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- [00:02]
A
Lemonade.
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B
Brains on universe.
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A
Anyway, long story short, Gumpy thinks leaving his Crocs in the freezer will be a total game changer this summer.
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C
Makes sense.
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A
Wait a sec. What's that on the ground? Is that a quarter? Liberty giblets. Today is my day Lib Diddy jibbless.
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C
What is that?
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A
Oh, you mean libbity jiblitz. It's a new slang word I made up. You can use it for all sorts of things.
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C
Is that what you've been saying all day?
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A
I haven't been saying it that much.
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C
You say at a deli, would you
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A
like mayo on your sandwich? Liberty giblets? Heavens no. Thank you for asking though.
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C
Or when we were trying on cowboy boots. What do you think of this pair?
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A
Libity giblets. Those are so good.
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C
And early when we missed the bus. Wait up.
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A
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 slay or Sigma or aura.
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C
Got potential.
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A
Liberty giblets. That's what I like to hear. You're listening to Forever Ago, part of the Brainz universe. I'm your host, Joy Dolo, and I'm here today with my co host Dax from Portland, Oregon.
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C
Hi, Joy.
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A
Welcome, Dax. Today we're talking all about slang.
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C
Slang is a word or saying that a group of people use casually. It adds fun and style to language.
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A
There's so much slang in English, you probably don't even realize you use it all the time.
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C
Words like cool, fresh and dude. Oh, slang.
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A
And also words that describe me a cool fresh dude. Thank you. Sometimes slang is just an abbreviation of words that already exist.
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C
Like how the word riz is short for charisma.
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A
And sometimes slang uses words that already exist, but with different context. Like saying something is fire to mean it is really good.
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C
Well, like saying no cap, which has
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A
nothing to do with caps like hats or. Or caps like the top of a bottle. Instead, no cap means no lying or tell the truth. And sometimes slang is just a completely made up word or a new saying altogether, like skibidi or libity giblets.
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C
You really try to make liberty giblets a thing.
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A
Oh, believe me, you're gonna be using liberty giblets by the end of this episode.
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C
That is how slang usually starts. Just with a few people using word.
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A
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.
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C
Slang can happen in person or come
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A
from movies or TV or music, or
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C
it can start from the Internet.
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A
The Internet also makes it easier for new slang to spread to lots and lots of different people really quickly, like
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C
aura, phantom, tax, or Sigma Dax.
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A
Do you have a go to slang word or one you hear a lot at school?
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C
I don't really use slang that much, but I do use cool a lot.
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A
Like, oh, that's cool, or whoa, that outfit is cool. Stuff like that.
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C
Yeah, yeah.
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A
Do you think that you'll use Liberty? Liberty giblets?
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C
Probably. I really like it.
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A
Thanks. And it's so malleable. You can use it for pretty much anything.
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C
Yeah.
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A
Is there any new slang words you've heard of recently?
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C
I have heard of one that's been causing a lot of controversy to 1, 6, 7.
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A
Oh, okay. Okay. So I'm happy that we have a chance to talk about this because I've heard of 6, 7, 2, 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?
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C
I've never really used it before, so I don't really know 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? You might say six, seven.
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A
Oh. Like it's like it's really cool.
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C
Or like, I don't know really. I don't really know.
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A
I don't know either. Do you feel like slang sticks around for a while or does it all change quickly? Do you feel like it moves pretty fast?
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C
I don't really. For one's like, cool brain rod, they seem to stick around for quite a while.
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A
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?
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C
No, not really.
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A
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?
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C
I think one like Paradoxica, like for weird would be cool.
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A
Paradoxica.
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C
My mom actually came up with one and it's a combination of weird and cool. And it's wool.
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A
Like that cat wearing a jacket is wool. Totally paradoxical. Paradoxical. Liberty giblets. Oh, we're going to be famous. We also asked our listeners to come up with their very own new slang. Here's what you had to say.
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B
Hi Randon. My name is Carmen from Quezon City, Philippines and my slang word is brotitude. I have actually used it for a while now. 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, brotitude. Whatcha doing today? That's it. Bye brotatude. Hi, I'm Clara, I'm from nyc and my slang word is washy. Kind of like a goody two shoe. And a sentence is why is Jenny always volunteering for extra homework? She's such a washy. Hey brainzone. My name is Claudia and I'm from Quezon City, Philippines. And my slang word that I will invent is happ Cry. Happ cry means when you have happy tears. Like for example, oh, this movie is so nice. I'm going. Hi, my name is Elliot and I'm from Andover, Vermont. My slang lord is loopsy doopsie. It's when you loop around in a circle without knowing and then when you finally realize it, you say loopsy doopsy. Here's an example. Let's go this way. No, I think we're just going in circles. Wait, really? Oh well. Loopsy doopsie. My word is aquatots and it means soggy tater tot. The sentence this word might be in
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C
is do not put ketchup on aqua tots. That is a violation to community.
