Preferably from people attending high school in the US. Do you say I have Mr. Greene second hour, or second period? Do your teachers give lectures? Do you refer to the hallways as hallways or walkways? What do you call the lunch area? (Not the cafeteria if you have one, but the outside area where you eat lunch.) Such as courtyard, food court, or something else. Also I have questions about slang. Are the following still used. Cool and man: "That's cool man." Awesome: "You're car is awesome." -- "Hey, we're going dancing tonight," Jim said. "Awesome," Bob said. Totally: "Do you like my dress," Jill asked. "Totally," said Britney. -- "I am totally going out tonight." -- "You going to the party tonight?" asked Jack. "Totally," said Bob. So: "I am so breaking up with Jack." -- "That's so cool." Dude: "Dude, let's go." -- "Whatever, Dude." Lame: "That's so lame." -- "Stop acting lame." Get out: "I asked John out," Jill said. "Get out!" Britney said. Girl: "Hey, girl, what's up?" If you can share more slang you use that would be great. Also if you can think of anything else to share about high school that might be different than when I went. I am 30 years old. I am pretty sure all the slang words I posted are still used in the ways I demonstrated, but I want to be sure.
Period is the most widely used term that I know of. Depends on the teacher and the class. Science and history/civics courses tend more strongly towards discussions; math usually has a lecture/explanation/practice setup, and English/Language Arts often has a strong lecture component. A walkway is something that goes overhead. They're halls, generally; not even "hallway." Yes, one of those. Most schools don't have such a thing, though; only in well-to-do areas, for the most part. Yes, although "man" not so much. "Sweet" is moderately popular. Yeah, still used; again, not quite as much, but definitely present and not out of place. Depends on the part of the country and the speaker. Males rarely use "totally." Yes, but again, it tends to be more a teen girl than a teen guy thing. Ehhh, it's definitely getting dated, but it won't sound completely weird. It's not "cat" or "square" or "groovy." Sadly, "lame" has mostly been replaced by "gay" with the same meaning. Mmmmmmno. This would be most likely used by someone trying to sound "gangsta." If the user is not African-American and urban, the effect is often somewhat mixed. See also: "phat", "daaaayum", and "G". Try watching some modern television aimed at teenaged Americans. And reading forums they frequent. That's your best bet at seeing both what they're being fed and what they're actually using.
Thanks guys. Yeah I used "that's sick" right after high school, so it has been popular for some time. I am trying to use slang that I think will still be popular years to come as to not date my work. I thought of another one. Nice: "Check my new car," Todd said. "Nice," Jack said. Actually that brings up another. "Check my new car," rather than, "check out my new car." I have been talking to a lot of teens lately, and visiting forums and voice chat where they hang out. Recently I came across the phrase "set to rights" and I found it odd. I never heard it before. But I have seen it in, Club Dead, and a webook called God and the Other, which is a great read. I must admit I have pretty much lived in a cave for the last seven years. Is set to rights a popular phrase used today?
It's been a two years but I see my sister at her school often enough, and honestly as far as speech patterns go high school and college isn't that different. Never heard anyone say hour. It's always been period. Yes but I only had a few really up tight teachers who call it a lecture. Hallways. It'll depend. One of my schools had a courtyard, but other than that if we ate outside, we just said "outside." There wasn't always a convenient word for the open air areas to eat. Also I have questions about slang. Are the following still used. Yes. Also common is "Sweet." Awesomes becoming less common. Apparently it's a word teens seem to be tired of hearing. I haven't heard totally in a long time (Except from me). I've only heard so used like this from very preppy girls. It's still common but I think people use names or "man" more than dude. That's good. EDIT: Scatters is right though. I hear people say "that's so gay" a lot more now than lame. I've heard girls say get out. Boys tend to say either "no way" or "really?" I've heard this one a few times. Not everyone uses it. EDIT: YOu might want to consider the group of character you'll apply slang too. Depending on the "clique" they are likely to ascribe to different sub-cultures and will likely use different slang or the same slang in different ways (Skaters, Punk, Emo, hard core Gamers, and Hip Hop are sub-cultures are especially true for this).
slang: sweet, dork, pwned (or pawned or powned) One thing, though, and maybe it's just me, but I hate reading books with lots of current slang in them when they're written by an adult. It just comes off as really artificial and maybe even patronizing. JMO.
I've never really known anyone to call it a lecture in high school. You can use all those terms that you mentioned, but toned down, especially is you're not 100% confident about all of them and you want it to be as timeless as possible. Where we ate inside was called the cafeteria. In Ontario, we tend to call it the "caf" and I see no reason why Americans wouldn't either. And like lordofhats, we just called the outdoor area where we ate "outside," not that there was much space to begin with unless we wanted to sit on the football field.
