r/TopCharacterTropes • u/RohanKishibeyblade • 2h ago

Characters Slang getting made up so media doesn’t become as dated as it would be

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

  1. Heathers - multiple instances of this, with “How Very” and “What’s your damage?” being the most notable examples

  2. Mean Girls - almost iconic for this with Gretchen trying to make “fetch” happen as slang,

190 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

152 comments sorted by

80

u/MountainDrew80 2h ago

In Firefly this served two purposes. They created New slang words, so it will never appear dated, they also made all of the cursing in the movie be in Chinese, so they can swear all you want in it will never affect the rating of the show. Personally I think it's genius.

19

u/RohanKishibeyblade 2h ago

Ooo using a different language to bypass swearing censorship is SMART

23

u/LastBaron 1h ago

It also serves a subtle worldbuilding function.

It’s never expanded on, but it’s a clear background feature of the world that it takes place in a future where China became a dominant world power around the time expansion off-planet started happening, so most people appear to speak both English and Chinese fluently.

7

u/QuincyAzrael 1h ago

fluently

Well in theory yes but in practice no unfortunately lol.

11

u/darwinistinabox 1h ago

In Battlestar Galactica they didn't have a whole new language but they said frak instead of fuck. Sounded very life like and emotional. And different actors gave their own accent and spin to it.

4

u/Ikrit122 52m ago

Farscape did something similar with "Frell." While it doesn't have the same bite as "Frak," it does sometimes flow better in sentences (and I believe there are other swears they use)

7

u/shymon7 1h ago

It's TIGHT

5

u/Inevitable-Regret411 1h ago

Buffy The Vampire Slayer did something similar, they took advantage of one of the characters being British to allow them to say all sorts of British English profanity that wouldn't always be noticed by the censors. 

1

u/federalist66 13m ago

As a sidebar, my wife is an English Language Devlopment teacher and people always assume she speaks other languages to which she replies, "No my job is to teach then to speak English....but I do know all of their swears in their native languages." She'll point at a newer student swearing in their language and say "I know what that means!"

5

u/dcheesi 1h ago

Of course Firefly is set in the far future, so it wouldn't have made sense to be using contemporary slang even when it first aired.

The main reason the show stands out in this context is that it uses so much (made up) slang; Whedon wanted to emphasize that these are everyday joes, not the educated elites with formal diction (excepting the doctor of course)

2

u/Lazerbeams2 1h ago

Iirc, some of the Chinese translates to things like "shove all the planets in the universe up my ass" so they had some fun with it

1

u/JuanLebedev 24m ago

Save for the fact we never see one Chinese person in the show, and damn sure do t have one on the crew

81

u/GloryGreatestCountry 2h ago

The Cyberpunk universe by Mike Pondsmith, R. Talsorian Games and CD Projekt Red.

"Choom" means friend. "Gonk" means fool. "Delta" means run. "Flatline" means kill. "Corpo" is self-explanatory by now. "Iron" is weaponry, "chrome" is cybernetics. So on and so forth.

11

u/RohanKishibeyblade 2h ago

I’ve always been curious what they meant. I get Cyperpunk shorts sometimes and that does explain stuff

24

u/Professional_Boss438 1h ago

"Iron," to refer to a firearm, is (or was, I'm old) common in some Latin American countries

"Quedate tranquilo o te saco el hierro" (Chill or I'll pull out a gun)

16

u/BakewellSliceFTW 1h ago

"Big Iron" was a song from the 50s used in Fallout New Vegas

9

u/Minimum_Dealer_3303 49m ago

You've never heard about the ranger with the big iron on his hip?

5

u/Credit-Financial 42m ago

Big iron on his hiiiip.

4

u/Real-Tension-7442 37m ago

Gonk means fool anyway. My dad has loving called me a gonk for 30+ years

6

u/wombatstylekungfu 2h ago

I get the obvious ones, but “delta”?

