# Teenspeak: unique to Americans **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 9, 2003, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436 "2003-01-09T03:02:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BornDodgy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@BornDodgy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BornDodgy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/21 "2003-01-09T15:53:46Z")
Teenage Austrians speak not quite German. ---
**Author:** ![axi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f08c70/32.png) [@axi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/axi)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/22 "2003-01-09T17:09:50Z")
Judging from the horrors of English and French teenspeak, I guess that teenage Greeks speak quite good Greek. We have slang words which come in ang go out of fashion, but we don;t go as far as to alter our accent. We tend to use the “malaka” word all the time though. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/23 "2003-01-09T17:30:08Z")
\>\> And my Mum was like,“Where are you going?” And I was like, “Out with Shaun.” And she was like, “Not while you’re living in my house”. And I was like, “That’s soooo unfair.” … etc Well, my Mum goes “Where are you going looking like that?”,. And I go “With Shaun.” And she goes “You look awful”. And I go “Whatever!” And she’s like _totally_ freaked out. The worst part is the “uptalk”: that intonation where every phrase rises in the end like it were a question. Ugh! ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/24 "2003-01-09T17:48:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sailor \* > **Well, my Mum goes “Where are you going looking like that?”,. > And I go “With Shaun.” > And she goes “You look awful”. > And I go “Whatever!” > And she’s like _totally_ freaked out.** That sounds very English. > [@](#): > > \*\*The worst part is the “uptalk”: that intonation where every phrase rises in the end like it were a question. Ugh! \*\* Just the other day I invented a new punctuation mark to indicate uptalk/? I presume you can guess what it is/? ---
**Author:** ![KenP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c0e974/32.png) [@KenP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KenP)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/25 "2003-01-09T19:33:49Z")
I agree with sailor that uptalking is extremely annoying. But to me the worst part is that words just disappear, and are replaced by facial expressions, hand gestures, and sounds. “She was like (facial expression).” This from a kid who scored 680 on the Englsih SAT in the 8th grade. ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/26 "2003-01-09T20:19:34Z")
Actually, there’s an entire dialect in Japan called “Osakaben” or “Kansai”, which is the version of Japanese spoken by natives of Osaka. I think the best description for it would be the Ebonics (sp?) of Japan, and it’s usually used (outside of Osaka) by, well… teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/27 "2003-01-09T20:25:13Z")
er… above was **High Priestess** ’s post… I forgot to log out. ^^ ---
**Author:** ![raygirvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@raygirvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raygirvan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/28 "2003-01-09T20:36:19Z")
_sailor_ Using “go” for “said” goes way back. I remember children using it when I was at school (southern England, early 1960s) and I’m sure it pre-dates that. ---
**Author:** ![wu\_wei](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6a8cbe/32.png) [@wu\_wei](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wu_wei)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/29 "2003-01-09T21:21:01Z")
It seems like you can trace the use of “go” for “vocalizes” back at least as far as the old children’s See 'n Say toy (“The cow goes… Moo!”), and presumably farther. The “like” thing seems, like, much more recent or whatever/? ---
**Author:** ![Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@Caesar\_s\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caesar_s_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/30 "2003-01-09T23:06:35Z")
I’m 16 years old, and go to a public high school…naturally, I hear a lot of valleyspeak and slang. Each little cult (that’s what the kids at my school call the various groups of jocks, goths, nerds, etc) has its own speak, although “like”, “so” and various other common words are universal. As for me, I use ‘like’ pretty often–it’s just a habit. I don’t use many of the other slang words, since some of them (“gay” to mean something bad, “retard”) I hate with a passion. However, it does make conversations with peer-strangers easy. Just act really shocked at everything, use like, and talk about superficial things. There ya go. As for the international thing, we have some exchange students over here who pick up on the slang almost scarily easily. Others never get it. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/31 "2003-01-09T23:18:15Z")
Although I do occasionally use “like” to mean “said”, my sister is far worse, and she has the added syndrome of adding “you know what I mean?” to every sentence. She might be talking about what she learned in Biology, and she’ll say something along the lines of: “So, like, the prof was showing us this thing about the cell, you-know-what-I-mean, and Ilke, he was explaining about how ATP is, like, made, and, like, he showed us this neat diagram, you-know-what-I-mean?” It gets really annoying, REALLY fast. My cousin does the same thing, but I see her less, so it doesn’t seem as bad! Makes me glad I don’t live at home anymore, though! ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/32 "2003-01-09T23:32:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Peanuthead \* > \*\*That “like” business is not confined to only teenagers. It seems as though everyone under the age of forty (and many beyond as well) are afflicted with the “like” syndrome. > Makes me want to commit murder! :mad: \*\* > [@](#): > > Judging from the horrors of English and French teenspeak… > [@](#): > > The worst part is the “uptalk”: that intonation where every phrase rises in the end like it were a question. Ugh! > [@](#): > > I agree with sailor that uptalking is extremely annoying. But to me the worst part is that words just disappear, and are replaced by facial expressions, hand gestures, and sounds. Which brings me to another question … WHY does teenage slang – which strikes me as a perfectly harmless phenomenon, for the most part – bother people so much? What exactly is offensive about it? (I’m honestly curious, by the way – not trying to be judgmental.) ---
