When I think about the slang, though it's used all around all the time, its work related for me these days. I worked for a wilderness therapy program for the summer we had slang we would use as staff so the students wouldn't know what we were talking about. The students would do the same thing, depending on where they were from you could understand what they really meant or not. It was always funny when they used slang words to talk about drugs in front of the staff thinking we were dumb or some thing. Most days it was if we had our own little language, staff and students. The language would carry over into my home life for a couple days after returning from "the field" I would find myself using words that no one around me understood.
I don't think I use much slang on a regular basis but with close friends and family particularly I find we have our own group slang. And I defiantly hear things around me every day i don't understand. Maybe its a sign I'm getting old.
I don't hear my parents use much slang other than what they used when they were younger and they usually use it to poke fun at my siblings and I. I remember in high school my mother used to ask me to define the words I used and half the time I couldn't or didn't want her know what I was really talking about.
2 comments:
That's so true, Abby.. it's always an adjustment back to our 'home' language when we've been 'away'.
I remember returning from my LDS mission, a socially awkward twenty-something, not knowing how to really communicate without the words I'd grown so accustomed to. Where I had been the majority (in the "field", like you), I suddenly became the minority (what's a P-day? what blue planner?). We have these folders of approved vernacular all filed away in our heads, then, depending on the situation, we pick and choose which files to upload. Funny how quickly this happens...
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