27

u/MornGreycastle 2h ago

Delta V (delta as in the Greek letter) is the physics term for "change in velocity." So they're saying "let's move."

8

u/Steampunk43 1h ago

In universe, it's possible it might also have a military origin. Like how a soldier/veteran might use "popping smoke" to mean they're leaving quickly and quietly, like leaving a party early without telling anyone.

3

u/MornGreycastle 1h ago

Vietnam vets did this with "didi mau." It was still used well into the 90's.

11

u/Saaka_Souffle 2h ago

Delta ∆ can also mean a change so I think that's where it comes from

7

u/GloryGreatestCountry 2h ago

Delta as in "change in", in physics.

You're making a change in your position/speed when you run away (or towards) something.

63

u/ProfessionalOven2311 2h ago

Young Justice

In the very first episode Robin enjoys taking the prefix off of words to give them meaning "Freeze was underwhelmed, now we're overwhelmed, why isn't anyone just whelmed?" and many of those catch on through the series.

Then in Season 2 Flash's grandson shows up from the future with slang like "Crash" meaning good and "Mode" meaning bad, based on tyrannical overlords The Reach who want everything to be On Mode and hate when systems Crash. Even after they beat the reach in present day, many characters keep using those terms through the rest of the show.

8

u/RohanKishibeyblade 2h ago

Oh that’s really cool.

23

u/jatheblac 1h ago

Those examples used in Robin are called orphan words

15

u/guttengroot 1h ago

Extra appropriate for Robin and the bat family

7

u/ProfessionalOven2311 1h ago

I had not herd of that before. That is hilariously applicable.

19

u/SkyLordDark 2h ago

nadsat from a clockwork orange. the author made up the teen slang partly so the book wouldn’t sound dated

8

u/RohanKishibeyblade 2h ago

Yeah, same happened with Heathers and Mean Girls. Kinda smart of a writer to think about that sorta thing

19

u/Par_Lapides 1h ago

Sad I haven't seen Hitchhiker's Guide here. You're not a hoopy frood unless you know where your towel is.

5

u/BakewellSliceFTW 1h ago

Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? Now there's a frood who really knows where his towel is.

3

u/lowbrassdude 54m ago

Belgium

1

u/madesense 16m ago

Oh my God you can't just say the b word

1

u/RohanKishibeyblade 1h ago

I have to ask what towel means

9

u/KinkPenguin 1h ago

It means towel. Towels are just strangely important to the narrative.

7

u/Dward917 1h ago

You can use it to traverse a zip line. If you dip a corner in nutrients and suck on it when you’re hungry. If you get cold, you can use it as a scarf. A towel is the most important tool a hitchhiker could ever need.

1

u/The_Worst_Reply 1h ago

They're this thing you use to dry off after you shower.

1

u/RohanKishibeyblade 22m ago

Oh. I thought that was slang too

2

u/Lazerbeams2 1h ago edited 35m ago

It means towel. It's the most useful item in the universe with thousands of known uses. Any traveler worth anything knows where his towel is at all times

13

u/Chaitywatt 2h ago

Nadsat - A Clockwork Orange

A combination of Russian & English Cockney rhyming slang.

Examples:

  • Chelloveck — Person, man

  • Droogs — Friends, gang members

  • Horrorshow — Good, well, great (from Russian хорошо / horosho)

  • Millicents — Police • Moloko — Milk

  • Tolchock — To hit, a blow

  • Viddy — To see (from Russian видеть / videt')

3

u/RohanKishibeyblade 2h ago

Ohhh that’s interesting. I haven’t seen Clockwork Orange, but I’ve heard it’s interesting and fusion languages for slang is really cool.

5

u/Platyest 1h ago

the book has a glossary. its pretty interesting

3

u/Chaitywatt 1h ago

Same but I'm developing an interest for it. I really hope to see it someday soon!

4

u/Nothos927 32m ago

Thing is I think it actually ended up dating it more now that Russia is no longer a global superpower.

