What Slang Do You Use?

When we were first dating, Alex was taking forever to get ready for dinner. (He’s a big primper.) I called down the hall, “Hurry up, baby!” His reply? “I’ll be there in two shakes.”

As in, two shakes of a LAMB’S TAIL.

Over the next few months, he kept busting out idioms. If someone was chatty, he’d say “they flap their gums.” If he had a lighthearted conversation, he’d tell me, “we had a chinwag.” One time, we were running late, and he said, “We have to beat cheeks,” which made me laugh forever.

We learn lots of slang during childhood, right? After growing up in Michigan, I use a bunch of midwest words — salty instead of grouchy, pop instead of soda. And our British friend, while hosting a dinner party, suddenly worried that she would run out of food. She pulled a few close friends over and said, “FHB.” We were confused, so she explained: “family hold back,” which meant we should hold off on filling our plates until guests had gotten enough.

Meanwhile, these days, eight-year-old Anton basically speaks another language. He uses so much new-to-us slang, including “sus” (everything is sus these days) and “flex” (as in, “my friends were flexing around their crushes”), I have to work to keep up.

Now, I’m curious: What slang do you use? Or funny idioms? Where did you grow up? Please share below…

P.S. English words that should exist, and my favorite new vocabulary word.

(Photo by Ali Lanenga/Stocksy.)