On “Adultalescence”
William Safire’s latest contribution to the Sunday Times tries in vain to prove that the old man ain’t a square. “Language: translating the lingo of adultalescence” is a brief summary of the colloquialisms of today’s young-but-not-that-young. Let’s take a look at what he came up with:
Sketchy about the lingo being spoken by today’s adultalescents? As those in their late teens and early adulthood like to say, Ah-ite!
The sound of that last word is hard to convey on the printed page. The famous cry in comic books of a man being thrown out a window - Aiee-ee - comes closer to the first semi-syllable of the slurred word, but there is a hint of a at the end. When you ask a young person conversant in this campuspeak (a word created on the analogy of George Orwell’s newspeak) a question like “Would you do this for me?” you are likely to hear the answer “Ah-ite“.
The meaning is “O.K.” The sound is an amalgam of all and right, which used to sound like “aw-rite” but now is compressed into a sliding “a’ight”, as the teen-slanguist Fred Lynch transcribes it.
A few other brilliant translations:
Adorkable = endearing though socially inept
Fauxhawk = hairstyle achieved by combing all of the hair to the center to give the appearance of a Mohawk without shaving the head.”
Ginormous = gigantic + enormous
Chillax = chill + relax
… and a few other words you already know and use, plus several you’ve probably never heard of and were probably the result of some kid pulling old Safire’s leg.
Take a look here.