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B
Hello, my name is Anderson and I think my new slang word would be crowster. It means that you're crafty and resourceful. Hi, forever ago. My name is Chloe and I'm from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. And my slang word for the future is slothing and that means relaxing. For example, like I was just slothing on the couch.
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A
Liberty giblets. I can't wait to use all of these. Thank you to Carmen, Clara, Claudia, Elliot, Emory, 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, slay and goat.
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C
Let's start with brain rot.
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A
Let's do that. Could you use brain rot in a sentence?
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C
Like a parent might say, you shouldn't be watching those videos. They're brain rot.
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A
Yeah, exactly. People say brain rot when they've spent too much time online and feel like their brain is rotting.
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C
Like you're becoming less smart from watching too many memes or videos.
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A
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.
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C
Like AI videos that make no sense at all.
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A
Yeah, you could either say something like, I'm totally getting brain rot from watching Skibidi toilet again, or, I've been watching a lot of brain rot lately.
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C
Brain rot was actually Oxford Dictionary's word of the year back in 2024.
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A
But did you know that the first recorded use of brain rot dates back to 1854?
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C
Whoa. Over 100 years ago.
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A
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.
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C
Back in 1854, he was thinking about how farmers were trying to find a way to stop their potato crops from going bad.
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A
And it made him think of how so many people's ability to think critically seemed to be going bad too. He wrote, while England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain rot which prevails so much more widely and fatally.
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C
Translation, please.
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A
Basically, Henry wanted people to think for themselves and be curious about the world around them.
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C
I see. So the first time we saw the phrase brain rot was way back in 1854.
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A
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.
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C
The word really took off after COVID
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A
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.
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C
Yeah. Like microwave ovens, television, radio and even novels.
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A
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.
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C
No, cap.
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A
Can't forget to touch grass, am I right? Well, we have more slang to come. But first, it's time for first Things first. 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' got the bee's knees, tubular and far out. Dex, have you heard of any of these slang words before?
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C
I've heard of all of them, actually.
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A
Oh, really? Could you use them in a sentence?
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C
One of them I will use far out. Someone might say, those pants are far out, man.
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A
Totally. Totally. So which do you think came first, which came second, and which came most recently in history?
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C
I think that far out may have come first because I know it was around in the 60s and potentially the 50s. It could have been used previously, but I think that's first.
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A
Okay, so we have far out first
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C
and then via process of elimination. I think tubular is invented after far out because, for one thing, it sounds like surfacing because a tube is like a wave that's in the shape of a tube.
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A
Oh, yeah.
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C
And with the episode you did on the history of lifeguards, well, in that episode, I learned that lifeguards have only been around since, like, the 1910s and 20s, and that was specifically in Hawaii. So by the time they got to the mainland, it might have been later, maybe like the 30s, maybe or 40s or 50s. But if it was during the Great Depression, probably people weren't really surfing at that time because probably people couldn't afford surfboards. And probably During World War II, people weren't surfing. So I think that came at least in the 50s.
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A
Oh, that's great. Okay, so we have far out first and then tubular maybe.
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C
Tubular. Okay, I'm going to actually change my sequence completely. I think it's bee's knees first. Me twenties.
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A
Oh, bee's knees. Oh, yeah. I wonder if that was from the 20s.
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C
It just seems like San Jose. So bee's knees, far out and tubular.
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A
Bee's knees, far out and tubular. We're gonna plug that in your final answer.
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C
Yep.
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A
Alrighty. So we'll hear the answers at the end of the episode right after the
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C
credits, so stick around.
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A
We love hearing from you. If you were 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 Candyland, or maybe a new way to say I love you. Inspired by our Diamonds episode. Whatever you think up, tell us about it by going to brainson.org contact we might feature it in our mailbag. Thanks.
- [14:12]
C
And keep listening.
- [14:20]
A
At Great Wolf Lodge, there's adventure for the whole family. You and your pack can splash away in the indoor water park where it's always 84 degrees. There's a massive wave pool, a lazy river, and tons of water slides for your pack to enjoy together. And the fun doesn't stop there. Get ready to explore and play at Adventure packed attractions, from Magiquest, a live action game that takes place throughout the lodge, to the Northern Lights Arcade. There's also a bunch of great dining options and complimentary daily events like nightly dance parties all under one roof. And the best part, with 22 lodges across the country, you're always only a short drive away from adventure. So bring your pack together at a lodge near you. Book your stay today@greatwolf.com and strengthen the pack. You're listening to Forever Ago. I'm Joy. And I'm Dax, and today we're talking all about slang, those popular words or
- [15:29]
C
sayings that just catch on.
