Every year, thousands of new words and expressions are added to the English language. In this episode, Andrew and Harp chat about some very recent additions. Join them as they quiz each other on the meaning of some cutting-edge expressions!
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Expressions included in the Learning Materials
- With a twist
- A raptivist
- To take off
- Cinderella surgery
- To shake your head
- Life tracking
- To draw a blank
- To burn through a traffic light
- Spim
- To fall for something
- Normcore A couplie
Sample transcript
Andrew: Harp, what’s new with you?
Harp: Not much. It was a pretty boring day. How about you?
Andrew: Well, you know what? I actually started a new job today.
Harp: Oh. That’s really exciting.
Andrew: Yeah. I’m working at a local college and I am working with a bunch of teenagers.
Harp: Wow! That’s pretty interesting.
Andrew: Yeah. And I’m really excited about this job because, as you probably know, teenagers are the ones who really are creative with language. They really drive language change. And so, by working with teenagers, I get to hear lots of cool new slang words.
Harp: Well, that’s actually perfect for this episode.
Andrew: Yeah. It’s great, because today we are going to talk about some new words and new slang.
Harp: Yup. It’s a Chatterbox episode but with a little twist. We’re just gonna throw out new slang and see if we know it and what it could possibly mean.
Andrew: Right. This will be, maybe, a learning experience for us as well as all the listeners out there. So all languages invent new words, and English really invents tons of new words every year. And at the end of the year, a lot of the big English dictionaries, like Oxford Dictionaries, Cambridge Dictionaries, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, also Dictionary.com, all the big dictionaries, come out with a list of some of the new words that they added to their dictionary for the year.
Harp: Yup, exactly. And by the time they’re added into these dictionaries, I usually know them, but we’re gonna go to some slang words that aren’t in the dictionary yet but that are becoming popular.
Andrew: Mmhmm. So we’re gonna look at some of these lists and just test each other to see if we have learned these new words yet.
Harp: I think it’s gonna be very interesting!
Andrew: All right. So let’s start. Shall we?
Harp: Let’s do it!
Andrew: OK. So the first word I’m gonna test you on, Harp, is raptivist.
Harp: Raptivist.
Andrew: Mmhmm. Raptivist.
Harp: Well, I have to be honest; I’ve definitely never heard this word before. But if I take a guess… raptivist. So activist. Rap, like a rapper?
Andrew: Exactly. So a raptivist is a type of activist who tries to create social change. And they do this by making rap music. So through their music, they lobby for social changes to happen.
Harp: It’s kind of a fun word: a raptivist.
Audio/Learning Materials: Culips