Hello, my name is Emma, and in today's video,
I am going to talk to you about slang. I'm going to tell you what slang is, I'm going
to teach you some examples of slang as well as we're going to talk about why you might
want to use slang and why you might not want to use slang. So, we're going talk about the pros and the
cons of using slang. Alright, so let's get started by talking about
what is slang? Well, it's informal language. So, this is language you do not use with your
boss or in professional settings. This is the type of language you might use
with your friends or your - you know, other people in your age group socially. We often use slang to fit in with the group,
okay, so there's different slang for different groups. So, it's a way to show your identity with
this group, and we'll give a little bit of - we'll, I'll give you some examples of that
in a little bit of time. Slang is vocabulary that changes a lot. So, it's popular vocabulary at a certain time
that quickly becomes unpopular as time moves on. So, slang changes. What is popular vocabulary now is not going
to be popular vocabulary in five years, okay, so that's important to remember, and we use
slang to sound up to date or to sound cool, okay? So, a lot of younger people like to use slang,
a lot of teenagers, people in their 20s, but also some older people like to use slang as
well. So, I'll talk about that in a bit. I'm going to give you an example of some slang
and how it has changed over time so you can really understand what I mean by this. Take the word "good", okay. You know, my experience was good. That picture is good. So, there are many ways to say "good" in a
slang version. So, for example, in the 1950s, in you wanted
to say something was good, you could use the word "neat", "Oh, that's neat!" and it meant
the same thing, but this was the slang version. Or you could use the word "nifty", "Oh, that's
so nifty!" People don't use those much anymore, okay? In the 1970s, we used to say the word "groovy"
to mean good. "Oh, that movie was very groovy. Your pants are groovy." In the 1980s, some people used the word "tubular". In the 1990s, sometimes people would say the
word "dope", "That's so dope!". And in 2018, some people use the word "lit"
and some people use the word "Gucci". "That's so Gucci!", okay? So, as you can see, slang changes and it's
important to be aware of that because if you're saying "tubular" from the 1980s and it's now
2018, people might laugh at you because it's old slang and, like I said, slang changes
a lot. So, now that you know what slang is, let's
look at the pros of learning slang and the cons, or the disadvantages of learning slang. Okay, so let's talk about the cons first. Why you don't want to use slang, or why it
might be a bad idea to use slang, okay, so you'll notice I wrote the word "con" and I
have a sad face, because this is why you might not want to use slang. The first reason is, like I said, slang changes
very quickly, and so it's easy to become outdated, meaning the slang becomes old and if you don't
know it, you might sound like you're - you might sound like you're outdated. So, you're not up to date with what's happening
in culture, okay? So, you might look like, a bit behind when
it comes to talking about culture. So, I'll give you an example. Last year, I used this slang, "Let's bounce." I said to some friends who were younger than
me, you know, "Let's bounce, guys". Let's bounce, when I was in high school, meant
"let's go, let's leave". Everyone looked at me and laughed and they
said, "What's bounce mean?" and it was because, you know, there was an age difference and
the slang had changed and I didn't realize that, so everybody laughed. So, like I said, the slang I even still sometime
use is not - it's not in fashion. It's not popular nowadays, so you've got to
be careful about that. Sometimes, you might use slang incorrectly. You might not realize the full meaning of
what it means and so when you say it, it might sound very silly or maybe you don't know how
to pronounce the word, so when you try to say it, you mispronounce it and it can lead
to embarrassing situations. I'll give you an example. I had a friend from France who loved the word
"awesome", and he always wanted to say this word "awesome", but his pronunciation made
it sound like a bad word! So, whenever he would say "awesome", people
around him would say "Did this guy just call me an asshole?" Asshole is a bad word in English, but that's
how his pronunciation of "awesome" was, so it was very embarrassing for him. Okay. So, that's another reason, if you can't pronounce
it, it might be embarrassing. You also might - like, I said, different groups
have different slang. So, teenagers might use a certain slang versus
somebody in a certain profession, you know, maybe in the music industry, there might be
different slang. So, you want to show you belong to a certain
group and one thing you might do by mistake is use slang from a different group that might
be embarrassing to you. So, for example, "OMG", this is something
a teenager might say. "OMG!" Now, if a 40-year-old man who doesn't know
that teenagers say this, you know, he might look, you know, a little silly. It might be embarrassing for him, or maybe
somebody, you know, says something that's supposed to be, you know, it's from gangster
culture, for example, but they didn't mean to say that. So, you need to know what group the slang
is from so you can choose what kind of slang you want, that best represents you. Slang can also - it's not really professional. So, if you're at work, maybe, you know, you're
in a meeting or you're with your boss or employees and you use slang, you might not know its
slang. So, you might have learned a new word, you
might be really excited to use it, but it sounds informal and not professional. So, you have to be conscious, or you need
to know when slang is not professional. Also, you know, I think people should be able
to say whatever words they want at any age, but the way society looks at people is sometimes
they think certain words might be too young for somebody to say. So, I want you to think about somebody in
your family, maybe your grandfather or, you know, your grandmother, imagine them using
slang. You might find it embarrassing. So, sometimes it's important to think about
those things before you use slang, because maybe you might be too old for certain slang. I think it's fine, but maybe other people
might laugh at you if you use it, so you gotta be careful. The other thing about slang, another con is
some slang is only used in text, or text messaging. So, it's not used in conversation. It's just used when you're writing a message. So, you don't want to get confused and use
it in conversation because nobody will know what you're talking about. For example, "bc" means "because". Now, if I say, "I did this bc to...", you
know, for whatever reason, people won't understand that I mean "because". But if I write in a text, people who know
that slang will understand, so you have to be careful if slang is for a text versus in
conversation. So, these are the reasons why maybe you might
