From Skibidi to Slay: The stories behind slang

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Brains on Universe.

Anyway, long story short, Gumpy thinks leaving his crocs in the freezer will be a total game changer this summer.

Makes sense.

Wait a sec! What's that on the ground? Ooh! Is that a quarter? Liberty Giblets, today is my day!

What is that?

Oh you mean liberty giblets? It's a new slang word I made up. You can use it for all sorts of things.

Is that what you've been saying all day?

I haven't been saying it that much.

You said at a deli.

Would you like mayo on your sandwich? Liberty Giblets, heavens no. Thank you for asking though.

Or when we were trying on cowboy boots. What do you think of this pair?

Liberty giblets, those are so good!

And early when we missed the bus. Wait up!

No Liberty Giblets, we missed the bus. Too soon. But I see your point. My hope is if I keep saying Liberty Giblets, it could become the next big slang word. It could be the new sleigh or sigma or aura. Liberty Giblets, that's what I like to hear.

You're listening to Forever Ago, part of the Brains On Universe. I'm your host, Joy Dolo, and I'm here today with my co-host, Dax from Portland, Oregon.

Hi Joy

Welcome Dax! Today we're talking all about slang.

Slang is a word or saying that a group of people use casually. It adds fun and style to language.

There's so much slang in English you probably don't even realize you use it all the time.

Was like cool, fresh, and dude, all slang.

And also words that describe me, a cool, fresh dude. Thank you. Sometimes slang is just an abbreviation of words that already exist.

Like how the word Riz is short for charisma.

And sometimes slang uses words that already exist but with different context. Like saying something is fire to mean it is really good.

Well I'd say no cap.

Which has nothing to do with caps like hats or or caps like the top of a bottle. Instead, no cap means no lion.

Or tell the truth.

And sometimes slang is just a completely made up word or a new saying altogether. Or Limity Giblets.

You really try and make Liberty giblets a thing.

Oh, believe me, you're gonna be using Liberty Giblets by the end of this episode.

That is how slang usually starts, just with a few people using the new word.

Yeah, it starts with a small group of people, like a group of friends or a classroom, then spreads to more and more people. Before you know it, everybody is saying limited giblets or whatever the latest slang might be.

Slung can happen in person or

Or come from movies or TV or music?

Or it can start from the internet.

The internet also makes it easier for new slang to spread to lots and lots of different people really quickly.

Like Aura, Phantom Tax, or Sigma.

Dax, do you have a go-to slang word or one you hear a lot at school?

I don't really use slang that much, but I do use cool a lot.

Like, oh that's cool or whoa, that outfit is cool, stuff like that. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you think that you'll use Liberty Liberty Giblets?

Probably. I I really like it.

Thanks. And it's so malleable you can use it for pretty much anything.

Yeah.

Is there any new slang words you've heard of recently?

I have heard of one that's been causing a lot of controversy to one six seven.

Oh, okay. Okay. So I'm happy that we have a chance to talk about this because I've heard of six seven two, but I've heard it in the context of you're too old to say that. But what is what does it mean to you? How would you use that in a sentence?

I've never really used it before, so I don't really know h how, but from what I've heard, it seems like it'd be like if someone asks you like what do you think of this new jacket, y you might say six seven?

Like it's like it's really cool.

Oh yeah. I don't know really. I don't really know.

I don't know either. Uh, do you feel like slang sticks around for a while or does it all change quickly? Do you feel like it moves pretty fast?

I don't really it for ones like cool or brain rod, they seem to stick around for quite a while.

Yeah, yeah. They stick around forever. I'm like trying to think of words that I used to use when I was younger. Like we used to do the whatever thing, like if you put your finger, your thumbs together. and kind of have your index fingers pointing out and make a W and you do the whatever sign. I used to do that all the time, like whatever and I put it on your forehead and be like, Whatever. Have you ever done that?

No, not really.

It's okay. Okay, so we have Liberty Giblets, but if we could make up a new slang word, what would we say? What could we do together?

I think one like paradoxica l like like for for weird w w would be cool.

Paradoxica.

Mm-hmm. My mom actually came up with one and and it's a it's a combination of weird and cool and it's wool.

Oh. Like that cat wearing a jacket is wool.

Mm-hmm.

