Friday, April 8, 2011

G is for Gassler

I galloped through the gamut of ‘g’s but couldn’t garner one that got me going so I gave up.

And will use one of my own, “gassler”.




Writing YA the vocabulary changes as rapidly as Paris Hilton’s lovers.

I have a couple of online sources that I go to often http://www.thesource4ym.com/teenlingo and http://onlineslangdictionary.com. I also ‘Google’ like mad for new Adalonic (Adolescent Vocabulary) Dictionaries. But sometimes even that’s not enough.

For instance, my current WIP is a dystopian set in post apocalyptic America, vaguely set about seventy years in the future. Writing dialogue becomes more of a challenge.

Will ‘lame’, ‘tard’, ‘sick’, ‘sweet’, ’awesome’, or ‘bank’ still be common teen usage of the future? Or will they have gone the way of ‘stoked’, ‘stellar’, ‘tubular’, ‘dude’, and ‘chill’?

The language of the future is just as unpredictable as the fashion sense of their generation. But instead of taking this as a roadblock, I’ve made up a few of my own words and given an alternate meaning to common words. For even though the words will change, a teen’s need to be different and possess their own vocabulary will not.

So that brings us to ‘gassler’. It’s a slur. A newly seized genetically unaltered human and is non-gender specific. So go ahead and insult someone today, call them a gassler. The worst that can happen is they think you are accusing them of wasting too much fuel or burning up the ozone layer.

4 comments:

  1. Will do! That picture up there freaks me out a bit. Don't want to be here too long with Megamind's love child taking up blog space.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Don't you love that head? It made me giggle, but then I'm not right in the head myself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. (very weird picture indeed)

    Totally agree about using teen language. A published writing pal of mine told me to go listen to kids talking at McDonalds. I didn't agree for the reasons you mention. Even if you get it right it will be outdated soon. Secondly, it can be quite regional. Only a few words make it national or global within a language.

    So I'm doing the same, just letting the characters invent their own words. Did that in school myself anyway. Funny thing was at about college age when a friend told one of our words to someone else and he used it in a campus magazine. That felt weird when a private word goes public.

    Marcus

    http://writing.wordit.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for comment Marcus, I went to your site to try to follow, not sure if I was successful or not. But your blog is insightful.

    ReplyDelete