Get with the program
“It slaps!!”
So, with two children in their 20s and living far from home, it never ceases to amaze me that when they converse with me now, it usually is using the most ‘interestingly happening’ words.
Some time ago, and I know this one is old, I would hear my son constantly say that something was ‘sick’. I was quite taken aback especially if I had been talking about something happy or decent that had happened. So I asked him “‘sick’ as in??”, because for me being sick just means something bad. And he goes “No, it means cool or great”. Still taken aback, I was like “so why can’t you just say that?”; and I got something from him that was akin to “Get with the program, mum”.
Cut forward to many such ‘new’ words taking opposing meanings altogether, and again some time ago, that is within the past few years or so, my daughter was talking about something she had had to eat at a restaurant. She was describing it so gleefully, I felt sure it must have been good. And then she goes “It slapped!!”. ‘Slapped??!!’ Confusion again…so is that a good thing or a bad thing, because I surely would never want to be slapped. And she goes “Nooo mama, it was good” , and it was followed by a look that could only mean “Get with the program, mum”. Thereafter, I have had many such “It slaps” comments to comprehend further.
Ah, what can I say, the evolution of language where we’re now spitting out words that mean the exact opposite of, well almost exact opposite of what they should. I just hope and pray that I won’t be smiling like an idiot if ever a Gen Z uses profanity and I think they’re actually saying something nice.