Totally paradoxica. Paradoxica? Liberty Giblitz. Oh, we're gonna be famous. We also asked our listeners to come up with their very own new slang. Here's what you had to say.

Hi Brandon, my name is Carmen from Tezan City, Philippines, and my slang word is Brodichune. I have actually used it for a while now, and the meaning of my word is just a fun or cool word you put in the word hi or anything you want. For example Hi, Rotatude. What are you doing today? That's it. Bye, Rotatune! Hi, I'm Clara. I'm from NYC, and my slang word is

Kinda like a good

Volunteering.

And I'm

Субтитры сделал DimaTorzok

Loop see doop.

Then when you finally realize it, you say loopsy doops.

Here's an example.

Oh this way. No, I think we're just going in circles. Wait, really? Oh well loop C do. My word.

Yeah. You not That is a violent.

My name is Anderson and I think my name's

For example.

Liberty giblets! I can't wait to use all of these. Thank you to Carmen, Clara, Claudia, Elliot, Emery, Anderson, and Chloe for sending those amazing slang words.

Today, we're going to talk about the history of three different slang words, brain rot, sleigh, and goat.

Let's start with Brain Rot.

Let's do that. Could you use brain rot in a sentence?

Like a parent might say, you shouldn't be watching those videos, they're brain rot.

Yeah, exactly. People say brain rot when they've spent too much time online and feel like their brain is rotting.

Like you're becoming less smart from watching too many memes or videos.

Your brain isn't actually rotting, but it helps to paint a picture. Brain rot has also become a word to describe the actual videos or memes themselves.

Like AIV doesn't make no sense at all.

Yeah, you could either say something like, I'm totally getting brain rot from watching Skibbity Toilet again or I've been watching a lot of brain rot lately.

Brain Rot was actually Oxford Dictionary's word of a year back in twenty twenty four.

But did you know that the first recorded use of brain rot dates back to eighteen fifty-four?

Whoa, over one hundred years ago?

That's way before the internet, cars, or even the light bulb. Back in the 1850s, there was this writer and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau. Henry was all about being in nature, paying attention to what's around you, and thinking for yourself.

Back in 1854, he was thinking about how farmers were trying to find a way to stop their potato crops from going bad.

And it made him think of how so many people's ability to think critically seemed to be going bad too. He wrote,

Well England endeavours to cure the potato rod. Will not any endeavour to cure the brain rot which prevails so much more widely and fatally?

Uh translation please.

Basically, Henry wanted people to think for themselves and be curious about the world around them.

I see. So the first time we saw the phrase brain rot was way back in eighteen fifty four.

Right, but it took on a different meaning with the rise of the internet. People started posting about how they felt like reality TV, video games, and spending a lot of time online might be causing brain rot.

The world really took off after a COVID pandemic.

Which makes sense because so many people were stuck at home and spent more and more time online. Brain rot. You have it, I have it. An obsession with brain rot.

Now you may or may not have heard of the term brain rot.

The idea that technology is rotting your brain is not new. People have always feared new tech.

Yeah, like microwave ovens, television, radio, and even novels.

However, there's a growing amount of research that suggests spending too much time online or on social media can have negative effects on our brains. So like anything else, it's important to be mindful of how much time you spend online and what you take in.

No caps.

Can't forget to touch grass, am I right? Well, we have more slang to come, but first it's time

This is the game where we take three things from history and try to put them in order of which came first. Second and most recent in time. Today's three things are three different slang words or phrases for cool. And we know cool, Dax. You've already said you're familiar with that word. So we've got the bee's knees, tubular, and far.

Around.

Dex, have you heard of of any of these slang words before?

I've heard of all of them actually.

Oh really? Do you could you use them in a sentence? One of'em?

I will use far out. Someone might say, those pants are far out, man.

Totally, totally. So which do you think came first, which came second, and which came most recently in history?

I think that far out may have come first, bit bi because I know it was around in the sixties and potentially the fifties. It could have been used previously, but I think that's first.

Okay, so we have far out first.

And then via process of illumination I think tubular is invented after far out, because for one thing it it sounds like surfacing because a tube is like a wave that's in the shape of a tube.

Oh yeah.

