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Gone are the days when people used to be addressed as ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ or ‘Monsieur and Madame’. If one happens to use these words while addressing a public gathering, particularly when young boys and girls are attending them, one will be surely laughed at, at first and then one would be asked, “Which century do you belong to, boss?” This is because the words like ‘Monsieur’ and ‘Madame’ were used during the Shakespearean time and their usage has become quite extinct since then. Now when one happens to attend a public gathering and the addressees are young boys and girls of about eighteen or so, one may notice that he or she’d start his or her speech with ‘All you guys and gals out there…’ or ‘Hey people..’ etc. This might not sound formal, yet they are accepted.

The words like ‘guys’, ‘gals’, ‘dudes’, ‘babes’ have become so common among the teens these days, that they don’t start a sentence without them. Such words, which don’t have a formal meaning or are generally not used as a speaker’s dialect, are called slang words.

Nobody actually knows the origin of these slang words. Some say that they have learnt the ‘slanguage’ in their respective colleges, just when they gossip with their friends. Some others say that they’ve learnt it while blogging online, rest  all stick to the statement, “I don’t know”. On being asked, Yamini Arab, a 2^nd year student from CSIIT said, “I use a lot of slang words when I speak. In fact, every sentence that I use has at least one slang word in it. I don’t know as to how I started using it. I just use it because it is cool! We often refer to it as ‘College Lingo’ rather than calling it slang because it sounds posh.”

Girls having a good time at college. Credit: Syshe Hundred

When asked about her favorite word, she quickly replied, “One word that use frequently is ‘chillax’. It is formed by mixing the words ‘chill’ and ‘relax’. The two words describe the context by themselves.” Some common words that have emerged as ‘College Lingo’ are princy (principal of the college), lec (the lecturer), calci (calculator), dumbo (the nerd of a class) and many more to go. The list goes infinite. Kapil, a 2^nd year student from TKR Engineering College says, “I use this word ‘biscuit’ very often. It is basically used when one’s trying to exaggerate something. Like, suppose I tell anyone that I booked a Ferrari , and he’ll obviously not believe it for a moment and reply ‘Are you trying to throw biscuits at me??’ This is precisely how this word is used.”

Quite often, we find people using regional language words as slang. Our regional language being Telugu, words like ‘Anna’, ‘akka’, ‘mama’, ‘chicha’ are fondly used. Sheen Thomas, a mechanical 3^rd year student from SVIT says, “I speak Punjabi and hence use a lot of Punjabi words when I speak, the most common ones being ‘soniyo’ and ‘kudiyo’.” “It’d sound silly but I generally use these words for smart girls”, he says as he winks. Susheel, another student from SVIT says, “I am used to this word ‘mama’. The usage of this word in my conversation is simply inevitable. I use it for my close buddies.”

Guys busy texting. Credits:syshe hundred

Not only have these, even the words that are used while chatting online or SMS texting with friends form a part of this ‘slanguage’. Abbreviated words like ‘brb’, ‘sos’, ‘lol’, ‘lmao’, ‘rofl’ etc. are the commonly used ones in this category of slang. “I am such a SMS-addict, that my hands don’t move away from my cell phone keypad. I cut short the words rather than using the complete ones. Suppose I need to say “bye, talk to you later”, instead, I just type ‘ttyl’. It saves time and my energy too!” giggles Navyatha, a 2^ndyear student from G Narayanamma Institute of Technology.

Its plain that there is no end to this ‘Slanguage’. It goes on and on as one keeps on exploring for new slang words. Every teen is seen using this slanguage. This has literally become the ‘Mother Tongue’ of every teen. So now it’s your turn to decide, What’s your slang???

More references: urbandictionary.com