Parents who struggle to understand the language of their teenage children can now brush up on their slang skills with a new dictionary of “teenglish” terminology.
So, when their child complains that their mother or father’s behaviour makes them feel “owned”, they will realise that they mean that they are merely fulfilling every parents’ duty of embarrassing their offspring.
Or that when they say they are “flossing”, they are not practising good oral hygiene but actually showing off.
Called Pimp Your Vocab, the book aims to demystify the jargon adopted by British youngsters.
Other terms explained are “teek”, which means very old, and “fraped” – a compound of Facebook and rape, describing someone's social networking profile being hacked into and changed.
The book’s author, Lucy Tobin, said she got the idea to create the dictionary while studying English at university, when a tutor was left baffled by the term “IM-ing”.
Miss Tobin said: “So after we students explained IM-ing – when you ‘talk’ to friends online via instant messaging – I started to think: do adults ever wonder if it's a good thing when a student says they "got owned"?
“Do tutors consider whether they're being complimented when someone calls them teek?
“On discovering a pupil talking about being fraped, should you call the police?
“So I wrote down a guide to the language the kids use. It might not get on to the linguistics reading list for a while, but it could help staff-student communication.”
Miss Tobin believes that the guide could help improve staff-student communication.
She said: “Language changes fast and that can scare the hell out of parents, teachers and anyone who no longer braves the clubs on Friday night for fear of being 'too old'.
“In communicating with a Teenglish-speaking randomer (that's an outsider to your social group) their words can seem like a new language.
“Meaning is not an exact science, but depends on mutual agreement between reader and writer, speaker and listener, teenager and adult.”
However, teachers and academics are already complaining that Teenglish and “textmessage speak” are creeping into formal work.
GCSE and A-level examiners have also criticised the growing trend.
Some teenglish terms explained:
Allow (that): means "absolutely no way”.
Big up: to praise or congratulate someone.
CBA: "can't be arsed"
Cool beans: an exclamation of high regard, similar to "great!"
Frape: a compound of Facebook and rape, describing someone's social networking profile being hacked into and changed.
Long: an adjective used to describe something as irritating, time-consuming or boring.
Neek: a combination of nerd and geek.
Obv: abbreviation for obvious.
Owned: to be humiliated or embarrassed, usually after being shown up or exposed in some way.
SDW: abbreviation for secret degree workers, who pretend to be out having a good time and avoiding work but are really putting in the hours.
Smacked it: to have done well at a particular activity.
Teek: adjective for very old – older. Derives from "antique".
Tell over: describes the actions of a tattle tail.
Wagwan: a greeting. Stands for "What's going on?"
Waste: someone who acts in an idiosyncratic way.
Woop woop: a noise made to denote happiness or congratulate someone
(http://expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Dictionary+of+teenage+language&artid=Va4a63uReiQ=&SectionID=oHSKVfNWYm0=&MainSectionID=oHSKVfNWYm0=&SEO=teenglish&SectionName=VfE7I/Vl8os
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