Grammar Moses: Have a dope Christmas

Merry Christmas, if that's your gig.

My gift to you today is some help in facilitating conversation with the young people in your life. If you're like most of us and celebrate some combination of the birth of Jesus, capitalism gone wild and the love of family and friends today, odds are pretty good you'll find yourself in proximity to someone ranging in age from 12 to 30.

This can be scary territory. In what language do you speak with them? More importantly, in what language do they speak?

I've had a few opportunities during the holidays to converse with people a fraction of my age. And given that a reporter is always a reporter and it's always better to know than not know, I ask young people a lot of questions.

My wife and I had Thanksgiving dinner with the Atwells of Barrington this year. What set this column in motion was something 14-year-old Bridget repeated throughout the evening: "Slay!"

We were playing a ribald word game (my favorite activity, natch), and when someone made a particularly deft move, Bridget would blurt, "Slay!"

"Wait, what does that mean?" I asked her. She explained - or tried to.

"Slay" can mean a great number of things. It's an all-purpose expression of approval or encouragement.

When I was coming into my own in the '70s, "cool" was that word. If memory serves, "cool" pushed aside "neat."

When I was in my 30s, I was a purposeful anachronist. I regularly employed "groovy" much longer than was fashionable. I still use it today. My hope is that some young person will ask me: "Hey, what does that mean?"

Now I have "slay" in my toolbox, but I want to be careful in how I use it so that I don't appear to be trying too hard.

Midway between Thanksgiving and Christmas I spent the weekend with my brother's kids, Marina and Ethan, and Ethan's fiancee, Sarah.

They're lovely, funny people. Marina is 30, and the other two are a couple of years behind.

I'll never understand their fascination with Pokemon GO, but having spent time with them I've been able to broaden my vocabulary.

I don't remember what we were talking about until 1:30 a.m., but I do know that at one point Sarah expressed her approval of something by nodding her head and saying, "Dank."

My ears perked up, but I waited until the topic was exhausted before asking her what that word meant.

Contrary to what I thought, "dank" no longer describes something that is dark, cold and musty, such as an old-timey basement equipped with a coal chute. It means "cool." Especially in relation to food or drink, Ethan added.

"Dope" is more of an all-purpose "cool," he pointed out. It also has staying power, because it's familiar to me.

In another branch of that conversation, Marina exclaimed, "Werk!"

The spelling came later.

"What's that, now?" I inquired, already foreseeing this column.

In short, "Werk!" is today's "You go, girl!" - which I've never been comfortable saying.

These expressions are generational. They're moving targets. As with Facebook, young people will run screaming from it on principle if their parents begin to think it's dope.

I've come to understand that every generation comes up with its own version of "cool" because speaking the same language as their parents would be, well, uncool.

When you shake your head and mutter, "Kids these days," remember that you were a kid once, too, and you used words your parents didn't understand. That sort of rebellion is in all of us when we're young.

If you want your kids or grandkids to think you're cool today, tell them that new turbocharged video game controller they got is "dope." They might look at you a little differently.

I hope your Christmas dinner is dank and that your gift giving slays.

Werk!

Write carefully.

• Jim Baumann is vice president/executive editor of the Daily Herald. You can buy Jim's book, "Grammar Moses: A humorous guide to grammar and usage," at

grammarmosesthebook.com. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com and put "Grammar Moses" in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.