**Author:** ![Kyomara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8edcca/32.png) [@Kyomara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyomara)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/33 "2003-01-10T00:40:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jjimm \* > \*\*I also noticed…the word “all” - thus “and I’m all like [mimed expression], and he’s all like [another mimed expression]”. \*\* To my knowledge, the use of “all” in this way is a West Coast phenomenon. You don’t hear it much on the East Coast. As an aside, on the West Coast they also “smoke out” instead of “smoking up,” which used to drive me crazy no end when I was into that. As far as “he’s like” and “she goes” being an English phenomenon, I know that both of these are very common in the U.S., and I seem to recall hearing Aussie and Kiwi frineds using it again. I have no idea where it started. Could it have cropped up simultaneously all over the English speaking world? Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe speaking like this is…_our destiny._ ---
**Author:** ![antechinus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@antechinus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antechinus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/34 "2003-01-10T01:16:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by grimpixie \* > \*\*I read an article recently about the habit in French teen-slang of reversing the order of the syllables of an ordinary word to make a slang word… this is known as _verlan_ - itself a “verlanised” version of the word _l’envers_ meaning “reverse”. > \*\* This reminds me of rechtub kelat, spoken by butchers over here. OK not quite kiddies, I know. _rechtub kelat noun a secret language used by butchers in which normal words are pronounced as they would be if spelled backwards. [rechtub kelat is `butcher talk’ in rechtub kelat]_ ref: [http://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/p/dictionary/slang-r.html](http://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/p/dictionary/slang-r.html) eg ecine stit 😃 ---
**Author:** ![raygirvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@raygirvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raygirvan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/35 "2003-01-10T02:09:18Z")
_Kyomara … the use of “all” in this way …_ Then again, that’s another one that goes way back. It’s quite common in UK slang to use “all” as an interjection, either to mean “some” or just for emphasis: e.g. “I went into their house and there were all cats in the kitchen and all dirt running down the fridge door”. I’m sorry to say I use it myself, and my wife ridicules it. “Ray, are you saying that _all cats_ - every cat that exists in the world - were in the kitchen? It must have been crowded.” ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/36 "2003-01-10T04:15:27Z")
I’ve always interpreted “like” to have a slightly different meaning than “said.” “Like” stresses the fact that what I am about to say is not verbatim what was actually said, but conveys the general information. Then again, I may be over-intellectualizing it and justifying it since I do use it myself quite alot, along with “go” and I’m not from anywhere near California nor am I a teenager anymore. ---
**Author:** ![mightyaphrodite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@mightyaphrodite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mightyaphrodite)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/37 "2003-01-10T04:23:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lamia \* > \*\*My Japanese friends tell me that there’s a “schoolgirl dialect” that seems to be the Japanese equivelant of “Valley Girl” speech. I don’t speak Japanese but I can tell that the “schoolgirl dialect” is higher-pitched and more sing-songy than standard Japanese, and my friends tell me the word selection and sentence formation also make it sound cutesy. \*\* I wonder if that’s the same sort of variation that you hear used by high school girls in anime. Most likely, I would assume. But it certainly matches the description you gave. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kyomara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8edcca/32.png) [@Kyomara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyomara)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/38 "2003-01-10T05:12:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mightyaphrodite \* > \*\*I wonder if that’s the same sort of variation that you hear used by high school girls in anime. Most likely, I would assume. But it certainly matches the description you gave. 🙂 \*\* [hijack] I can safely and quite happily assure you that no one in Japan, cute young female or otherwise, talks like the girls in anime. And I thank God every day on my knees for that. I often think that the same 5 people do all the voices for anime and dubbed movies in this country. Even the dubbed voices in Western movies don’t talk like real people. I don’t see the appeal. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![hammerbach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hammerbach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hammerbach)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/39 "2003-01-10T20:09:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fretful Porpentine \* > \*\*Which brings me to another question … WHY does teenage slang – which strikes me as a perfectly harmless phenomenon, for the most part – bother people so much? What exactly is offensive about it? (I’m honestly curious, by the way – not trying to be judgmental.) \*\* I can’t speak for anyone else in this, but in my case, it’s simply disgust at seeing something done in such a half-assed way. Most kids can do far better, but a fair number of them will never learn to speak properly. Given that our societies have certain expectations, this puts rather sever limitations upon those youngsters and thier futures. Having said all this, I have to admit to my own linguistic peculiarities and learn to be a tolerant and benign geriatric flatulent. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436/40 "2003-01-10T21:55:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hammerbach \* > **. . . it’s simply disgust at seeing something done in such a half-assed way** I have a different theory. Kids talk like that to create a sense of social belonging. It goes with the clothes, music, and hairstyles–which we also hate. It’s a way of asserting their independence from adult society, and creating their own cohesion. And the whole thing is repugnant to adults because the adults feel alienated and the kids seem arrogant because they don’t appreciate how dependent they still are. It’s the same thing that makes us resent the slang or jargon of _any_ group that makes us feel like an outsider. When you were a 'Net newbie, didn’t it piss you off that everyone was IMHO this and IIRC that and ROTFLMAO the other? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenspeak-unique-to-americans/147436.md?page=3)