Valley Girl Slang

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Abby calling from Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Abby. Welcome to the show. How can we help you?

What’s going on?

Well, I have this family phrase that we’ve used for many years, and it’s the phrase, I’m so sure.

And we use it in many different ways. Sometimes we’ll use it as a term of disbelief, of excitement, of disagreement, of exclamation.

We have a kind of an umbrella usage for it.

And I recently was talking with a friend of mine for whom English is their second language.

And I kept using the phrase, and he finally stopped me and said, you know, what does that sentence I’m so sure mean?

I don’t know how to translate that. That doesn’t really make sense.

And it got me thinking that’s sort of a phrase that’s indigenous to my family from what I’ve experienced.

And I wondered if maybe someone else also used it or if you knew where it came from or how we started saying it and maybe dissect it a little.

Yeah, we might be able to help you.

Tell me a few things. First, how many is many years?

For as long as I can remember, I’m 29. How old are your parents?

My parents are 61 and 66.

And it’s my mom’s side of the family. They haven’t been saying it their whole lives, probably just the last 20 years.

Oh, that’s good. Do you have older siblings?

I have one older sibling.

How much older? A couple years? Ten years?

She’s four years older. She’s 33.

Okay.

All right.

So here’s my theory.

Okay.

You weren’t born in an abbey, but I was, and so was Martha.

And we remember Valley Girls with Moon Unit Zappa doing this Valley Girl slang in the song in 1982, I think it was.

And she’s like, I’m so sure.

And I’m sure.

And it’s like a way of expressing this kind of doubt.

You’re saying exactly.

It’s sarcastic.

It’s sarcastic.

Yeah, I was going to say it.

The words are positive, but the intonation is negative.

And that was actually a thing for a while in the 80s where people were doing valley girl slaying and showed up in movies besides this song and was much talked about and actually probably more talked about it than it deserved at the time and still more talked about than it deserved.

But it was a faddish thing for a while to say I’m so sure or I’m sure.

Yeah, Abby, are you familiar with that song?

No, I’m not.

Oh, okay.

Oh, dig it out, it’s a treasure.

It’s a treasure.

So Moon Unit Zappa is the daughter of Frank Zappa, who was a musical genius.

And he noticed that his daughter, as I remember it, came home with this language.

They lived in, what is the valley outside of Los Angeles? Is this San Fernando Valley?

It might be.

He noticed that she was coming home with this particular language.

He made a song about it.

He’s got his daughter on the track doing some of the lingo.

And it was a phenomenon.

It was big.

It was huge.

And it caught on.

Even in the backwoods of Missouri where I lived at the time as a 12-year-old, we heard it.

We caught on to it too.

Yeah.

It’s really along the lines of some other things that we say when we want to express doubt in an emphatic way.

Do you remember Elaine from Seinfeld?

And she would push people on the chest and she’d go, get out of here when they said something.

She’s expressing excitement in a negative way.

We also say things like, no way, or you’ve got to be kidding me.

So all of these different ways we’re saying with words one thing but actually meaning another.

I’m so sure it perfectly fits that pattern.

Yes, yes, and we typically use it in a sarcastic way.

That’s the most used way we use it.

Do you do the Valley Girl intonation, though, Abby?

Do you go, I’m so sure?

No, not always.

Actually, we use it sort of in every way.

We even have sort of a hashtag when we’re on Facebook with one another.

Oh, really?

Yeah, we’ll do hashtag ISS or just ISS and I’ll count it.

Nice.

So that’s my theory.

There’s about 35 of us that use it regularly.

Oh, really?

Okay.

So that’s my theory, that you’re using a slang expression that caught on about 30-plus years ago.

And that sounds right.

I have older cousins who are in their 30s, and they might have been the ones to start it, and then it’s just trickled down.

Well, that’s why I was asking about ages, because they would probably actually need to be closer to my age, maybe a little younger.

So we would say late 30s, early 40s would be about right for somebody to really have been a teenager when this caught on and really probably picked that up as native slang.

Yeah, yeah. And if they’re older cousins, then you’re going to think they’re really cool.

And so you’re going to take on their slang.

Of course.

Yeah, I’m so sure.

So your 60-some-odd-year-old parents use this as well?

Yeah, they do.

My mom’s the middle of five kids, and all five of them use it.

And yeah, it’s really kind of a family saying.

So find that song. I think you can find it on YouTube, probably all over the Internet.

It’s still lots of fun, and it’s time capsule of an era, for sure.

For sure.

That’s great. You know what? I’ll play it over Thanksgiving.

And we can have a big party.

Thanks, Abby.

Thanks, Abby.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

What’s the expression that your family is known for?

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