Watch your slanguage

By the time you’re done reading this, these terms may well be outdated

Do you know what a “cougay” is? Or a “spicy edit”? Or what the heck ROFLCOPTER means? Take heart — it’s not a sign that you’re totally unhip if you answer with a vacant “no.” It’s just that new expressions are popping up faster than you can say “Wiki wiki” — which is slang for “quick and easy” in Hawaiian, by the way.

While these terms are cool one day and passé the next, the real question isn’t what is in today, but how these phrases sneak into our conversations in the first place.

“Part of it is vanity,” explains Professor Michael Smith of Campbell University. “[It’s] that ‘I know something that you don’t know.’”

Smith argues that we create slang as part of a code, a language intended to separate those it’s intended for from those it is to be used against.

“You could say [derogatory] things in front of somebody and you and the person that knew the code could enjoy the satisfaction of thinking, ‘We’ve just insulted them and they don’t even know it,’” Smith says. “It’s about power in some ways. It’s also about setting yourself apart.”

With the onslaught of chat and texting lingo — how many of us now say OMG as if it’s an actual word? — other terms become abbreviated out of convenience. Changing technology and culture also create a need for these new word hybrids.

“Most new words do not last, but a word that’s successful does a really good job of filling a lexical hole in the language,” says Grant Barrett, author of  “The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English.” He sites the term “motel” — meaning a motor hotel — as the classic example.

But how many of us are mystified by the way words such as “badonkadonk” become ubiquitous almost overnight? Barrett says the fate of a new phrase’s survival rests with its popularizer; the bigger the source, such as a television show like “Saturday Night Live,” the faster the phrase takes hold in our vocabulary.

“If you think back to the term ‘bling bling,’ which came out of a song from 1999 by B.G. and the Cash Money Millionaires, you’ll find that that term took off because the song was so successful,” Barrett says. “It works very similarly to the way disease is spread.”

A QUICK GLOSSARY OF NEW SLANG

Cougay

An older gay man who acts like a cougar, which is the slang term for an older woman who pursues younger men. 

ROFLCOPTER

Chat speak for “rolling on the floor laughing and spinning around.” 

Toats

An abbreviated version of the word “totally.” 

Epic Fail

A term originating in the gaming community to describe an egregious mistake. 

Cupcake

To stay home with your boyfriend/ girlfriend to cuddle. 

Noiding out

To get anxious about something that is driven more by paranoia than a true cause for concern. 

HEIDI PATALANO