It's funny that every one says "second period" it's always been "second hour" for me. And I have a word to add! Beast. "He's pretty beast." "Whoa! That was so beast!" I have no idea why me and my friends say it. But we do.
Where is it at? Terms can vary from different parts of the country. For example: In the West we have "Freeways." In the East, they are "Expressways." Hall or hallway can just as easily be called corridors. I think any would be understood. It's been a few "cough" decades since I went to high school, but I remember using the word period instead of hour. As for slang??? Good luck.
Do you say I have Mr. Greene second hour, or second period? We use block at my school Do your teachers give lectures? Some do. I guess its acceptable. Do you refer to the hallways as hallways or walkways? Just halls. What do you call the lunch area? (Not the cafeteria if you have one, but the outside area where you eat lunch.) Such as courtyard, food court, or something else. We just call them commons.
I'll try not to reiterate what has already been said, but rather supplement it: Regarding periods, lectures, hallways and courtyards: From my own experience this usually differs from school to school. Period, block, hallway, food court and courtyard are all safe bets. However, with respect to lecture. I've never really heard anyone refer to it as lecture. Usually 'class' is just used, sometimes discussion. Regarding slang: Awesome/Sweet/Tight all interchangeable Get out: I would actually call this out-dated. A typical response these days by most high schoolers would be "Shut up!" (i.e. 'Mean Girls') As far as slang goes. I think it would be a good idea to watch some recent high school movies to get a good feel for the slang. It would definitely depend on what kind of high school crowd you are going for in your characters. "Mean Girls" would be a really good one to watch, also "Juno", "Superbad", "Prom Night", etc...
I can only provide answers based on the experience of my recently graduated daughters. (...and I thank God they graduated!) My older kids grew up in an affluent area and I did not like the narrow view of the world provided by their high schools, so I moved our family into an ethnically mixed, middle class neighborhood where they met people from all walks of life. I particularly noticed the difference in slang expressions between the two very different environments. So, the answers to your questions above would have a great deal to do with the socio-economic area where the high school was located. This is especially true with locations that are dense in one ethnicity or another. Hispanic barrios - slang from Spanish speaking community is prevalent. Ghettos - everyone has heard of "Ebonics" and of course gang culture influences slang in every low income neighborhood. Low-income white regions, like Appalachian mountain schools, have their own "language", as do inner city slums and immigrant communities like those of the recent Russian transplants. Point is, from the wealthy San Fernando "Valley girls" to low income gang bangers, slang in high school will vary widely, as a function of the local socio-economic conditions.
I'm so glad I'm not American. "Totally" *does stupid girly pointless accent of a ditsy blonde bimbo cheerleader* hahaha. Thats never said here. Nether is "SO" with emphisis on it. Or "Get Out!" Actually, I doubt that one was ever used here!
"Shut Up" isn't used here either. Its such a crappy excuse for slang and again makes you look like a thick plastic. Oh! Plactic: slang for Ned/Chav/ any girl who cares more about her make-up and sex than anythign else. A slag basically.
I'm homeschooled so I get this stuff second hand, but instead of lame, people use... stupid dumb retarded gay Even though I think it's wrong and insulting, I keep saying gay... it's the most common right now I think. But since you want something that won't date as easily, you may not want to use gay, because sometime in the future it won't be "bad" to be gay I'm sure. It's already starting to happen, obviously. Also, I'm sure you probably don't want to offend anyone... so you should probably stay away from it. How about "wicked" instead of awesome? I think the general trend now is to use negative words for positive things, such as sick and wicked. I can't think of more examples, but I'm sure there's more.
I don't use "shut up" either. Instead it's "Are you freaking joking?" Syn. for lame: queer. Sick and wicked aren't used at all. It's more, "That's pretty sweet." "Dude" is used for the first word in every sentence by everyone. And no sentence is complete without swearing in it first. About lectures, only extremely good schools have lectures (that you have to take notes on). Other than that, teachers will occasionally talk for an entire hour. Or they will give you notes, whether you copy them down from the board/overhead/smart board, or they are fill-in-the-blanks.
Oh I totally agree with the swearing. I was exposed to cuss words early in life, and have rarely constructed a sentence without one since. It does nothing for my professionalism, but it really is habit. Bad habit, but there you are. Any how, slang. It's completely up to where you live. Slang differs from culture to culture, city to city, state to state, so on and so forth. If the kids in your area are using 'totally' and 'dude' then use 'totally' and 'dude'. Just don't base your slang off movies; they're usually so dramatized that they're not even true to their genre. Not too helpful, but I hope it helped all the same, El
Irish people don't even use nouns any more. It's more like "Here, give us that ****ing yoke... *point*" Or adjectives "He's a bit bastardy alright." "Bastard how?" "Y'know, a ****-stirring bastard." "What?" "He's good with words." "Ohhh." Or verbs "Man, quit ****ing doing that." "Doing what?" "****ing around." "As in?" "Procrastinating." "Ohhh." In fact, just about every word is interchangeable with 'f-u-c-k'. You're jsut expected to know what people are talking about based on tone of voice, context and body language...