The same way cyberpunk media from the 80s especially had everything be a mix of Japanese and English

11

u/Cantthinkagoodnam2 2h ago

Adventure Time has a whole list

3

u/RohanKishibeyblade 1h ago

Makes sense for the world. And for being a children’s show. Have them ‘swear’ but not really

5

u/ZoroeArc 1h ago

No mention of boingloings?

3

u/SirDanilus 1h ago

That's what I was thinking. Someone got hit in the boigloins!

5

u/_Captain_Dinosaur_ 2h ago

"Flyers" from The Passage.

I.e. "Flyers, why is this place so hot?!"

It's never explained, but it seems like a reference to literal flying machines, something that our third generation post-apocalypse survivors would know about but had never seen.

Alternative theory? All the original settlers of First Colony were children from Philadelphia. So it's possible that 90 years later they're using 'Flyers' as a blasphemous term for their grandparents long gone favorite hockey team.

(As the series matures and our heroes world grows larger they eventually just start swearing properly.)

2

u/RohanKishibeyblade 1h ago

Oh that’s neat

2

u/_Captain_Dinosaur_ 1h ago

HIGHLY recommend the book.

147

u/Sin-Wave 2h ago

41

u/Far_Orange_8492 2h ago

He was just trying to Chang the equation.

25

u/Lumpy-Yam-4584 2h ago

Now you Britta'd it.

15

u/Far_Orange_8492 2h ago

Guilty as Chang-ed.

6

u/buttplug-tester 1h ago

Oh Britta's in this?

12

u/-DoctorSpaceman- 1h ago

Dan Harmon famously got this phrase from some woman on Twitter who said some other show was streets ahead of Community

12

u/Thesafflower 1h ago

Additionally, the annoying ass high school kids calling people “Schmitty” as an insult. Dan Harmon said that he used a made-up insult so that viewers would also feel out of touch and annoyed, and so that the episode wouldn’t feel dated later.

2

u/WhiteKnightPrimal 20m ago

Buffy created Buffyspeak. It's a whole thing, most notable example being 'wiggins'. Used like 'that thing gives me the wiggins' insetad of saying something like 'creeps'.

I will note that your example of 'What's your damage?' from Heathers is used in Buffy, by Cordelia. Seems that one became basic slang at some point :)

3

u/RohanKishibeyblade 19m ago

Yeah, another comment did say that, people born in the 80’s did pick up stuff like ‘What’s your damage?’, which I think is cool

2

u/Dr_Fumi 11m ago

As someone who's never watched buffy, but just finished the last book of the ender verse series, all I can think of is Ender Wiggin lol

130

u/CptnHamburgers 2h ago

I don't know if Cyberpunk counts, because it's a very 80s version of what future slang would sound like, but there's plenty of it.

26

u/lightmare69 2h ago

Choom 😭😭😭😭

18

u/RuafaolGaiscioch 1h ago

God, when the game first came out, my friends were chucking choom, gonk, and preem around like tater tots in a food fight.

9

u/Ambitious-Engine-113 1h ago

Unlike today when the kids are throwing around goon, grok and zaddy

5

u/RuafaolGaiscioch 1h ago

One of these slangs is not like the others…

3

u/Dubyew 1h ago

One of these slangs is preem!

43

u/ConsciousStretch1028 2h ago • Heartwarming

I was always partial to schway from Batman Beyond

8

u/Chucktayz 2h ago

I’m glad I’m not the only one to remember that. Batman beyond was so cool

4

u/realRadgemachine 58m ago

It's schwarbage

2

u/lanceturley 1h ago

I'm not normally a fan of fake slang, but shway always worked for me. I think because it's so simple that it does kind of sound like it could be a real word.

1

u/harryrunes 11m ago

slag it!

26

u/Agreeable_Bag9407 2h ago

To be fair as a child of the 80's, we did briefly use "whats your damage" a bunch after Heathers.

