New Feature: Generational Slang Checkup

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Dr. Goodword
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New Feature: Generational Slang Checkup

Postby Dr. Goodword » Wed Aug 09, 2006 11:54 am

We are beta-testing a major new feature of the alphaDictionary website which you might enjoy helping with. We have now developed a test (we are tentatively calling it a "Checkup") for the generation which your speech—specifically your slang—identifies you with. In other words, you tell our magic machine which slang terms you used in high school or college, and it will tell you when you attended those schools. (Don't laugh; at my age things like that slip your mind fairly easily.)

Like our Rebel-Yankee Test, our aim is to acquaint our visitors with a fascinating element of language, this time, slang. We start with a short exegesis on the nature of slang, then procede to our usual 20 questions. This time, though, the questions are about the slang expression used in your high school and college years. When this information is gathered, our "Generational Slang Engine" will pin-point (where "pin" refers to a rolling pin) the decade of your high school-college years.

I personally think that once we get sufficient feedback, we will be able to do more than pinpoint the decade. I think we can eventually make a pretty good stab at the age of the person undergoing the checkup. However, for the time being, our goals are modest.

If you think you might be interested in serving as a guinea pig in this endeavor, click here to go to the check up page. Remember, at present this is a top secret project, so keep it to yourself except for your feedback in the new Slang forum.
• The Good Dr. Goodword

Huny
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Postby Huny » Wed Aug 09, 2006 5:43 pm

I took this test and thought it was fun--until it said my slang was from the 50's! :shock: I wasn't even born until 1970. So, either I have a bad memory when it comes to the 80's or I spent way to much time in the presence of my parents. Or, and here's a twist, I am reincarnated as someone who has once lived in the 50's. If that's the case, I sure wish I had a say in the matter. :roll:

Huny--feeling prematurely old
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.

Brazilian dude
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Postby Brazilian dude » Wed Aug 09, 2006 9:07 pm

Amazing! I'm from the 50s. And consider I was born in 1980 and had only my senior year in the US.

Brazilian dude
Languages rule!

Palewriter
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Postby Palewriter » Wed Aug 09, 2006 10:36 pm

Amazing! I'm from the 50s. And consider I was born in 1980 and had only my senior year in the US.

Brazilian dude
You must be a throwback, dude. :D I came in at 50's too, which is pretty accurate. I would liked to have seen a US and a Brit version, though. Quite different slang, really, then as now.

-- PW
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!!! What a ride!"

Bailey
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Postby Bailey » Wed Aug 09, 2006 11:32 pm

I scored in the 1950's but I didn't go to HS until the mid 60's, no wonder I wasn't one of the cool kids, gee, I tried toning down my vocabulary, but what tripped me up was "old" slang.

mark just-can't-get-with-'it' Bailey
always a decade late and a dollar short.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
kb









Palewriter
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Postby Palewriter » Wed Aug 09, 2006 11:43 pm

I scored in the 1950's but I didn't go to HS until the mid 60's, no wonder I wasn't one of the cool kids, gee, I tried toning down my vocabulary, but what tripped me up was "old" slang.

mark just-can't-get-with-'it' Bailey
always a decade late and a dollar short.
Probably the "jeepers creepers" that did it for ya.

-- PW
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!!! What a ride!"

skinem
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Postby skinem » Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:42 am

Fun, but had me early, too. George Raft and I would have gotten along well.
Well, I did grow up so far in the sticks they always said we got things late...

Bailey
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Postby Bailey » Thu Aug 10, 2006 9:41 am

I know why, me, me me, hey call on me! *hand-in-air-waving frantically*
It's because when we were kids we were more ruled by parents (ok maybe just me) and used their slang expressions. I do remember hearing my mother's and grandmother's slang and being more influenced by it and not so much what was going on at school. I think also movies and music wasn't as cutting edge in the sixties.

mark wasn't-allowed-to-be-a-hippie Bailey

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
kb









skinem
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Postby skinem » Thu Aug 10, 2006 10:18 am

Why, Bailey, I think you're on to something! Parents do have a little to do with it. I used to think my parents music was good, then hated it, now I like it again...it's the cat's meow and all the hep cats liked it.

I think media was as cutting edge in the 60s, but it wasn't as pervasive as it is today. Only 2 channels on tv where I grew up, and both of them pretty snowy. We didn't exactly get the latest movies on tv in those days and with one radio station that was on only during daylight hours (only about 7-8 hours in the winter) there wasn't much time to get the latest and greatest on in between the cattle reports, obituaries, hunting and fishing forecasts and local news about rancher Bob's new wheel line irrigation system!

Bailey
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Postby Bailey » Thu Aug 10, 2006 10:35 am

I also noticed that when I was taking the test I had to really work at remembering what we said WAAAAY back then, I reached back a bit too far on the first three or four questions.

ButI do think my paren't's slang intruded and the movies we ewatched.

See kiddies; when something new was invented, way back in the mid-century, it often took many years for it to 'burst' on the consumer market and even more before your dad decided it was a good idea to spend his money on it. I can think of a good example of this, Color TV, it had been "out" for many years before I ever actually got to watch on one to any great extent. Add to that a color TV was $500-700 back then when cars were, yes, no lie lessthan $4,000 for a really nice one. I remember my mother complaining her New 1960(?) Mercury Station-wagon was over that price and it was outrageous.

mark kids-were-NOT-first-back-then Bailey

there you go PW a true, unembellished tale of hardship from a childhood. No Torquemada... just dear old dad who punch you in the head, HARD and say, "That's what I'll do, IF I get mad at you,"

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
kb









sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Thu Aug 10, 2006 1:09 pm

My status was similar to Bailey, also got fiftied when I shoulda been sixtied-seventied. You prolly can't really do this accurately without taking the second variable of regional/urban vs. suburban geography. A daunting task, though I daunt think it's not worth the try.

Say Bailey, you have a unique way of keeping things in perspective:

"If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there is a man on base."

-- and once she catches the infant, will she hit the cutoff man?
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

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gailr
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Postby gailr » Thu Aug 10, 2006 5:04 pm

Say Bailey, you have a unique way of keeping things in perspective:

"If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there is a man on base."

-- and once she catches the infant, will she hit the cutoff man?
Which man gets sacrificed probably depends on the bunting technique used for the infant.

-gailr

Bailey
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Postby Bailey » Thu Aug 10, 2006 6:21 pm


-- and once she catches the infant, will she hit the cutoff man?
Which man gets sacrificed probably depends on the bunting technique used for the infant.

-gailr[/quote]

disclaimer: no one was injured during the reenactment of this play, however the baby was put out, I'm not talking infant here the big baby.

mark taking-no-sides Bailey :lol:

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
kb









sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Thu Aug 10, 2006 6:29 pm

Which man gets sacrificed probably depends on the bunting technique used for the infant.

-gailr
-a double play on words?
We balk at that around here.
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

Sunny
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Depressing

Postby Sunny » Sun Aug 13, 2006 9:42 am

I did take the test and it put me in the 60's! How depressing. Whats a girl to do with an old mind and a young body and spirit?

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love. Sophocles (496 BC - 406 BC)


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