One of the best parts of the 80’s, in my humble opinion, is the amazing slang language that was created. I know all generations have their slang, and maybe I say this only because I understood the slang of that generation, but the 80’s slang was totally rad.
80’s slang was so totally tubular that there are movies and tv shows that perpetuated it. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (I never saw the remake) was ridiculously popular and spawned its own slang, not to mention a whole slew of popular quotes. Bill and Ted’s popularized the term “bodacious” and the frequent use of “dude”. They also are well known for high brow quotes like, "Oh, You Beautiful Babes From England, For Whom We Have Traveled Through Time... Will You Go To The Prom With Us In San Dimas? We Will Have A Most Triumphant Time!"
One of my favorite 80’s tv shows, which was sadly only on for one season but definitely strengthened the use of 80’s slang in my vocabulary, was “Square Pegs”. Oh how I loved that show. It spoke to 9 year old me like no show had before. The teenage girls trying so desperately to fit in felt everything I felt but they did it in clothes that were so much cooler than mine. It is no wonder that I decided if I spoke like them, life would surely be better! If only they would have incorporated more Valley Girl speak, psych! Like, they totally used it perfectly, doy!
Some other 80’s gems that you may or may not have used, and might even remember include:
Bite me: The perfect comeback for anyone who is acting grody ‘cause they are a total wastoid.
Barf me out: What you would say when something was super awful. Your embarrassing parents would often barf you out.
Big Whoop: This is exactly what you would give when something was completely underwhelming.
Have a Cow: What you did NOT want your mom to have whenever you made the slightest of errors. (just for clarification, this is not related to “Where’s the Beef”)
To bring this point home, in case you felt you should doubt me, let’s do a quick review of some of the current day slang:
Vibing: This would be to chill out, for example, I spent the weekend just vibing.
OK Boomer: Pretty much just insulting you and me. Ug, gag me with a spoon.
Hits different: To have a significant impact on. For example, 80’s slang just hits different
I want to say that in the last 10 years or so it has also become incredibly popular to shorten words as a part of slang used. For example, instead of something being super amazing it would be “sups amaze”. During this phase of slang language Kristen and I would often refer to something that was adorable as being “adorbs”. My mom, however, heard this as “adorps”. It turns out when shopping, she sees a lot of things that she would completely categorize as “adorps” and used her version of this slang with great frequency. Kristen and I finally caught on and after quite a bit of chuckling decided to adopt it as our own in honor of her. If you ever notice that we find things to be “adorps”, it is just proof that later generations don’t always catch the slang of the younger generations. Ok Boomers!