s/60s when there was something people thought of as fashionably exciting, they began calling it cool. In the 70s/80s those things began being called hot. In the 90s we'd call it smoking. I seem to recall a move in the 2000s to them being called lit. Now we got people just plain calling them fire. That's so fire. This is a perishable trend. The next graduation beyond fire is just a bigger fire. So then I suppose the next iteration will be blaze? Maybe inferno? The point is, from there the concept of combustion depreciates into scorched, smoldering, & then ultimately ash, which doesn't seem to hold the same level of potency. Are we engaged in an ever depreciating use of words for combustibility? & once exhausted where do we go then?
Back to cool, then probably ice, and then who knows, because most people these days can't communicate with words over one syllable .
I have never heard that. Nowadays, thanks to the internet and social media, slang changes so fast it's practically impossible to stay hep to the jive.
That's probably because I'm so dope It's so passé now that Liberty Mutual keeps stuffing it down my throat with those commercials where they're knitting absurd things out of yarn, like tuxedos & dress shoes. That's the tell tale sign we'll be moving on to something else in the same vein I actually liked the other direction from cool, back when we used fresh. That's the ticket. It kind of runs in the vein of a word like mint. I'd like to recommend crisp make a bigger splash. Some stoned surfer dude back in the Ridgemont High days was probably saying that anyhow, but it never really had its day in the sun. His version was probably crispy anyway. Word is literally my favorite slang term to have ever existed. It is the pinnacle in laissez faire. Nothing says I don't give AF better than reducing your reply to reflect that "This is in fact where I'd interject some response dialog via words, but instead of making that effort, I'll just show the requisite recognition of said words by saying... word". My word/words would come from me here now... so... Word.
I find the abbreviation "K" to be equally disaffected. It's like there isn't enough energy to must two letters? Slang always fascinates me, especially when generations complain about it. Look up Victorian slang and see if maybe some phrases might make a comeback
That's especially lazy though, cheap even. It's like those people who you want to choke, who say MmmKay? "Word" took more creative thought than that imho.
I figure the origin of using "Word" as slang clearly comes from urban Afro-American culture, but beyond that, it's probably impossible to pinpoint. However, I've only ever heard it 2 ways, with a question mark & without, & in either case the connotation seems ultimately to be that an obligatory worded response is being replaced by the word "Word" itself. With a question mark, it most often seems synonymous with how people will say "Really?". Without a question mark, it translates more to a loose affirmation like "Yeah." With inflection, it can & is used as fluidly as any word, in its users' sincerity & intent, but the implications of supplanting an obligatory comment with just "Word" seems, at least to me, to be relatively two-fold. 1st, It's obviously easier, & thereby, like any other slang, used to affect relaxed language. 2nd, using that particular vocable as the placeholder for actual other words implies imho a willful intent by the user to convey their lack of interest in generating any other words for it. So it may be true that someone offering only the word "K" is seemingly exhibiting a more apathetic reply, barely more than a grunt like "Meh", & only just more approving. However, someone who says "Word" is outright saying they are too apathetic or uninvolved to generate a more engaging reply, like declaring a policy of laissez faire. Saying "K" might be the best way to not give AF, but saying "Word" is the best way to SAY you don't give AF, & those are 2 very different attitudes.
I theorize that the sentence fragment "Word" is short for "That is the word," or something similar, where word has the sense [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/word]: 4a: NEWS, INFORMATION sent word that he would be late "The word is 'no'. I am therefore going anyway." Classic Kirk in 5 Seconds - May Relate Today? SULU: The word, sir? KIRK: The word ...is no. I am therefore going anyway. http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie3.html
Ahh... What I'd call "THE Word" formerly "The Good Word". I hadn't considered it, but it surely is possibly an abridged offshoot of that idiom Which doesn't entirely rule out all the things I've been babbling about either lol
I just recently discovered a new bit of slang that I had never heard before, "in your pocket", I'm not sure exactly what it means, but it seems to be a horse that will stick right to you and follow you around.
^ That reminds me of a bit of slang that I've heard before, but have recently discovered that Americans seem to use it in a different context than what I'm used to. The phrase is "out of pocket", and the American context seems to be akin to "away from work"/"out of the office". The first time I heard it used that way, I was confused, but I assumed they were just mangling the expression. But I have since heard it multiple times, from Americans at work, and from Americans on this very board. The context I'm used to around here has always been around spending money/having to pay for something yourself, eg - "My drug plan didn't cover the medication, so now I'm out of pocket", or "The oven broke, so we're going to be out of pocket".
I'm in the US, and I've only ever heard it in relation to paying for something yourself, like when you have to pay for some part of your medical care, instead of the your insurance. Maybe it's a regional thing.
I'm an American who likes to think he's heard most of our slang, & I've never heard it that way myself, always just the paying your own money out of pocket. Maybe I'm getting old & that one is creeping in past me, but it sure would be odd, considering how the other meaning is SO common for us too, especially where health insurance is the topic. I'm also not an office worker, so maybe it's industry specific? but here's something interesting... That one doesn't seem familiar either. I've heard "in your pocket" as it also relates to money, when someone seems to be trying to grab at yours, more specifically "hand in your pocket" Then musicians have an expression "In THE pocket" which is fitting yourself exceptionally well into the rhythmic groove, which is basically like saying you're "working it". So it's like... you're at work, & in that way, if "in the pocket" is at work, then I could see how someone might get to thinking out of the pocket is not at work... but man is that a stretch lol
I'll also report as an American not ever having heard "out of pocket" in the sense you mention. Merriam-Webster does not recognize it either. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/out-of-pocket I've only heard it to mean paying for it yourself, as you describe in the second paragraph, as Merriam-Webster recognizes.
Batman Beyond coined the word “shway” which I think got into the lingo. By the time Carson left the airways still insisting that his was the “hippist” band……………..……”hip” wasn’t “hip” anymore. But, no one remembers “Oongawa”. “homina…homina” anymore so it looks like I invented something clever. My Dad came up with some “good ones” such as “that beats a goose a’gobbling (like a turkey). My mother being meaner spirited and of a more scatalogical mindset—“Now whose ass is blackest?” Will someone get me out of Alabama please?