And with the episode you did on on the history of lifeguards. Mm-hmm. Well, in that episode I learned that lifeguards have only been around since like the t nineteen tens and twenties. And and and that was specifically in Hawaii. So so by the time they got to the mainland I might have been later may like the thirties maybe or forties or fifties. But if it was due to Great Depression, probably people weren't really surfing at that time because

Oh that's great. Okay, so we have far out first and then tubular.

Maybe two uh okay, I'm going to actually change my sequence completely. I think it's bees knees first me twenties.

Oh Besnees. Oh yeah, I wonder if that was from the twenties.

So bees knees far out and tubular.

These knees far out and tubular. We're gonna plug that in. Your final answer?

Yep.

Alrighty. So we'll hear the answers at the end of the episode, right after the credits.

So stick around.

We love hearing from you. If you are inspired by an episode or learned something cool about history, share it with us. It can be a new word you heard or a memory playing key. Or maybe a new way to say I Inspired by our diamonds episode. Whatever you think up, tell us about it by going to brainson. We might feature it in our mailbag. Thanks!

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You're listening to Forever Ago. I'm Joy.

I'm Dax.

And today we're talking all about slang.

Those popular words or sayings that just catch on.

Here are more of the slang words you all invented. Let's hear'em.

And my sling word is in normal.

Ugh my puppy's so adorable. It's really cute, but it

All the time.

Ashkelon Israel, and if I had to come up with a slang word of my very Oh sugar cookies. As O man and could be used in season. Oh sugar, I didn't get tickets to that concert. I forgot my hat

My name is Rowan. for you. Rowan, what are you doing?

Shush, I'm booking strip.

Hi forever though. And my new slang words.

Thank you.

I'm from Burning, Washington. The first flag word is nyx. It means you're really funny, like Joy Della.

Trying to say something is

Kid. No, you cannot

Garbage. It's stink fried. Hi, I'm Rosa. I'm from Froom Somerset and my idea for a good spelling word is Zing. Short for amazing. That's like this podcast. This podcast is straight up.

And my idea for a new slang where to

Or like it's like

Where is shwat?

Thanks to Eloise, Yali, Rowan, Abby, Evelyn, Rose, Rosa, Violet, and Lennon for sending in those great ideas. Now for more slang history.

Slay.

Slay can be a lot of things, but it's usually a good thing.

It's like saying you're killing it or that's awesome. In a sentence, you could say your outfit slays.

Or we eating ice cream for dinner, major sleigh.

The phrase sleigh got a big pop culture boost thanks to the show RuPaul's Drag Race.

And also from Beyoncé's song Formation.

The word sleigh comes from the Old English verb meaning to kill or destroy.

Like slaying a dragon.

Right. But there are records of people using sleigh in a different way to describe dying with laughter. There are examples of this as early as the fifteen hundreds. And then I looked at the goat and said, Hey, that's my sword. Bartholomew, you slay me.

But the way we use sleigh today really took charge back in the nineteen seventies and eighties.

This is back when disco music was all the rage.

It's also around the beginning of ballroom culture in New York City.

Ballroom culture was created mostly by black and Latinox queer folks in New York City. It was black and brown trans women in particular who really led the movement.

Ballroom wasn't about an actual ballroom or ballroom dancing.

Ballroom got its name because this queer community would host special parties they could.

And they had a ball.

These balls were places where queer folks could have a safe space to express themselves openly and freely, something many of them couldn't do in their day-to-day lives.

There are lots of different forms of expression in ballrooms.

Like modeling different outfits.

We're showing off different makeup looks.

Some folks perform lip syncs where they pretend to sing along to a song.

Other people dance to express themselves.

Including a special kind of dance style called voging.

If you like somebody's performance or look or dance, you could say.

Slay is just one of the many, many words that we got thanks to ballroom culture. In fact, so much American slaying comes from black queer folks.

Like through in shade.

Spill the tea.

Yeah.

It's giving

Or you ate with that.

Yes, all that wonderful slang is in large part thanks to black and brown queer folks who found creative ways to express themselves.

Especially over pioneers in ballroom. Slay. Slay.

We love getting mail from you lovely listeners. Let's see what this one is. Oh, a drawing. Grayson from Washington sent us a picture of the Hold the Mayo sandwich shop with Billy the Whale talking to them. Let's take a look. Oh, this this is awesome. So it's it's a whale and it's like I'm like inside of the shop and it's floating like underwater and there's a big sign that says hold the mail on top.

