A guide to youth slang in East Sussex: Part Four

Today's lesson about slang words left me in rather a confused and slightly embarrassed state.

Discussion on the themes from Of Mice and Men was going quite well with my Year 11's period 4 today. I was trying to emphasise a really important point that I knew would be in tomorrow's mock exam- I was trying to drop a hint in other words. So, I stated something like this, "Candy feels isolated and without a sense of place because, due to his age and injury, he could be tossed off the farm at any moment". At this point the whole class burst into fits of laughter.

Really unsure as to what had caused this I asked what I'd said. There was quite a pause, some couldn't stop laughing, but mostly it was due to no one really wanting to say it.

"You said 'toss off' miss".

I was still confused.

"Well", said George at the back, "I could draw you a picture".

Matt and Duncan at the front endeavoured, in quiet voices, to explain, "Well miss, you know what someone normally does when they're alone, well it's when a girl does it to a guy instead"

Oooooh.

"What do you think it means, miss?"

"To throw, fling or discard" I explained, trying quickly to find an example, 'toss those sausages off the BBQ' is probably not going to work, "Toss another log on the fire", I added.

Whew, think I might be able to retrieve this lesson, better get on with it now they've gained composure.

"So, as I was saying, Candy's isolation, because of his old age and because of his injured hand..."

(shrieks of laughter)

Only a fool would try to continue. I set them paragraph answers to do and resigned from the front of the class.

A guide to youth slang in East Sussex: Part Three

Now I know I can be a bit gullible sometimes, but I don't think I am being taken for a ride here. They seem genuine, without much sniggering. Or maybe I'm being fooled too well.

My Year 9 class inform me that 'boofing' (rhymes with woofing) means being nerdy or geeky. For example 'Why did you sit me at the front of the class miss, everyone will think I'm boofing', or 'Can I try your glasses on... I look right boofing'.

This is ever so slightly isolated rural Sussex, but even so I think they are fairly attached to the world. Yet this evening a quick search on google and urban dictionary tells me that boofing actually means inserting drugs up ones backside for prolonged effect, or other such anal acts. The fact that it is also a term used in kayaking saved my google images search from being too explosive.

I think this will need a bit more investigation.

A guide to youth (and teacher) slang in East Sussex: Part Two

Today I taught in a school where several students I encountered were on daily report. Each student had three individualised targets for their report. I was bemused to find on several: Target 1: No tooting. Upon asking first encountered naughty child I was able to work out the following...

Tooting (verb) to talk back to one's teacher in a disrespectful way; to publically state that you are not going to follow teacher's instructions; to call out when teacher is trying to address whole class.

Picture partially relevant.

A guide to youth slang in West Sussex

Hench (adj) describing something as being strong, dominating, possibly derived from the longer and older word henchmen.

For example:

Freddy: "That's because the All Blacks are hench and our team is all two foot and weeny"
Jordan: "Do they have Pepsi Max in New Zealand miss?"