Slang throughout the years

The phrase “woke” and to “stay woke” is not new — it began appearing in the 1940s and was first used by African Americans to “literally mean becoming woken up or sensitized to issues of justice

DeSantis leverages the woke agenda for his own purposes.

The adjective phat has emerged from hip hop, a cultural movement originating among young African Americans in the United States and associated with rap music, graffiti art and breakdancing.

Taylor Swift’s new album is well phat.

The term yuppie originated in the 1980s and is used to refer to young urban professionals who are successful in business and considerably affluent.

He was disappointed in her choice of restaurant, a noisy, yuppie hang-out, the sort of place where design took precedence over comfort.

The phrase was popularized (and may have been originated) by rapper Chief Keef, who used the term (spelled glo up—now a common alternate spelling) to refer to a positive improvement in his 2013 song “Gotta Glo Up One Day.” Chief Keef’s play on grow up in the song was also a reference to his crew, known as the Glo Gang.

It’s been amazing to witness Grace’s glow up as she has transformed from an awkward tween into a TikTok trendsetter.

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.

Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang (2d ed.) defines “peeps” as a slang term originating in the 1980s on college campuses and in the black community. It’s derived from “people” and it means parents, friends, people in general,

She showed up with her peeps for support.

Expression: Similar to “No offence” or “back off”, “Don’t @ me” literally means don’t mention my name in a tweet, comment, etc., but is usually used in pretext of something predicted by the presenter to be offensive to a social audience of a specific type.

Donald Trump is the best president ever. Don’t @ me.

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.

Gnarly means “treacherous.” An acceptable synonym is “hairy.” Surf punks use gnarly to refer to any wave over two feet

Wow, man! That’s totally gnarly!

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.