Slang throughout the years

Meh‘s popularity surged after its use on the American animated television series The Simpsons.^[7][27] It was first used in the 1994 episode “Sideshow Bob Roberts“,^[7] when a librarian reacts to Lisa’s surprise that voting records are not classified. It also appeared later in “Lisa’s Wedding” after Marge weaves the words “Hi Bart” on a loom to try to pique her son’s interest in weaving, to which he responds “meh”.

Taylor Swift’s new album is a bit meh.

The term possibly derives from the word “grotesque.” Popularized in the song “Valley Girl” in 1982.

Ugh, that smell is seriously grody—I’m practically gagging.

The word groupie originated around 1965 to describe teen-aged girls or young women who began following a particular group or band of musicians on a regular basis. The phenomenon was much older; Mary McCarthy had earlier described it in her novel The Company She Keeps (1942).^[1]

The groupie followed the band around on tour, hoping to catch one of the members coming out of their hotel after hours.

The boondocks is an American expression from the Tagalog (Filipino) word bundók (“mountain”). It originally referred to a remote rural area,^[1] but now, is often applied to an out-of-the-way area considered backward and unsophisticated by city-folk.

They were in the boondocks with no cell service.

According to an April 2021 article in The New York Times written by Taylor Lorenz, the term cheugy was coined in 2013 by Gaby Rasson, a Beverly Hills High School student, who used it to describe “people who were slightly off trend”; an Urban Dictionary definition appeared in 2018.^[1] Subsequently, it was mentioned in a TikTok video by Hallie Cain in March 2021,^[3] inspiring explainers from various media outlets (including Lorenz’ own article).^[1] The American Dialect Society voted cheugy its 2021 “informal word of the year“.^[11]

She is so cheugy: she’s doing last week’s TikTok trend.

Goldbricking in the modern sense of malingering developed around the time of World War II, in the U.S. Army. The term was extended to refer to anybody not pulling his weight—a loafer who gives the appearance of working without actually accomplishing much

Jim’s group had to work extra hours because Jim was such a goldbricker.

Slap appears to start getting applied to music, specifically, by at least the early 2000s. Now, the origin of slang, especially successful and widespread slang terms like slap, are indeed hard to pin down, but the musical slap is often credited to Bay Area hip-hop slang. (Hyphy, anyone?) It was first entered into Urban Dictionary in 2004.

Rihanna’s new single slaps so hard, I can’t stop listening to it!

Bae is a slang term of endearment^[1] primarily used among youth in communities. It came into widespread use around 2013 and 2014 through social media and hip-hop and R&B lyrics.

It’s bad when bae doesn’t reply to your texts.

The phrase is sometimes used to mean ‘get going’ or ‘hurry up’. It was explicitly defined that way in the New York Magazine in 1904. “Shake a leg … meaning to ‘hurry up’.”

Let’s shake a leg, you guys. We gotta be there in twenty minutes.

The origin of skivvies, a North American term for underwear, is unclear.

We stripped down to our skivvies and went into the pool.