Dad, you are wicked out of it
Frequent Guest Dad Joe Burris is back with an observation on trying to keep up with his kids' catch phrases. As he learned, perhaps not something you want to try at home.
Here's his post...
"We parents like to believe that as we keep up with our children's shoe sizes, taste preferences and favorite music that we're also staying hip to their latest jargon. Few things, in fact, make a parent seem more dated than conjuring up a term we thought was still in vogue, only to discover that it went out of style with last year's cell phone.
"Often I wonder whether kids frequently change their stylistic verbiage just to keep us parents guessing. Or so it seemed last week when my 11-year-old daughter Nyaniso and I were listening to a radio commercial that said kids use the word "wicked" instead of "very" or "extremely."
I had heard the word used for a while by kids my daughter's age, but never fully understood its meaning. But the commercial apparently changed that. I envisioned using the word in conversations with Nyaniso and sounding, well, wicked cool.
"You did wicked great on that vocabulary exam."
"Want to go to Cold Stone for some ice cream? Their cookie dough flavor is wicked tasty."
"Clean up your room, Sweetie; it's wicked dirty."
Just then, my daughter scoffed at the ad. "Who uses wicked anymore?" she exclaimed.
Oh well. I guess it was a wicked old commercial.
Comments
It's kind of ironic because when I was a kid in the 1980s, we used this modifier a wicked lot.
I grew up in Massachusetts and always associate the use of "wicked" with the Boston vernacular.
Posted by: jon | August 5, 2008 9:29 AM
I was going to say the same thing...isn't "wicked" something people in Boston say?
Besides, I think the current word is "sick" but maybe I'm not spelling it right. As in, "Dude, that Mustang is sick!"
Posted by: Kayris | August 5, 2008 9:42 AM
I grew up in upstate New York and "wicked" was part of our vernacular. We would often say "it was wicked cold outside", or "that price is wicked high", it wasn't until I moved west and people caught me saying wicked until I realized that no one else used this term. Whenever people hear me use this (I try not to, but slip once in awhile) they always say, "Oh you must be from Boston"? I think it is also more of a northeast thing. I am not from Boston (as evidenced by my NY Yankees bumper sticker).
Posted by: Hooligan | December 5, 2008 11:42 AM