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Armed X.

Enjoy!

And we have one more slang word to discuss. GOAT is an acronym, it stands for greatest of all time.

We use this phrase for all sorts of things. Did your parent make you your favorite pasta for dinner? They're the goat. Maybe you aced your math test.

गो नड़ नड़

We use goat for athletes too. Some people might say legendary player Michael Jordan is the GOAT of basketball.

Or you could call Olympic gymnast Simone Biles the GOAT. She even has a diamond goat necklace.

But it seems likely that this phrase got its start with a different athlete, boxered Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad Ali was one of the most popular boxers back in the nineteen sixties.

He often referred to himself as the greatest. You can hear him say it here in this nineteen sixty-seven interview.

So I start talking. I am the greatest. I cannot be beat. I'm too pretty to be a fighter. If you keep talking jab, you're falling fast. If that don't

But that phrase didn't catch on right away. A lot of people think that GOAT really blew up thanks to rapper LL Cool J.

He made an album back in 2000 called The G-O-A-T or The Ghost.

He was inspired by Muhammad Ali's catchphrase, greatest of all time, plus basketball legend Earl Manigot.

Menigoat was an American street basketball player in New York.

York. Manigo got the nickname the goat, likely from his last name.

So L L Cour J combined those two things.

He explains it during this interview with the late night TV host Seth Myers.

I got Greatest of All Time from Muhammad Ali, obviously. Yeah. And I got GOAT from Earl the Manigoat, who was a street basketball player in New York. I took the two together and I made the acronym G-O-A-T, GOAT Greatest of All Time. And then it just

L L Cool J is totes the goat.

He's toadscoated.

This episode is the go. And just like that, we're already at the end.

Limity Giblets, time flies when you're talking slang.

Dax, did you just say Libity Giblets?

You got me.

Oh, it sounded so natural. So correct. Liberty Giplets, this is the best day of my life. Now if we can get Gumpy and Hermita say it, we'll be really cooking. Liberty Giblets gets mad aura, am I right? Totally rizzed up. It's a serve one might say. Liberty Giblets is the

Slang is a word or phrase that people casually say to each other.

It usually starts with a small group. But can spread far and wide.

The phrase brain rot was first written back in 1854 by the poet Henry David Thoreau.

The word sleigh became popular thanks to queer folks in both.

In fact, a lot of the slang we use today was first invented by black and brown queer folks.

And the term goat likes.

Bahamad

This episode was three. It was produced by Nico Gonzalez Wissler.

It's edited and fascinated.

Engineering help from the first time. Sanchez.

And if you want access to ad-free episodes and special bonus content, subscribe to our SmariPath.

Okay, Dax, are you ready to hear the answers for first things first?

Liberty Giblis, I am totally ready.

Yes, it's taking over the world. So just a as a reminder, the first one we had was bees knees and then far out and then tubular. Yeah? Yep. All right, let's see what Yeah. Oh wow, okay. Oh I didn't see that coming.

I got right, didn't I?

How do you know?

I I I observe by listening. I observe my ears.

Yeah, you got them all right, Dax. You did awesome. And not only did you get it right, the very first one you had spot on.

Oh yeah!

Knees was 1920s. Yes. Like you not only got it right, but you got the decade right, too. That's incredible. Took off in the roaring nineteen twenties as a way to describe something really cool. Back then there were lots of other random animal sayings that meant something was cool, like the cat's pajamas or even the flea's eyebrows, which I'm gonna start adding into like any any saying I have now, like, whoa, those are the flea's eyebrows.

Wow.

Like a history genius.

I have a history book that I can sort a lot.

I think you have a bright future ahead of you. So this phrase was first coined by jazz musicians in the nineteen fifties to describe something really amazing. something far out of this world. You could see far out written in jazz magazines or on jazz records. The phrase only grew in popularity in the nineteen sixties and seventies, becoming a staple piece of slang for hippies and their counterculture movements.

Oh, that would work.

That'll be the new one for 2020s. Dex, I have to ask you, are you like so proud of yourself for getting these all right and the decades?

Ah yes, I I was not expecting that at all. This is Paradoxica and cool.

Yeah, we should add that to the list. Twenty twenty six Paradoxica, invented by Dax and his mom. Join us next week for a new episode all about the

Thanks for listening.