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 Do I Really Need to Know What 420 Means? From "What's a Fo' Sheezy?" Copyright ©2007 by Youth Specialties
The youth pastor looked at me confused and said, "What do you mean?" He had no idea. Don't feel alone if you don't, either. It's increasingly difficult to keep up with the ever-changing youth culture and the slanguage kids use. (The American Heritage Dictionary defines slanguage as "language marked by the use of slang.") Regardless of how silly it is, regardless of how much you like or don't like it...kids still use it. Sometimes they use it as a secret code of sorts to stay under adult radar screens. Others just use slanguage because it's catchy, and every cable-TV show they watch uses the terms. 420 was one of those obscure, "under the radar" terms for a while. It's basically defined as the time to smoke pot, but it's come to mean everything from the act of smoking to the stuff that's smoked and the optimum smoking time. But because more than 90 percent of people DON'T know what 420 means, it's become a code people use to identify and talk with each other without outsiders knowing. I'll never forget when I first heard the word tight. It was more than a decade ago. A student was talking about a teacher and said, "He's tight." Two decades ago that would've meant the teacher was way too strict or unfair. But 10 years ago it was a good thing. This teacher was very good—"tight," in fact. Five years ago this teacher would've been "the bomb" and then most recently "pimp" or "off the hook." It's hard to keep up! Where are these words coming from? One source is the variety of English known as African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), Black English, or Ebonics. This dialect has greatly influenced teenage vocabulary, crossing racial and socioeconomic lines to the point where speech stereotypes have now become blurry, as white-dominated schools are full of students passing each other in the hallway, uttering phrases such as "W'a's crackin', my nephew?" And the reply: "Not much, dawg—we 'bout to roll out to lunch for a little sum-summ'n!" The media has been one of the greatest influences of slanguage over the last 20 years. Vocabulary once used by prisoners, gang members, and pimps has penetrated the mainstream market through mediums such as MTV. And this isn't just affecting students who listen to gangster rap and hip-hop. MTV crosses racial and socioeconomic lines, reaching the inner city and the 'burbs, influencing Caucasians, Hispanics, African-Americans, and Asians, and affecting jocks, gangstas, skaters, and the kids who sit alone at lunch. Whether it's Justin Timberlake, Eminem, Ludacris, the Black Eyed Peas, or even the Pussycat Dolls, popular artists of all colors are influencing all of our students with new terms every day—and the lingo is pretty much the same thing. While some of these speech influences are innocent, the product MTV sends us begs for an "R" rating. Many of the terms are about sex, drugs, cruising, and partying as well as derogatory titles for each gender. And slanguage isn't affecting only students—it's influencing language used by adults. Whether we like it or not, language is slowly changing and being molded by the same influences that affect youth culture. Monday Night Football interviews are filled with "shout outs" to relatives and friends at home. (A "shout out" is a simple "hello" or recognition of important others.) On September 11, 2001, United flight 93 victim Todd Beamer spoke his now-famous departing words, "Let's roll"—also now the title of his wife's best-selling book. Let's roll, a slanguage term meaning "Let's go!" isn't in the dictionary on your shelf, yet it's used by a growing number of teenagers and adults daily. In fact, words adults use every day are changing, too. Many people don't believe it, but check it out for yourself: Is the following sentence grammatically correct? "Do not disrespect your mom." Pretty straightforward. Nothing wrong here, right? The word disrespect is used as a verb. But do you realize that the dictionary on your shelf—unless it's very new—probably doesn't list disrespect as a verb? Most dictionaries list disrespect as a noun and disrespectful as an adjective. But nowadays, the word disrespect is commonly used as a verb because of the growing use of the term dis, which is a slang verb that means "to show disrespect." So it's not uncommon to hear someone say, "Don't you disrespect me!" Our language is changing as youth culture is changing. And at the top of the pyramid, before it trickles down into everyday language, slanguage is changing. Whether or not we like slanguage, it's beneficial to know the vocabulary of the generation we're trying to reach. Our hope is that this book not only will educate you about some of the most popular, current terms of this generation, but also will provide springboards for discussion. —Fred and Jonathan  CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO OUR SLANG DICTIONARY |
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