- [15:31]
A
Here are more of the slang words you all invented. Let's hear them.
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B
Hi, My name is Eloise, and my slang word is adorable. It means adorable and annoying. Like, my puppy's so adorable, it's really cute, but it barks all the time. My name is Yali and I live in Ashkelon, Israel. And if I had to come up with a slang word of my very own, it would be, oh, sugar cookies. It has the same meaning as oh, man, and could be used in sentences like, oh, sugar cookies, I didn't get tickets to that concert, or oh, sugar cookies, I forgot my hat. Hello, forever Ago. My name is Rowan and this is my slang word for you. Rowan, what are you doing? Shush. I'm folkin. That is concentrating and focusing. Hi, foreverglove. My name is Abby from Elmgrove, Wisconsin, and my new slang word is doopy Schnibels. It's a word me and my friend made up.
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C
Thank you.
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B
Hi, my name's Evelyn. I'm from Bering, Washington. My idea for a swag word is nix. It means you're really funny, like Joy Dolo. Hi, my name is Rob, and my new slang word is called stink fried. It means if you are trying to say something is very yucky. For example, a mom says to her kid, no, you cannot eat that banana peel that's in the garbage. It's stink fried. Hi, I'm Raja. I'm from from Somerset Amaya. Different or a spelling word is Zing, short for amazing. Just like this podcast. This podcast is straight up zing. My name is Violet from Napoleon, Tennessee. And my idea for a new slang word is slink. It would mean like, like, oh, like it's cool, or like it's like sleep. Or like it's like sort of eating. To use it in a sentence like, oh, your skirt's so slink. My name is Lennon, I'm from Dell. This jersey, and my language is schwe. It means cool, stylish, fashionable, sweet, cool. Wow.
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A
Thanks to Eloise, Yahli, Rowan, Abby, Evelyn, Rose, Rosa, Violet and Lennon for sending in those great ideas. Now for more slang history. Our next slang word of the day might be one of the most popular ones around.
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Slay.
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A
Slay.
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C
Slay can mean a lot of things, but it's usually a good thing.
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A
It's like saying you're killing it or that's awesome. In a sentence, you could say your
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C
outfit slays or we're eating ice cream for dinner. Major slay.
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A
The phrase slay got a big pop culture boost thanks to the show RuPaul's
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C
Drag Race and also from Beyonce's song formation.
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A
The word slay comes from the old English verb meaning to kill or destroy,
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C
like slaying a dragon, right?
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A
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 1500s. And then I looked at the goat and said, hey, that's my sword, Bartholomew, you slay me.
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C
But the way we use slay today really took charge back in the 1970s and 80s.
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A
This is Back when disco music was all the rage.
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C
It's also around the beginning of ballroom culture in New York City.
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A
Ballroom culture was created mostly by black and Latinx queer folks in New York City. It was black and brown trans women in particular who really led the movement.
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C
Ballroom wasn't about an actual ballroom or ballroom dancing.
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A
Ballroom got its name because this queer community would host special parties they called
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C
balls and they had a ball.
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A
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.
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C
There are lots of different forms of
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A
expression in ballroom, like modeling different outfits
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C
or showing off different makeup looks.
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A
Some folks perform lip syncs where they pretend to sing along to a song.
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C
Other people dance to express themselves, including
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a special kind of dance style called voguing.
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C
If you like somebody's performance or look or dance, you could say slay, you better slay.
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A
Slay is just one of the many, many words that we got thanks to ballroom culture. In fact, so much American slang Comes from black queer folks like throwing shade. Spill the tea.
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C
Yasss. It's giving or you ate with that.
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A
Yes. All that wonderful slang is in large part thanks to black and brown queer folks who found creative ways to express
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C
themselves, especially all the pioneers in ballroom slay.
- [21:00]
A
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, which is exactly what my entire life mission has been, is trying to get mayo out of our system, out of our schools, out of everywhere. We don't need it. Thank you so much, Grayson, for sending that in. It's going on the wall of fame. If you want to send us something, visit brainson.com contact I can't wait to see what you send us. Want our show with no ad breaks? Join Smarty. Pass. You get the whole brains on universe with no ads, plus bonus stuff. And you help support me and the crew. It's a surefire way to make a positive difference in the world right now, where history, science, and critical thinking are more important than ever. Sign up@smartypast.org Thanks.
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C
I'm Dax.
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A
I'm Joy.
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C
And we have one more slang word to discuss.
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A
G O A T. Ghost.
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C
Goat is an acronym. It stands for greatest of all time.
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A
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.
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C
Goated.
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A
We use goat for athletes, too. Some people might say legendary player Michael Jordan is the goat of basketball.
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C
Or you could call Olympic gymnast Simone Biles the goat. She even has a diamond goat necklace.