We have courtyards, front area (the name of that varies from person to person and often involves some stuttering), and some stores we go to, with names that are often abbreviated. (Dairy Mart = D-Mart, ect.) Like other people have said, there are hallways and periods. Hallways can also be halls. One more slang I'd offer is "Chill," meaning pretty much the same thing as cool. It could be regional, though, since I haven't heard many other people say it outside of my town. And I don't think that's one of those slangs that will last forever that you wanted
I have always refered to my classes as periods. Period 1, period 2, etc. just seem to come naturally. Many of my teachers will lecture, and refer to it as such (usually jokingly); kids, however, rarely call it a lecture. If your story takes place on the east coast, use the word "like". It is almost impossible for a high schooler to go without using the world "like" incorrectly. My friends tried, and speaking became very difficult for them. You'll also find that in higher level classes such as honors or AP, cursing is greatly diminished. Many of my friends and myself have never cursed before. It still happens, but less frequently.
We use "chill" as "stop freaking out" *Friend gets pissed at you and you really want them to shut up* "Dude, chill."
Me personally: Bro, brah, broski, brahski, etc all referring to friend. Dude, dudeman, guy, etc all referring to a person. Chill the *insert curse here* out, as seen. Chill=cool. IE: "Yo, Joey is really chill, dude." If your story has guy characters, I can offer more insight as to what in the world we actually talk about.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned "freaking" yet. "That's freaking awesome!" "You've got to be freaking kidding me!" Of course, the terms differ widely between cliques. Ex. The skaters/potheads/goths wouldn't use the word "like" all the time. And a preppy cheerleader probably wouldn't say "dude" very often. and as for "get out!" I'd use something more like "no way!" or "oh. my. god." or "no ****?" depending on the situation.
You also can't disregard the random things groups might say amongst themselves, like weirdy me who says, "what the fuhill cherrio are you talking about?" because I shouldn't be cussing less my other give me an earful oh, and common slang that I didn't see: naw man (no) hecka/hella (lots) hecka/hella gay (really stupid, lame) "what's up your (guess what goes here)" (you're being uptight or "a wetblanket") random allusions to Kat Williams and popular stand-up comedians like "You ain't goin' nowhere" he's sweet or she's butch (gay) Amazona (tall chick) that chick (nice way to say that girl you reallly don't like) "Ah! I hate you!" (I can't believe you got what I wanted) Skankbag (but only if they watch a show called iCarly which can provide you other popular tween slang) "talking" (means they're flirting and not with the intention of a relationship or may be disussing a relationship) wifey (from a girl about a girl it means best friend, from a boy about a girl it means a girl he doesn't want to see woth another guy and that he's either dating or "talking" to) {I abhor this phrase!!!:mad}nigga (spelled that way very specifically means friend, has almost replaced "brotha" of the nineties) "roids takin' mutha" some big guy that's annoying whoever is talking ....I have more, or I will after I get home from school on Monday Hoped this bit was helpful Edit: "walking around like your (hrm) don't stink" (acting holier than thou) reffering to a group by a common name (I know a group "The Joes" and a group "The Megans" eventhough each group has ppl with other names than those) you might occasionally hear "wigger" "Oreo" and "Uh-oh Oreo" (the former means "black person acting white" and the latter is the other way around) "acting white" (dumb as it seems, it means you're black and annunciate your words and talk as if you've been taught higher level vocabulary) "acting black" (also stupid, you're white and say things like "yo," and "mova" (mother), it's clear that hip-hop and "black culture" have been present in your upbringing) "busting my balls" (getting on somebodys back about something) "ballbuster" ( a girl who not only doens't allow a boy to tell her what to do, she tells him what to do) "whipped" (refers to another phrase which has "whipped" preceded by something only females can have and means that a guy wants it so much that he does exactly what his girlfriend says- guys afflicted by this are usually dating ballbusters) "emo" (any guy that has long hair and multi-color bangs and wears tight clothing that comes from the girl's section, not to be confused with a Drag Queeen or any of its facets- this also refers to listeners of "emo music" which is defined genre offshoot of Gothic) "babbymother/momma" babbydaddy" (both are self-explanatory) "Pimpin'" (cool) "make it rain" (spending lots of money) "stoke rides" (any driving done while high)
