{"id":244,"date":"2025-09-09T01:02:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T01:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/good-worldwide.go-vip.net\/upworthy\/2025\/09\/09\/linguists-explain-why-some-slang-words-stick-and-some-dont\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T01:02:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T01:02:00","slug":"linguists-explain-why-some-slang-words-stick-and-some-dont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goodinc.com\/qa-upworthy\/2025\/09\/09\/linguists-explain-why-some-slang-words-stick-and-some-dont\/","title":{"rendered":"Linguists explain why some slang words come and go quickly while others have staying power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re a parent of a <a data-linked-post=\"2667214240\" href=\"https:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/therapist-that-coined-honey-badger-generation-for-gen-alpha-explains-why-it-s-perfect\" target=\"_blank\">Gen Alpha<\/a> or <a data-linked-post=\"2672501853\" href=\"https:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/gen-z-tries-a-boombox\" target=\"_blank\">Gen Z kid<\/a>, or spend any significant amount of time with young people, you&#8217;ve likely found yourself befuddled by some of the <a data-linked-post=\"2660296035\" href=\"https:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/gen-z-terms-rp5\" target=\"_blank\">slang terms<\/a> coming out of their mouths\u2014skibidi, sigma, 6-7, drip, rizz. And if you aren&#8217;t around many young people, now is not really an ideal time to <a data-linked-post=\"2666381740\" href=\"https:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/what-on-earth-is-a-gyat-millennial-feels-ancient-after-learning-latest-gen-alpha-slang\" target=\"_blank\">try to learn their slang<\/a> because it changes so quickly. <\/p><p>Why do some slang terms stick around while others don&#8217;t? Linguists Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer shared some of the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ANc9F0p3mkw\" target=\"_blank\">history of slang with <em>WIRED<\/em><\/a> and explained what gives certain words staying power while others fizzle out quickly. For instance, several years ago, &#8220;on fleek&#8221; (meaning something attractive or perfectly executed) took off but didn&#8217;t really stay in the popular vernacular for long. &#8220;Cool,&#8221; on the other hand, has been around so long people don&#8217;t even think of it as a slang term, even though it is one. <\/p><p class=\"shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube\">        \t\t<div class=\"embed-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t<figure class=\"wp-block-embed wp-has-aspect-ratio \"> \n\t\t\t\t<div style=\"background-image:url(https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/ANc9F0p3mkw\/hqdefault.jpg)\" class=\"rkv-video-placeholder \" data-provider=\"youtube\" data-video-id=\"ANc9F0p3mkw\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"overlay\"><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<button aria-label=\"Play video\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<svg width=\"17\" height=\"20\" viewBox=\"0 0 17 20\" fill=\"none\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<path d=\"M16.5 9.75047C16.5006 10.0051 16.4353 10.2556 16.3105 10.4775C16.1856 10.6995 16.0055 10.8853 15.7875 11.017L2.28 19.2802C2.05227 19.4196 1.79144 19.4957 1.52445 19.5007C1.25746 19.5056 0.993989 19.4392 0.76125 19.3083C0.530728 19.1794 0.338696 18.9914 0.204904 18.7637C0.0711107 18.536 0.000385179 18.2768 0 18.0127V1.48828C0.000385179 1.22417 0.0711107 0.964934 0.204904 0.737222C0.338696 0.509511 0.530728 0.321545 0.76125 0.192655C0.993989 0.0617322 1.25746 -0.00468706 1.52445 0.0002572C1.79144 0.00520146 2.05227 0.0813301 2.28 0.220781L15.7875 8.4839C16.0055 8.6156 16.1856 8.80145 16.3105 9.0234C16.4353 9.24534 16.5006 9.49582 16.5 9.75047Z\" fill=\"white\"\/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/button>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t                        <\/p><p>Holiday and Zimmer start off by sharing some delightful insults people used on the streets of London in 1699, which included words like <em>booberkin<\/em>, <em>clodpate, dulpickle, nigmenog,<\/em> and<em> jobbernoll. <\/em>We don&#8217;t hear any of those words today, but they were listed in one of the first English slang dictionaries published that year, giving us a glimpse of what English rapscallions at the turn of the 18th century were calling one another. <\/p><p>Ironically, though, the publishing of that slang dictionary may very well have been what spelled those words&#8217; demise. <\/p><p>&#8220;From the earliest recorded slang in English, one thing we see is that these words can have a really short shelf life, just from too many people knowing about it,&#8221; says Zimmer. <\/p><p class=\"shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image\">        <figure class=\"rkv-rebelmouse\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/good-worldwide.go-vip.net\/qa-upworthy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/09\/origin-151.gif\" alt=\"fetch, slang, mean girls, slang words, linguistics, communication\" \/><figcaption>Remember when Gretchen Wieners tried to make   <a href=\"https:\/\/giphy.com\/gifs\/mean-girls-regina-george-stop-trying-to-make-fetch-happen-5G98t8QjqBLK8\" rel=\"nofollow\">Giphy<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>                        <\/p><p>That&#8217;s because slang is usually coined and spreads as an &#8220;in-group&#8221; signifier. Young people in particular start using a word or phrase that older people don&#8217;t, and it serves as a way of saying, &#8220;We&#8217;re a new generation of our own, not just a reflection of our parents.