Chapter 1 A Web of Slang They stopped talking -- for a few minutes at least. Don't get me wrong. My parents are okay, but they both have their offices at home. This means that when I come home from school worried about a project the teacher just assigned, they both are right there. With advice. Lots of advice. We were in the kitchen; I'd thrown my knapsack on the floor and plunked myself down at the table, where my parents were having a tea break. When I told them I had to do a project on slang, my dad said, "That could be a really interesting topic. You know, there's slang in the music world, and slang from different types of work, and I bet you could find lots in sports. I remember when we were kids..." And then my mom said, "You know, countries develop their own slang words. The same word can have a completely different meaning from one country to another. And there's rhyming slang, too. Of course, it's hard to track down the origins of some words, but didn't I see something in the paper the other day about..." That's when I cut in. I reminded them, "It's my project and I'll find out what I have to by myself. Anyway, what is there to eat? I'm starving!" (I'm always starving.) I put off thinking about my slang project for a couple of days -- who wouldn't? But then I figured my parents would start getting on my case, and I remembered that the teacher wanted to see rough notes for our projects by the middle of next week. So I got a dictionary and a thesaurus from my parents' bookshelves, and before dinner, I sat down at the desk in the study. (That's the name my parents give to the room where they put their old computer and where my brother and I are expected to do homework away from the TV and other "distractions.") There I was with the books on one side of my desk and the computer humming away on the other. The dictionary was open to the page with "slang," but all it said was: slang (origin unknown) 1. Language that is regarded as very informal or much below standard educational level. 2. The special vocabulary and usage of a particular period, profession, social group, etc. On the computer screen, a search engine was telling me that there was about 795,000 sites relating to slang and that the search had taken only 0.15 seconds. I figured it was going to take me a little longer to do my project. Especially if no one knew where the word "slang" came from in the first place. Now my eyes were getting tired, or maybe too much homework was scrambling my brain, but suddenly I thought I saw two little people walking across my computer screen. "Uh, oh, some new virus -- my parents will freak," I said out loud. -- Freak out -- from the 1960s, freak out meant to have a bad experience with drugs; by the 1980s, to lose control. The "out" has been dropped in recent years. -- " Freak ," said one of the little people, a guy who had pieces of paper sticking out of every pocket. "That's a slang word." "Exactly," added the second little person, who was dressed in clothes like the ones I'd seen in photos of my great-grandmother when she was young. This was definitely getting weird. "What are you talking about, and what are you doing in my computer? I whispered so Mom and Dad wouldn't hear. "We're here to help you with your homework problem," said the man. "Think of us as slang experts." "But who are you? And why," I asked the dressed-up person, "are you dressed like someone from a long time ago?" "You want to know our names, our monikers , our handles ?" she responded. "I'm Edmund," the man interrupted. "And Lexie here is dressed like a flapper ." " Flapper ," recited Lexie. "An independent young woman from the 1920s who wore skimpy skirts, cut her hair short, danced all the new dances and used all kinds of slang words that were new and modern. Like 'Pipe the snaky socks on the jelly bean.'" "That means 'Look at the snazzy socks on her boyfriend.'" explained Edmund. I laughed at all these nutty words. This slang business might turn out to be fun after all. In fact, my curiosity was making me forget how strange the whole situation was. "Where did a crazy word like flapper come from?" I asked. -- Boyfriends -- Flappers' boyfriends were called jelly beans , flippers (opposite of flappers), goofs , jazzbos , or sheiks . The last term came from the 1921 movie The Sheik , which starred Rudolph Valentino, the Leonardo DiCaprio of his day. A young man who took his flapper for a ride in a car or bus was a cuddle cootie . -- "Some people think it came from a word for teenage girls from forty years earlier," answered Edmund. "Some people point out that it was an old word for a young duck and by 1910 was used to refer to independent women, especially those campaigning for women's right to vote. But, really, no one knows." "That happens with slang words," added Lexie. "People use slang in conversation for a long time before the expressions get written down. By the time someone writes them down, everybody has forgotten how they started." "Great," I moaned. "Now I have a project where no one knows how anything got started." "Don't sweat it," said Lexie. "That's a 1960s expression. It sounds strange coming from someone dressed like a flapper," commented Edmund with a little frown. "Oh, Ed, slang is meant to be fun," retorted Lexie. "Why say 'lots' when you can have oodles ? Why use 'excellent' when copacetic or the bee's knees sounds more exciting?" She turned to me. "Now about that project: we're here to help. We've got our own special Web site. Let's get to work." "Well," I thought, settling back in my chair, "this is certainly a new way of doing a project. I could get --to like it." Excerpted from Slangalicious: Where We Got That Crazy Lingo by Gillian O'Reilly All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
