Stage combat for bunheads would be a fantastic title for just about anything. I’m delighted to see another etymology geek here. I learn some great vocab from my incarcerated students (who never swear in front of me) and from my daughter, who teaches high school in a colorful district.
Oh I bet! I’ve been interested in online language these days too—particularly TikTok-speak, created to fool the algorithm (words like not-see, unalive, and SA).
What I find most fascinating about it is how words have been chosen to ensure a creator’s video won’t get censored. It happens in two ways: one is changing the word into one that’s unrecognizable by the ‘bot, like: unalive for dead or kill. The other way is to use a substitute word, with the real intended word being obvious, like using not-see to talk about a particular type of bigot. In that case, the algorithm sees those words in the transcription and doesn’t take it down, though the words spoken aloud have the same sound as the word intended. Grape is used in place of rape for this reason as well.
I’ve heard some crotchety olds complain that it’s a stupid form of slang, that ‘kids these days’ use, but I disagree—I find it compelling, to watch a real useful dialect, if not jargon, being created in front of us.
Stage combat for bunheads would be a fantastic title for just about anything. I’m delighted to see another etymology geek here. I learn some great vocab from my incarcerated students (who never swear in front of me) and from my daughter, who teaches high school in a colorful district.
Oh I bet! I’ve been interested in online language these days too—particularly TikTok-speak, created to fool the algorithm (words like not-see, unalive, and SA).
You’ll have to fill us in on TikTok speak. I know fuck all about it. (Something I can never say in class.)
What I find most fascinating about it is how words have been chosen to ensure a creator’s video won’t get censored. It happens in two ways: one is changing the word into one that’s unrecognizable by the ‘bot, like: unalive for dead or kill. The other way is to use a substitute word, with the real intended word being obvious, like using not-see to talk about a particular type of bigot. In that case, the algorithm sees those words in the transcription and doesn’t take it down, though the words spoken aloud have the same sound as the word intended. Grape is used in place of rape for this reason as well.
I’ve heard some crotchety olds complain that it’s a stupid form of slang, that ‘kids these days’ use, but I disagree—I find it compelling, to watch a real useful dialect, if not jargon, being created in front of us.
Amazing! Thank you. That’s brilliant.