&#8221; But if older people start using those words or phrases, they no longer serve that purpose and lose their appeal. In the age of the Internet, that means slang comes and goes very quickly because we&#8217;re all privy to it. <\/p><p>&#8220;The whole process of slang becoming popular and then immediately passe gets accelerated when you can spread new language around really quickly,&#8221; Holiday explains. &#8220;So if you&#8217;re on social media, you might see a lot of slangy flashes in the pan.&#8221;<\/p><p>A good example of this is &#8220;YOLO.&#8221; The term, which stands for You Only Live Once, came from a Drake song and was a huge slang term in 2011-2012. Young people were using it, saying it, hashtagging it, etc., but it didn&#8217;t last. <\/p><p class=\"shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image\">        <figure class=\"rkv-rebelmouse\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/good-worldwide.go-vip.net\/qa-upworthy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/09\/origin-152.gif\" alt=\"yolo, slang, linguistics, language, words\" \/><figcaption>YOLO came and went quickly, thanks to older people picking it up.  <a href=\"https:\/\/giphy.com\/gifs\/netflix-yolo-odaat-l0Iyeain62TET6dwc\" rel=\"nofollow\">Giphy<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>                        <\/p><p><span><\/span>&#8220;I wrote something about YOLO in the summer of 2012,&#8221; says Zimmer, and I remember it was already getting played out, and it was just months after the song came out. But then I really knew that it was over for YOLO when I heard that Katie Couric on her new talk show was doing a segment called &#8216;What&#8217;s your YOLO?&#8217; where you were supposed to come on and talk about things you wanna do before you die\u2026That was really the death knell for it.&#8221;<\/p><p>Other words have quickly gone from cool to cringe in a relatively short period of time as well, such as &#8220;cheugy.&#8221; If you&#8217;re over a certain age, you may have missed the cheugy train altogether because it really went by that fast. It was a word Gen Zers used to describe Millennials who were &#8220;off trend,&#8221; but as soon as Millennials themselves used it (and had a <em>New York Times<\/em> piece written about it) &#8220;cheugy&#8221; itself became cheugy, and the word quickly lost its slang status among the generation that popularized it.<\/p><p class=\"shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image\">        <figure class=\"rkv-rebelmouse\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/good-worldwide.go-vip.net\/qa-upworthy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/09\/origin-153.gif\" alt=\"cheugy, slang, communication, language, linguistics, SNL\" \/><\/figure>                        <\/p><p>&#8220;On fleek&#8221; is another flash in the pan slang term that got ruined by overexposure. Coined by a 17-year-old girl from Chicago who described her eyebrows as &#8220;on fleek&#8221; in a viral Vine video, it was all the rage for hot minute, but when brands started using it\u2014IHOP even posted a tweet saying &#8220;Pancakes on fleek&#8221;\u2014it got sent to the vault where slang words go to die.<\/p><p>But what about the slang that doesn&#8217;t die? &#8220;Booze&#8221; is a perfect example, as it&#8217;s been used since the early 16th century as a slang word for alcohol and is still going strong. So is &#8220;cool.&#8221; Starting around 1930, the word became a slang term for anything good, and with the exception of a dip in popularity during the 1960s (when good became &#8220;groovy&#8221; for a bit there), it has managed to maintain its status as slang that crosses generations. Linguist Donna Jo Napoli believes cool has held on due to its &#8220;underspecified&#8221; nature, meaning it can be adapted to lots of different contexts. <\/p><p class=\"shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image\">        <figure class=\"rkv-rebelmouse\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/good-worldwide.go-vip.net\/qa-upworthy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/09\/origin-154.gif\" alt=\"cool, slang, language, linguistics, communication\" \/><\/figure>                        <\/p><p>But really, what makes a slang word stick and when it&#8217;s socially acceptable for different people to use it depends on a lot of different social factors, says Zimmer. It may be impossible to predict which slang words will stick, which will fly by quickly, which will eventually make a comeback, and which will die a permanent death, but I think there&#8217;s one thing we can all agree on: &#8220;Booberkin&#8221; most definitely deserves a revival.  <span><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;On fleek&#8221; was a flash in the pan, but &#8220;cool&#8221; has stuck around for nearly a century. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":188037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"alternative_headline":"","alternative_description":"","alternative_featured_image":0,"rkv_announcement":{"visible":true},"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"partner_boost":false,"hide_partner_badge":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[191,177],"tags":[390,432,433,232,434,435,436,437,438,439,164],"sponsor":[],"rkv-people-shadow":[149],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-joy","tag-communication","tag-english-slang","tag-gen-alpha-slang","tag-gen-z-slang","tag-history","tag-history-of-slang","tag-language","tag-linguistics","tag-slang-terms","tag-slang-words","tag-social-media"],"edit_link":null,"apple_news_notices":[],"rkv_author":{"id":149,"name":"Parker Molloy","display_name":"Parker Molloy","first_name":"","last_name":"","nickname":"","url":"https:\/\/goodinc.com\/qa-upworthy\/author\/parker-molloy\/","link":"https:\/\/goodinc.com\/qa-upworthy\/author\/parker-molloy\/","description":"<p>Parker Molloy is a feminist who cares a lot about culture, politics, media, and the Chicago Cubs. She enjoys taking naps and spending too much time on social media. She lives in Chicago with her wife. You can find her on <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/parkermolloy\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/parkermolloy\">Facebook<\/a>, if either is your jam. <\/p>","slug":"parker-molloy","avatar_urls":[],"email":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Linguists explain why some slang words come and go quickly while others have staying power - QA Upworthy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/goodinc.com\/qa-upworthy\/2025\/09\/09\/linguists-explain-why-some-slang-words-stick-and-some-dont\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Linguists explain why some slang words come and go quickly while others have staying power\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;On fleek&quot; was a flash in the pan, but &quot;cool&quot; has stuck around for nearly a century.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/goodinc.com\/qa-upworthy\/2025\/09\/09\/linguists-explain-why-some-slang-words-stick-and-some-dont\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"QA Upworthy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-09T01:02:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/goodinc.com\/qa-upworthy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/09\/origin-78173.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Parker Molloy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Parker Molloy\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/goodinc.com\\\/qa-upworthy\\\/2025\\\/09\\\/09\\\/linguists-explain-why-some-slang-words-stick-and-some-dont\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/goodinc.com\\\/qa-upworthy\\\/2025\\\/09\\\/09\\\/linguists-explain-why-some-slang-words-stick-and-some-dont\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Danny Cohen\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/goodinc.com\\\/qa-upworthy\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/00e013a2a0dd699bca424f4bfc4eea58\"},\"headline\":\"Linguists explain why some slang words come and go quickly while others have staying power\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-09T01:02:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/goodinc.com\\\/qa-upworthy\\\/2025\\\/09\\\/09\\\/linguists-explain-why-some-slang-words-stick-and-some-dont\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":989,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/goodinc.com\\\/qa-upworthy\\\/2025\\\/09\\\/09\\\/linguists-explain-why-some-slang-words-stick-and-some-dont\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/goodinc.com\\\/qa-upworthy\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/5\\\/2025\\\/09\\\/origin-78173.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"communication\",\"english slang\",\"gen alpha slang\",\"gen z slang\",\"history\",\"history of slang\",\"language\",\"linguistics\",\"slang terms\",\"slang words\",\"social media\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Culture\",\"Joy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"copyrightYear\":\"2025\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/goodinc.com\\\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/goodinc.com\\\/qa-upworthy\\\/2025\\\/09\\\/09\\\/linguists-explain-why-some-slang-words-stick-and-some-dont\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/goodinc.com\\\/qa-upworthy\\\/2025\\\/09\\\/09\\\/linguists-explain-why-some-slang-words-stick-and-some-dont\\\/\",\"name\":\"Linguists explain why some slang words come and go quickly while others have staying power - 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