want to be careful using slang or maybe you don't want to use it, but now let's look at
why you might want to use slang, because it can be a lot of fun. Okay, so what are the pros, or the good reasons
why you might want to use slang? Well, first of all, slang can be very fun! So, for example, for some people who really
like the 1950s, you know, they like watching movies about the 50s and, you know, they feel
a connection, they might want to use the word "nifty", even though it's old slang, they
might want to use it to sound ironic or it might be fun for them to use. So, they might not care that it's outdated,
they might just like the word. Another fun word, I think, is "Gucci". So, this is one I just learned a couple of
weeks ago from my younger cousin, Renee, thank you Renee for teaching me "Gucci", but you
know, it's sort of fun to say "Gucci". It's interesting, you know, to mean "good". Or the one I really like that Renee taught
me was "tea". Whenever I think about "tea", I just think
of drinking tea, but it actually means gossip in today's slang, so it has two meanings,
but in slang, "tea" means "gossip", so you can tell somebody to "spill the tea" meaning
"tell me the gossip". So, to me, learning these slang words keeps
the language very interesting and fun. Slang can also teach you about really funny
ideas. Maybe ideas you've never thought about because
sometimes, English doesn't have a word for something and then a new word is created to
explain this idea. So, for example, a couple of months ago, I
heard this word for the first time: voluntold. So, what does "voluntold" mean? Well, it's slang for a situation where they're
looking for somebody to volunteer to do something, meaning the person is doing it because they
want to, but you actually have somebody telling you to do it, like a boss. So, it's this weird idea when your boss or
your mom or, you know, somebody in a position of power tells you to do something but they
try to make it seem like they're asking you to do something, like you're volunteering,
but you don't actually have a choice. So, it's a really weird concept but for example,
"I was voluntold", so it's a verb, "I was voluntold to plan the party at work." This means the person didn't want to plan
the party, but they were told to do it, but it made it look like they volunteered, but
they didn't. So, it's a kind of confusing idea, but like
I said, you know, slang can be used to create new words for new ideas. Also, sometimes knowing slang is important
for avoiding embarrassment, okay? So, using slang might lead to embarrassment,
but not knowing slang can also make a really embarrassing situation. So, for example, a lot of people are using
this expression these days: Netflix and chill. I'm not going to tell you what that means
but it has a sexual meaning, but if you didn't know anything about slang, you'd look at this
and say "Oh, Netflix and chill", not realizing that there's a sexual meaning there. So, sometimes it's good to know slang so you
don't say something that seems, you know, you think it means one thing but it actually
has a different meaning. Another reason to learn slang is you can learn
about another culture or other group ideas, okay? So, for example, this has become popular to
say: woke. I'm woke. So, what does it mean to be "woke"? Well, it means that you are aware of racism,
of sexism, of social problems, you're aware, you're woke, and you're probably going to
do something about it. So, a lot of younger people today are using
this, "I'm woke". Now, you have another term that other groups,
maybe more conservative groups might use called "snowflake", and you know, when you think
about a snowflake, I always think about this really happy, you know, piece of something
coming down from the sky. But in slang, "snowflake" is an insult. If you call somebody a snowflake, it means
you think that they're weak and fragile and they get offended or upset by everything everyone
says. So, right now in culture, you have some people
who talk about being woke and then you have other people who call those "woke" people
"snowflakes", so you can kind of see these two different groups and you can see the slang
and how they think of each other based on slang. So, you can learn a lot about a culture based
on the slang. Sometimes, slang becomes very common. So, for example, "selfie" started out as slang
and now everybody uses the term "selfie". Same with the word "fam", which is short for
"family". You know, a lot of the times now when people
are talking about "Oh, what are you doing this weekend?" "Oh, I'm visiting the fam." They mean the family. So, a lot of times, these words become very
common. You can also show that you identify personally
with another place or a culture. So, for example, sometimes different cities
or different countries have their own slang to talk about that place. For Toronto, some people like to call Toronto
"the six", so for example, there's a musician Drake from Toronto, and he calls Toronto "the
six" and a lot of younger people like this word. Other people hate this word and they think
it's terrible. So, why do some people call Toronto "the six"? Well, if you use the telephone, you would
call "416" to connect to a Toronto number, so "the six" comes from the last number of
the area code, okay? So, some people will think this is stupid,
a stupid nickname, but some people really like it, so you can kind of show your identity
using these words. Finally, it might be an idea, maybe you don't
want to use slang, but you might want to know slang, meaning you might not say it in conversation,
but maybe you want to know what these words means so that you can listen to music better,
you can understand movies better, and you can understand what's happening on social
media better. And that's okay too, you don't have to use
slang, but you can still learn it. So, for example, a lot of musicians will use
the word - this is a new one for me - "bae", to talk about their boyfriend or their - the
person they have a crush on. So, whenever you're reading celebrity gossip,
you might see this word, "Oh, my bae, blah blah blah is great, this is my bae" and so,
by knowing slang, I wouldn't use this, but by knowing it, I can understand what other
people are talking about better. So, main points here are if you decide to
use slang, be careful because of what I said in the cons, but also realize using slang
can be fun. So, it's up to you to make the decision as
to do you want to use slang, and if yes, what kind of slang do you want to use? There's a whole bunch to learn, there's a
whole bunch of different vocabulary, so it's really exciting to use those different words. So, I want to thank you for watching. I'd like to also invite you to check out my
website at www.engvid.com . There, you can actually find a quiz about this topic and
you can actually practice what you've learned here. I also want to invite you to subscribe to
my channel. There, you can find a lot of resources on
all sorts of different things including slang, expressions, idioms, vocabulary, all sorts
of things under the sun, so please check that out. Thank you for watching and until next time,
take care.
