Top 40 Slang Quotes

Slang has different functions: many of the words we use are playful and a lot are tribal – we speak the same way as the groups we are part of. A great deal are also euphemistic, so it’s no surprise that a third of us are perplexed by their meanings and origins.

I like to add props to render the specificities of place – paintings, food, clothing, signs, infrastructure, music, sayings and slang particular to the region and particular to the character. And props shouldn’t just sit there; they should get used.

You don’t usually get a compound word where the first part is a slang thing and the second part is a rather ordinary or formal thing – they don’t usually mix – but ‘gobsmacked’ is a perfect exception to that rule.

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.

I’m really fascinated by lingos and colloquialisms that are outmoded and have gone by the wayside. I love the way people spoke in the ’30s, and the amazing slang of the mid-’60s and ’70s.

I went to see Gerard Philipe and Jean Gabin in pictures. Gerard Philipe spoke beautiful French, while Jean Gabin spoke slang. And after a while I realized that when Gabin said, ‘What’s up, lady?’ it meant the same thing as when Philipe said, ‘Good evening, madam.’

‘Chamalkay’ is an old Guyanese slang word. It means a ‘young mischievous girl.’ It’s not derogatory, but it isn’t over complimentary, either. It was probably a word I just Googled one day, and the song kind of played into the feel of that.

Slang is really coded talk. I can say a few things, in front of somebody, that only people who know what I’m saying are going to pick up on.

I know only two words of American slang, ‘swell’ and ‘lousy’. I think ‘swell’ is lousy, but ‘lousy’ is swell.

Ebonics is me. I’m the king of slang, hands down.

The British have slang words, as we do, but it was fun.

We played a festival in Ireland once, and in the middle of ‘New Slang,’ the Scissor Sisters kicked in across the field on this mega stage. It was a little distracting. It was hard to keep track of what I was supposed to sing.

I have always loved the fluidity of language – delighting in dialects, dictionaries, slang and neologisms.

The gay community hated me for being part of Odd Future. They thought Odd Future was homophobic because they tend to use homophobic slang, and they were like: ‘How can you work for and support homophobes?’ But they aren’t homophobic; they just don’t really care whether you’re offended or not.

The truth is that the performative nature of social media can turn even the simplest conversations into a WWE style cage match with emojis and Internet slang taking the place of pratfalls and over the top costumes.

I don’t want to say which guard it was with the Bulls, but I would take the ball and he would come to me and say, ‘You are taking my bread.’ I didn’t know the slang.

My parents went through the dictionary looking for a beautiful name, nearly called me Banyan, flicked on a few pages and came to China, which is cockney rhyming slang for mate.

I really like language – and slang in particular, and just the shorthand we use when we communicate with people.

The kind of songs I sing have been existing in Bollywood music since a long time. In fact, the reason my music is so popular amongst the millions of youth is because I sing in their own language, in their own slang, and about their lives.

All our efforts to guard and guide our children may just get in the way of the one thing they need most from us: to be deeply loved yet left alone so they can try a new skill, new slang, new style, new flip-flops. So they can trip a few times, make mistakes, cross them out, try again, with no one keeping score.

‘Detroit 1-8-7’ – the numbers are police slang for murder – is filmed in that blue-collar Michigan city, providing a flavor of authenticity. Detroit offers a unique visual landscape that tells the story of the city and what it’s been through.

About the only way you can find out about the common man, his slang, what he looked like, what he thought, is through the comic strips. It’s a powerful way for young people to learn history.

When ‘American Slang’ came out, everyone was like, ‘This is the next big band in the world, and this is blah blah blah Bruce Springsteen Junior and blah blah blah,’ and I was just like, ‘I don’t know what that means. I don’t know. We’ll see.’

I would always talk with my friends in English and Spanglish, but it was more like slang. It was more like, ‘Yo, what’s up, dog?’ But in Spanish, I know what’s proper, and what’s ghetto. I know the difference.

It definitely sharpened my interest in language, the way people used language, slang words, speech patterns. There’s a big advantage to being the outsider.

Hip-hop saved me. It gave me permission to use language in a certain way. It validated my community and my friends. It gave our slang a certain elegance.

There’s an old little jingle: ‘The chief use of slang is to show that you’re one of the gang.’ What that means is that every social group has its own linguistic bonding mechanism. If there’s a group of lawyers, they have their own slang. If there’s a group of doctors, they have their own slang, and so on.

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

The only thing that kept us from going bigger worldwide was the language barrier. All the corn that we did on ‘Hee Haw,’ it was hard to translate into their slang.

I think the problem with people, as they start to mature, they say, ‘Rap is a young man’s game,’ and they keep trying to make young songs. But you don’t know the slang – it changes every day, and you’re just visiting. So you’re trying to be something you’re not, and the audience doesn’t buy into that.

Booze’ was once a popular term in the slang or ‘cant’ of the criminal underworld, which may explain its rebellious overtones today.

In China, when you get to the airport everyone be talking in American slang.

The downtrodden are the great creators of slang.

After I arrived in Mountain View, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, I entered sixth grade and quickly grew to love my new home, family and culture. I discovered a passion for language, though it was hard to learn the difference between formal English and American slang.

Writing a tribe is fun. They have their own language, their own slang; they repeat it, and it becomes part of the texture of the play. For a writer, that’s thrilling. That’s when my pen flies.

Dutch is our first language. When you talk to older people, you speak Dutch. It’s more respectful. The local language, you talk with your friends. You don’t talk to your parents like that with the local slang.

The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.

‘Strong Island’ is slang for Long Island, New York. And it really grew out of – what may surprise people, it really grew out of the very vibrant hip-hop scene that, you know, is located and still generates artists out of Long Island.

My mother wouldn’t allow me to speak slang when I was growing up. But when I got outside, around my friends, it was ‘Yo’ and ‘That’s the joint’ and ‘Yo, what’s up?’ So I had my game for my friends and my game for my mom.

Lots of people speak Afrikaans. It’s not a statement; it’s just a language that we use to communicate. It has its own flavour; it’s got its own slang. People laugh. People like it. They like us being open.