>The Rizzle Dizzle
>At one point when I was a teenager, I began referring to my house as a “crib.” If I liked something, it was “dope,” (prompting a hasty room search by my “rents”). I gave “mad props” to my “homies” on a regular basis. I listened “fresh,” “fly” beats on my stereo. In short, I sounded like I had lost my mind.
My parents put up with it for the most part, teasing me only when they couldn’t take it anymore (Mom, for example, countered an early and persistent “totally tubular” from me with “possibly pubular.” I still haven’t forgiven her.) It wasn’t until I started hearing some new slang from my stepdaughters, though, that I realized what I had put my own parents through. Beyond that, my once-mad “props” now are off da heezy, and I’m feeling kind of… old.
Find out how the hizzell I’m handling it in this week’s print edition of Suburban Turmoil.
>Yesterday I had to help my 16-yr old carry a sub-woofer from our garage into his car to return to a friend; don’t even ask me why he had it. I have had end tables smaller than this thing, and apparently they keep them in their ‘trunks’ for the ‘bass.’ You can hear them coming about 1/2 mile away, these kids with their ‘rap’ music and ‘bass.’ He and his friends have also lately taken to wearing bandannas around their heads, and so far he has been raiding our napkin drawer for them. Yesterday he asked me if I ever saw any ‘silk’ or ‘fancy’ ones when I was out shopping, apparently assuming that I am generally on the lookout for such things in my regular rotation. Do they carry those at Target? They talk like you mentioned too! I remind this tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed child that he is no longer from the mean streets of Suburban Chicagoland, but living in a semi-rural farming town of 5,300, and that he and his friends (honor roll, sports-minded teens) are about as far from being urban black kids as is humanly possible. But YOU know how to text! I don’t even know how to use a controller for the xBox360, and yet I am able to still live my pitiful life.
>Yeah…texting…at least Mom didn’t have to put up with texting!! Yikes:-(
>I don’t even try to keep up; my nieces and nephews just talk their lingo, and shake their heads and roll their eyes when I respond to one of their trendy frizzells (or whatever) with a “I reckon so”.I don’t even attempt to decode text messages…now, THAT’S OLD, Lindsay 😉
>shut up.you did NOT really talk like that.did you? 😉
>i was so proud of myself when my old college friends were visiting w/ their tween daughter – she said about someone “he’s SO emo.” and i cracked the code! i said, does that mean emotional? none of them, least of all the daughter, had any idea what she was saying. know what i’m sayin? and i cracked it all open jus’ chillin in my crib.
>”Possibly Pubular?!!!!!”LMAOI think I love your mother.Sounds like something I would do!If I’d thought of it…
>I make my little ones cringe when I take their words and use them for fun. Freaks them out when I tell them to Chillax!I still catch myself, or rather let myself use quite a bit of slang. “Dude” is a big one. Can be used in sooo many ways.My older kids started saying that everything was “amazing.” While I was thankful for the added vocabulary word, it eventually got on my nerves. Plus, when something really was amazing, I had to go search for another way of describing it. Damn kids, making me think!
>And to think, recently I shuddered at getting a third cell phone for the boys to “share” on an as-needed basis (like when they take the dog for a walk or I leave them at soccer practice to run an errand). Teenagers scare me.Maybe you could give me texting lessons in a few years! 🙂
>I guess I will be able to respond to this after I go to one of those websites that tells me what everything means.I do know LOL, which is what I am sure I will be doing when I finish!
>No. I will not do this. I will not talk like this to my teens. NOOOOOOOO!
>(I need my denial right now.)
>I’m not even going to bother learning those words. By the time my 4 yr old morphs into “possibly pubular”, a whole ‘nuther set of indechiperable lingo will have taken over the MTV crowd.And the problem is, I still think I’m cool–at least in my brain. But how old do you feel when you catch yourseld saying stuff like, “Oh, I used to love that group–I had all their albums!” And are met with completely blank stares.
>Why is the assumption only made that black kids are the only kids who speak with slang. It is apparent that children are watching a little bit too much television. TV only hypens the sterotype of Urban Black kids and suburban/rural white. And to text messaging it is a fad, a thing to do until some “Paris Hilton” wannabee decides it no longer the in thing. We were all teenager onces upon a time and we all did something that are ‘rents didn’t understand. Trying to crack silly codes or speak like them only makes us look stupid. So ‘rents just chill and give it another 3 years for your teenager to come back to reality.
>My father (who turns 52 today) texted messaged me to let me know he had skin cancer. And that’s when we decided that perhaps not all communication should be done by texting. I teach teenagers. Can someone tell me what a cheetah girl is? I have never felt as old as I do when my students start talking about popular culture. It makes me think of that J.C. Penny’s Breakfast Club knock off commercial because you know that precisely zero of those teenagers had any idea of the greatness they were imitating.25 has never felt this old.
>The Cheetah Girls are a group of singers whose movies appear on the Disney Channel. 🙂
>I don’t know what’s more sad, that our attention spans have deteriorated to 140 characters or less, or that the English language is taking it’s evolutionary cues from Snoop Dogg. Lest you think I sprouted a stick up my arse, I think this is hilarious and good for you for finding a way to meet your kids on their turf. Rest assured, they will mock you later for it. 🙂
>Honestly? I am all for whatever gets and keeps the kids talking to you…whether you can understand them or not is a whole other story, but go with it. If you’re connecting with them, it ain’t a bad thing.
>My husband looks at me funny when I call him dude.
>My fav is still – a’ight!
>I quoted Wayne’s World like there was no tomorrow. Not only did I quote it but I would work their jokes into my daily vernacular. I’m sure my mom loved that!