Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Modern Day American Slang



A major challenge that a lot of ESL students face is understanding and becoming familiar with the 15,000+ idioms/slang terms used in American English.  Slang words are informal terms that are very common in speech and, these days, in social media. While some slang words come and go, others last much longer and become commonly used terms for a very long time.

New slang emerge in pop culture all the time and it can confuse even native English speakers!

So to help us keep up, here are some commonly used in our language. Which ones do you already know and use?

Ain't- informal contraction of (Be) not; is not, are not, am not 
"Dime"/"Dime Piece"- (n) a perfect ten, an extremely attractive person
Bae- (n) abbreviation of "Before Anyone Else" -n- significant other
Boo- (n) significant other, boyfriend or girlfriend
Twerk- (n/v)- rump shaking dance
Nut Job/ Whack job- (n) crazy person
Turn up- (v)- to be excited and party
Mad- (adj)- very or a lot


--Slang Words and Definitions Provided by NYLC Instructor Andrew Tate

1 comment:

  1. Sometimes, my wife thinks I'm a nut job. :-|

    ReplyDelete