Sophomores discuss their experiences with slang

November 18, 2016 — by Francesca Chu and Amy Tang

Everyday student life consists of a few phrases of short language that change every month or so.

“What bearing would he have to sail in the same conditions to achieve a true course of due east?” the math test taunted. “Yo, I got this,” Amy thought. Ten minutes later, Amy figured out (what she thought was) the answer, but an angle of 13,453 degrees made absolutely no sense.

A careless calculation error in the middle of Amy’s work laughed at her. “Yikes,” she thought to herself, as she rapidly erased all her work, stole a glance at the ticking clock and started the question over. A few tries (and “yikes”) later, she finally figured out the problem.

As the two of us walked down the quad steps after a stressful hour and a half of test taking in math, it took a few minutes for us to notice the echoing repetition of “yikes” and “smh” in our peers’ conversations.

As millennials, we pepper our vocabulary with a string of slang terms, reducing our feelings of disappointment to the three-letter acronym “smh” (shaking my head) and spewing out “yikes” almost on impulse to every remotely shock-inducing situation. The test just got moved up a week? Yikes. We’re out of thin oreos? Smh.   

Slang, which stands for short language (we know, mind-blowing, right?), spreads like fire on social media. In a matter of days, a slang term once unknown can become integrated into almost every teenager’s colloquial speech, but it can just as quickly become obsolete. Take the words “lol,” “lmao,” “goals,” “on fleek” and “af,” which each became a huge trend and then died out a few months later.

Every few months, a new set of slang words replaces the old ones. Right now, in Saratoga and elsewhere, slang words like yikes and smh have taken over.

To much of the adult population, three simple letters like smh that stand for a simple action are completely meaningless, but for us, it is a fun and slightly annoying way to express ourselves.

Slang will always be a part of culture that older people will not understand. It only goes viral for a short period, but during that time, everyone is saying it.

Each individual word may be just a phase, but slang will continue to be a part of life. As for us, we’ll be using yikes and smh for a while, or at least until we get addicted on the next new slang.

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