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A
But it seems likely that this phrase got its start with a different athlete. Boxer Muhammad Ali.
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C
Muhammad Ali was one of the most popular boxers back in the 1960s.
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A
He often referred to himself as the greatest. You can hear him say it here in this 1967 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 jive, you're falling 5 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.
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C
He made an album back in 2000 called the G O8T or the Goat.
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A
He was inspired by Muhammad Ali's catchphrase, greatest of all time, plus basketball legend Earl Manigote.
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C
Manigote was an American street basketball player in New York.
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A
Manigault got the nickname the Goat, likely from his last name.
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C
So LL Cool J combined those two things.
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A
He explains it during this interview with the late night TV host Seth Meyers.
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C
I got Greatest of all Time from Muhammad Ali, obviously.
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A
Yep.
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C
And I got Goat from Earl the Manigoat, who was a street basketball player in New York.
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A
I took the two together and I made the acronym G O A T Goat Greatest of all time. And then it just kind of spread throughout the world. And this LL Cool J is totes the goat.
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C
He's totes goated.
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A
This episode is the Goat. And just like that, we're already at the end.
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C
Liberty giblets. Time flies when you're talking slang.
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A
Dax, did you just say liberty giblets?
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C
You got me.
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A
Oh, it sounded so natural. So correct. Liberty giblets. This is the best day of my life. Now, if we can get Gumpy and Hermie to say it, we'll be really
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C
cooking or be cooked.
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A
Libity giblets gets mad aura, am I right? Totally rizzed up. It's a serve. One might say Liberty giblets is the goat of slang. Slang is a word or phrase that people casually say to each other.
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C
It usually starts with a small group of people, but can spread far and wide.
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A
The phrase brain rot was first written back in 1854 by the poet Henry David Thoreau.
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C
The word slay became popular thanks to queer folks and ballroom culture.
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A
In fact, a lot of the slang we use today was first invented by black and brown queer folks.
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C
And the term goat likely came from boxer Muhammad Ali and rapper LL Cool J.
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A
This episode was written by Ruby Guthrie. It was produced by Nico Gonzalez Whistler. It's edited and fact checked by sand and Totten. Engineering help from Josh Millman with sound design by Rachel Brees. Original theme music by Mark Sanchez and
- [26:00]
C
if you want access to ad free episodes and special bonus content, subscribe to our smarty pass.
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A
Okay, Dax, are you ready to hear the answers for first things first.
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C
Liberty giblets. I am totally ready.
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B
Yes.
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A
It's taking over the world. So just as a reminder, the first one we had was bee's knees and then far out and then tubular. Yeah.
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C
Yep.
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A
All right, let's see what it is. Oh, wow. Okay. Oh, I didn't see that coming.
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C
I go right since I.
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A
How do you know?
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C
I. I observe by listening. I observe my ears.
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A
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.
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C
Oh, yeah.
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A
Knees was 1920s.
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B
Yes.
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A
Like, you not only got it right, but you got the decade right, too. That's incredible. It took off in the roaring 1920s 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 fleas eyebrows, which I'm going to start adding into, like, any. Any saying I have now, like, whoa, those are the fleas eyebrows. Some people think the phrase was actually named after flapper dancer B. Jackson, who was famous for her Charleston dance, which required lot of knee bending. That is so. That's, like, pretty. Pretty awesome that you got, like, both of those right. Smarty, smarty. And then the next one you also got right. Far out was from the 1950s.
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C
Wow.
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A
You're like a history genius.
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C
I have a history book that I can so a lot.
- [27:43]
A
I think you have a bright future ahead of you. So. This phrase was first coined by jazz musicians in the 1950s 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 1960s and 70s, becoming a staple piece of slang for hippies and their counterculture movements. It was far out. Liberty giblets. I can't believe it. And then last, but certainly not least, is tubular from the 1980s. So tubular thoughts have started with surfing culture, which you were right again, Dax. And got popular in the 1980s. It is a way to describe a perfect wave that formed a sort of tube surfers could ride into. Totally tubular bruh. Dude, you are so smart. Like, one of the smartest people I know. It can also just mean something is really good. Like that keyboard solo is totally tubular. We also have surfers to thank for the term gnarly, as in, dude, that wave is gnarly tubular, bruh. I wonder if I said G. Liberty giblets, like liberty giblets bruh, like, while you're surfing.
- [28:54]
C
Oh, that would work.
- [28:56]
A
It'll be the new one for 2020s. Dax, I have to ask you, are you, like, so proud of yourself for getting these all right? And the decades?
- [29:04]
C
Yes. I was not expecting that at all. This is Paradoxica. And cool.
- [29:10]
A
Yeah, we should add that to the list. 2026 paradoxica, invented by Dax and his mom. Join us next week for a new episode all about the national anthem.
- [29:22]
C
Thanks for listening.