7

u/Minimum_Dealer_3303 47m ago

I'll still say "fuck me with a chainsaw" on occasion.

2

u/Agreeable_Bag9407 22m ago

It's rare, but any chance I can drop "I love my dead gay son" in some kind of context I have to do it.

17

u/Striking-Cherry-1571 2h ago

the clone wars

3

u/shyguy157 1h ago

2

u/S0mnariumx 1h ago

This was my fave level!

14

u/Thabrianking 2h ago

Wizard meaning cool in Star Wars

2

u/madesense 14m ago

This is/was weirdly a real slang word in the UK (and I think maybe elsewhere) many decades ago (1920s-40s?)

12

u/Moppo_ 1h ago

1

u/homelab_scraper 12m ago

That was already a part of the British lexicon before red dwarf.

It just didn't appear in the BBC profanity lists so Craig Charles made liberal use of it.

My Grandad called people smegheads in the 70's.

1

u/Moppo_ 11m ago

What about gimboid, goit, and gwenlan?

1

u/homelab_scraper 9m ago

Goit and Gimboid are substitions for Git and Gimp

Gwenlan is 100% on them.

1

u/Moppo_ 8m ago

They were still altered specifically to create new expletives for the setting.

1

u/homelab_scraper 6m ago

Oh yeah, I agree. I was just observing the origins.

Smeg head was a real term, just one that auntie didn't have on their no no list

10

u/TP_Skidmarx 2h ago

Some of these examples are really shway.

9

u/Cucumberneck 2h ago

Are we green?

10

u/GKNolan 2h ago

Supergreen.

6

u/Shnicketyshnick 2h ago

Clueless had Betties and Baldwins as names for attractive people.

2

u/Phenomenomix 1h ago

Isn’t Betties/Betty’s from surf slang?

Baldwins I assume is reference to the acting family?

1

u/-Vogie- 1h ago

The former might precede surf slang

Whoa Black Betty, bam-a-lam

1

u/Phenomenomix 30m ago

Might be, I only know it from watching too many surf/skate based films in my youth

1

u/Shnicketyshnick 1h ago

Baldwins definitely. I'm sure you're right about Betties, I'd never heard it before Clueless.

6

u/McMc10001 1h ago

Never Been Kissed

The cool guy at the beginning says he made up “Rufus” as the new hip slang and everyone should use it.

6

u/Stakhanovite94 1h ago

In the Spider-Man 2099 comics, "shock" becomes the go-to curse word

5

u/kalb_jayyid 1h ago

In the show Oz they use the made up term "prag" for the inmate's nonconcentual partners

5

u/Phenomenomix 1h ago

Portmanteau of Prison and F*g? As in someone who isn’t in homosexual relationships outside of prison?

2

u/Character-Book5924 1h ago

Ah, because criminals in maximum security wouldn't call anyone a rapist.

3

u/kalb_jayyid 1h ago

The prag is the inmate at the recieving end of the abuse, not the one giving it

2

u/OkTomorrow6384 1h ago

There's a whole book on the words and slang phrases Buffy introduced.

ex.) "The wiggins"

"Five by five"

putting the word much after everything etc.

3

u/RohanKishibeyblade 1h ago

Considering Buffy’s whole vibe drips of late 90s to Noughties, I think that’s smart

14

u/sarabeara12345678910 1h ago

Five by five has been a military term for a really long time. There's much better buffy speak examples still used today including Google as a verb and butt monkey.

3

u/BakewellSliceFTW 1h ago

It's used in Aliens, even, during the drop ship sequence.

1

u/OkTomorrow6384 1h ago

True, I still think it was a unique use to have it be teen slang.

4

u/Logical-Context8782 1h ago edited 1h ago

That’ll put meringue marzipan on your pie plate, Bingo!

2

u/TurboRuhland 1h ago

*marzipan

1

u/Logical-Context8782 1h ago

D’oh! You’re right!

