Young People’s Slang

Browsing Google Books, I came across a poem that I wanted to share with you.

Great.

This is from 1878 from a journal called the Elocutionist Journal.

And the poem is called The Age of Sling.

Now you can see why it attracted me.

Okay.

And I’m going to skip some of the verses, but it’s basically a complaint about kids today.

And the slang they use.

Kids today in 1871?

1878, yeah.

1878, okay.

Here’s some of the lines from it.

Age of Slang.

It wasn’t so when I was young.

We used plainer language then.

We didn’t speak of them galoots when meaning boys are men.

And when we saw a girl we liked who never failed to please,

We called her pretty, neat, and good, but not about the cheese.

Once, when a youth was turned away by her, he held most dear.

He walked upon his feet, but now he walks off on his ear.

It’s rather sad that children now are learning all such talk.

They’ve learned to chin instead of chat and waltz instead of walk.

Boy.

The complaints don’t really change.

The slang changes, but the complaints are exactly the same.

Yeah.

Some of that slang I don’t even know.

Yeah.

Now, with the cheese, though, we know about the big cheese, and this is related to that.

Okay, right, right, right.

Yeah, if you say something was the cheese, it’s the best thing ever.

Yeah.

Possibly from Hindi.

Right, right.

And then chinwag.

Chinwag we know.

To chin or to jaw or to jawbone.

Those are all kind of…

But walking off on your ear?

Well, it’s kind of like tossing somebody out on their ear, I think.

I think it’s related to that.

But it’s a little bit of a sling puzzle, right?

That’s right.

Kids those days.

Our great-grandparents.

We’ll post a link to the whole poem on our webpage.

If you’ve got something fun to share from 100 years ago,

Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Or email words@waywordradio.org.