A Philly News Station Wonders, 'What Is Jawn?'
Philadelphia’s CBS 3 investigated the origins of the term “jawn” in a super educational segment that aired on Monday night.
Yukon Public Health Campaign Encourages Citizens to Make Sure They're Getting Plenty of D
The Yukon territory in Canada is cold, dark, and sparsely populated—circumstances that require Yukon’s Health and Human Services to encourage residents to really go crazy on that D.
Bitch Face Is Finally Added to the Oxford Dictionary
The Oxford Dictionary attempts to keep up with the rapidly-changing pace of linguistic trends by frequently making updates to their lexicon. Latest additions include such everyday terms as fur baby, butthurt, brain fart and bitch face. Perhaps next year they can add variations to the last, like chronic bitch face and…
The Definition of 'Fuckboy' Is Not What Bad Trend Pieces Are Telling You
By its very definition, slang is simple. It is informal language used by a group of people to discuss or describe certain concepts or characteristics that are implicitly understood if one is a member of said group. As such, approaching slang as if it is some layered, highly nuanced matter in which the individual who…
The OED Reminds White People That Twerking's Been Around Forever
On Thursday, the Oxford English Dictionary announced its latest update, which added almost 500 new words to the compendium, including “twerk,” “hot mess,” “fo’ shizzle,” and “FLOTUS.”
Seth Meyers Stiffly Explains 'Thirsty,' 'Fleek' and Other Teen Slang
This segment where Seth Meyers breaks down "teen slang" on his Wednesday night show was not on fleek.
Overanalyzing 'Basic' Is the Most Basic Move of All
Let us begin, as we so often do, by acknowledging that the term "basic bitch" has been expertly Columbused by white people. In 1984, the R&B group Klymaxx had a hit Billboard single with "Meeting In The Ladies Room," where one of the ladies sings about a basic woman who is trying to get up on her man. But rapper…
Two Timelines of Slang for Genitalia, from 1250 Through Today
Depending on what era you live in, a penis might be known as a plough, a pillow prick, a jigglestick, or a jasper, while a vagina might be a fly-trap, an oracle, a catch 'em alive-o, or the antipodes. Brush up on your historical slang with a pair of genital charts.
Wack Courtrooms Look to Urban Dictionary for Help With Slang
Hey, hey, hep cat jurors! In today's modern and crazy courtroom, some words may come up that you don't quite understand. While in your everyday life, you could just let these words go, in court you gotta get wise to 'em because they may make the difference in a guilty/not guilty verdict. Ya dig, turkeys?
Honeypot, Flaps, Twat: Nicknaming a Vagina Is Tricky Business
The problem with the word "vagina" is that vaginas seem to be just straight-out bad luck. Only a masochist would want one, because only awful things happen to them. Vaginas get torn. Vaginas get "examined." Evidence is found in them. Serial killers leave things in them, to taunt Morse — like they're the shelf in the…
The Lesbian Slang Lexicon: 20 Words and Phrases You've Never Heard Before
The 1989 Alyson Almanac is a treasure trove of gay and lesbian data, and its Dictionary of Slang and Historical Terms is particularly interesting. Most of the terms in the dictionary referenced gay male activities, but there were plenty of special lesbian words I'd never heard before in my whole life — and so many…
Hillary Clinton Blows Our Minds By Submitting Her Own 'Text from Hillary'
Just when you thought the much-buzzed about Texts from HIllary couldn't get any better, Hillary herself has submitted one. She sent it as a kind of thank you note to the site's creators, Adam Smith and Stacy Lambe, "for the many LOLZ." And she proved that she is a pro in all things by deploying expert internet slang…
A Linguistic History of Cocks, Dicks, and Nuts
White Chicago blues guitarist Michael Bloomfield got the shock of his young life when he was traveling to a gig with his hero Muddy Waters, and Waters started talking about how much he loved to suck cock. It took a while for Bloomfield to figure out that Waters was using cock to refer to a woman's vulva, not a man's…
Ridiculous School Bans Slang in Campaign to Incite Mockery
In a surely ill-fated bid to make kids more well-spoken, a school in Sheffield, England has banned slang. Says the school's deputy chief,
Do Teens Really Have Abortion Slang?
Hey, girlfriend! Did you know that teens now have a totally phat new word for getting an abortion? According to About.com the proper term is "hoovering," and kids today think it's the cat's pajamas!
13 Different Ways To Say "Testicles"
In addition to "balls," "nuts" and "cojones," the Cosmo story "Two Spots He's Dying For You To Touch" uses "his boys," "package," "his twins" and then prints ten weird nicknames guys allegedly use. Winston Churchill? Ghandi? Both bald and wrinkly.
Liking "Like:" Wherein Christopher Hitchens Discovers Valley Girls
It appears Christopher Hitchens has finally seen Clueless, because he's come up with a decades-too-late analysis — and mild condemnation — of the word "like."
Slang: Fun Games For Your Brain
If you've ever claimed to have invented a word, only to find it on Urban Dictionary (damn you, nonversation!), you may benefit from Michael Adams's new book, Slang: The People's Poetry.
China Sends Goodwill Pandas To Taiwan • "Meat Curtains" And Other Weird Ladyparts Slang
• A pair of goodwill pandas arrived in Taiwan from China on Tuesday, a sign of improving relations between the two countries.•
Oldies But Goodies
Attention, everyone: 20th century Barnard students were loose women. Well, not really, but that seems to be the underlying message of this 1920s article about a controversial "purity survey" in a Columbia University humor magazine. Here were some of the survey's findings: 50% of the women indulged in necking, 34%…