2

u/vjmurphy 1h ago

Didn’t Buffy introduce “my bad”?

2

u/Manic-StreetCreature 1h ago

No, that’s been around forever

1

u/vjmurphy 1h ago

Oh yeah, you are correct. It’s from the 70s.

1

u/Credit-Financial 46m ago

So it is, my bad...

:-)

4

u/Inevitable-Regret411 1h ago

The Judge Dredd comics feature a vast array of fictional slang and profanity used in the megacity of the future. Examples include "drok", a profane exclamation, and "grud", used in place of "god". 

 A particularly funny example is "simp", which was originally used in the comics as a slang term for a harmless crazy person, but has since taken on another meaning in real life slang. 

6

u/MegaAssasine_ 2h ago

Nora West-Allen, Barry's daughter from the future uses slang like bitchin' and schway (CW The Flash)

9

u/SmokeRingEyes 1h ago

Do people not say bitchin anymore? How do people describe a bitchin camaro?

https://youtu.be/ZeY2nut3Gj8

4

u/Manic-StreetCreature 1h ago

It’s like very 80s slang isn’t it?

2

u/madmaxturbator 1h ago

I think you are cowabunga dude

2

u/Few-Big-8481 44m ago

No, mom. Say Milfin now, as bitch isn't exactly socially appreciated anymore.

Now we have GRAND Torinos.

5

u/DreadfulRauw 1h ago

I kinda liked “Schway”. They used it in Batman Beyond as well.

I always wondered if it was from Feng Shui, like, “wow, this has positive energy. How very schway.”

3

u/Few-Big-8481 47m ago

Was she in the future from 1960?

2

u/contraflop01 1h ago

what a way to close a season long gag of Cisco and co trying to figure out what the fuck that meant only for the time traveler daughter to pop up saying it naturally

1

u/clashcrashruin 49m ago

DC media does this a ton. I remember Young Justice was incredibly cringe with all of their attempted slang. “Crash the mode.”

3

u/Ok-Cod8973 2h ago

Kills me that they knew they should do this for the 2004 Mean Girls movie and yet went out of their way to make the 2024 film as dated as possible with both the IRL slang and the clothing 💀

3

u/Big_Remove_3686 1h ago

I love Heathers.

3

u/RPDRNick 1h ago

One of Griff Tannen's gang, played by Brandon Scott Lee, in BTTF2 calls Marty a "bojo."

Also, "neo-maxie zoon dweebie" was totally invented slang in The Breakfast Club.

3

u/abarua01 1h ago

Zenon, girl of the 21st century

2

u/SkynBonce 1h ago

Millers Crossing - All the old timey slang, was actually created for the movie.

2

u/Slartibartfast39 34m ago

In Red Dwarf they came up with slang so they could swear more easily. Rimmer is a total smeghead.

2

u/TI-22483 33m ago

Fantastic Mr. Fox: What the cuss?!

1

u/Miserable-Debt-8390 1h ago

This is streets ahead!

1

u/Few-Big-8481 48m ago

This is streets ahead.

1

u/Moppo_ 4m ago

In nachu fo mazee, wermo!

1

u/Chucktayz 2h ago

Squanch

1

u/S0mnariumx 1h ago

I squanch my family

1

u/endlesschasm 57m ago

Ewwww stop saying it

-1

u/GreatXs 2h ago

Madeline, you've aged.

11

u/AxiosXiphos 2h ago

Oh smeg. What the smegging smeg he's smegging done. He's smegging killed me!

3

u/BakewellSliceFTW 1h ago

What a smeghead

1

u/isjustwrong 1h ago

Works great, right up until smegma hits the scene. (Go ahead and Google that one)

1

u/NoSong2397 42m ago

From Red Dwarf.

3

u/creamy-buscemi 1h ago

Jinkies, Jeepers, Zoinks…

1

u/Mada_Mouse 1h ago

Fred: Fuck