No Rest for the Wicked

No sleep at any rate. 

And when I say "wicked" I am, OBVS, using it in the Bostonian manner. Ya know, where it's synonymous with "way cool."

Wicked can also used as an adverb. As in, Preznint Cockwomble von Shit-fer-Brains and his sycophantic Republi-Fascist party are wicked evil.

Similar modifiers? Very, exceedingly, monstro or hella.

WHY no communion with Hypnos? Beats the fuck oughta me. Given the banjaxed state of the world, it'd be more of a stunner if I could manage regular, peaceful slumber. n'est-ce pas and shit?

And while we're sorta, kinda on the subject of slang, (we were, weren't we? I coulda sworn...), I fully realize that my slang slinging is hopelessly dated. OF COURSE it is! I'm 62 and have been deaf for 16 years. I have precious (or wicked) little contact with the kids (defined as anyone 40 or younger) so I’m woefully out of touch with the new, hip lexemes. AND even if I was immediately hip to the hot, new patter I'd be loathe to use it. I'd look like one of those past-my-sell-by-date, trying-too-damn-hard-to-be-relevant, idiots like Ted Cruz who, when running against Beto O'Rourke, had a vid made of himself skateboarding. It went about as well as you might expect – badly.

Embarassingly so.

What new, (new to me anyway), slang terms/phrases do I avoid like Plague45?

Woke 

According to Wikipedia:

Woke is a political term originating in the United States referring to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It derives from the African-American Vernacular English expression "stay woke," whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.

Alternatively, Urban Dictionary defines it as:

The act of being very pretentious about how much you care about a social issue. 

When I've seen this word used it's generally been by condescending, oblivious, I'm-SO-hip-and-superior, white BernieBros types.  Yeah, //shudder//

Stan

According to Oxford Languages this can be either a noun or a verb:

noun: an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity."Aretha has millions of stans who think of her as the goddess of soul."







verb: to be an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity."you know I stan for Jeff Beck so I was super psyched to score tickets to his gig at the Orpheum."


The Urban Dictionary tells me the term references the Eminem song Stan. The tune is about an intensely zealos fan (named Stan) who writes letters to Eminem which go unanswered. The dude ends up driving off a bridge (with pregnant wife), because he's a nut. It's a portmanteau of the words stalker and fan.

In the instances where I've seen the word employed, it's always been in a much less, presumably, psycho manner. I'd like to avoid any confusion so, while I'm wild about Kamala Harris, I will not refer to myself as a Kamala stan.

Throw shade

To throw shade is to publicly criticize or express contempt for someone.

 Or just shade which, according to Merriam Webster means:

a subtle, sneering expression of contempt for or disgust with someone—sometimes verbal, and sometimes not.

I get the sense that shade and throwing shade is stylistically closer to Dorothy Parker, who's brill shade includes:

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”
“Their pooled emotions wouldn’t fill a teaspoon."

versus a common Cruz or Trump.

I may throw shade (OK, I certainly do and on a near daily basis because I'm all petty like that) but I don't use the term ('cept for just now). Why not? Eh, I'm more at home with older slang AND I have no need to be seen all au courant, wildly with it and, linguistically speaking, cutting edge. 

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.

~ Carl Sandburg