A couple of weeks ago I was reading an article titled “A guide to weird words your teen uses.” The author Jennifer Jolly, of USA Today, said translating the latest “slanguage” in 2017 is not easy.

For example, did you know that “”fams” refers to their tight inner circle of friends? And “thirsty” might describe a friends eager desire for a romance with another person. And this is interesting. “Throwing Shade” is dissing another individual.

The natural evolution of language, plus the by product of text messaging and social media have had an effect on teen’s speech, but they have always had their own special kind of communication.

Try to think back to some of the words that you routinely used as a teen, and then get a load of the words from my teen years!

“Boy howdy! I’m getting this one,” my best friend used to declare when she liked the sounds of a great new song filling the record booth at the downtown music store. I usually responded urgently. “We need to take this stack back to the clerk. Boy howdy! They get mad if you take too long in here.”  Boy howdy was what every kid from middle to high school here in Phoenix used to say to emphasize a point. You never hear anyone say that anymore. I wonder if it was a local or national teenage trend.  I realized kids had quit saying that sometime between my school days and my daughters.

You see, years later, I was shocked at hearing, “Those are bitch’n shoes” coming out of my sweet, innocent daughter’s mouth. Her dad and I were horrified. Did we just hear what we thought we heard? Our teenage daughter was casually uttering a forbidden word with her friends. She was told to stop saying bitch’n immediately. “But all my friends say that” she had replied. We promptly decided she had to get a new friends. .

Then, just the other day imagine my surprise when I saw my great-granddaughter look at her friend’s new jacket and declare, “That’s sick.”  Now, I’ve learned to wait awhile to learn what a teen’s favorite word actually means. Turn’s out sick is a complimentary term for something you really like. You know, as in, “Boy howdy, that’s bitch’n!