The last time someone mentioned scoring a dime to me, I looked around to see if any undercover fuzz were hiding in the bushes. Back in 1970, a dime was a $10 bag of weed and the fuzz were the cops ready to arrest you for possessing it.
But times and slang have changed. Nowadays, to properly understand texts from your kid, it’s helpful to know what they are talking about. Everybody knows someone (else) who mistook LOL to mean “lots of love” instead of “laugh out loud.” And OOTD isn’t a teenage hybrid of “out of the office,” but rather “outfit of the day.”
Leave it to ASKfm, the popular teen app, to offer parents a primer to get them up to speed. Here’s what ASKfm says are some of the most frequently used teen terms and shorthand, along with a few of our own. Ready, class? And for extra credit, please try to use three of them in a sentence below in comments.
1. PAP.
Post a picture.
2. Bad.
Bad still means good, but now it’s morphed to mean “hot” as in “Ruby Rose is as bad as they come.”
3. Ship.
Ship is short for “relationship.
4. IDEK
IDEK means “I don’t even know,” and of course IDK means “I don’t know.” In the same “knowledge” vein, there is also IKR, standing for “I know, right?”
5. Bae.
While not generally seen in all uppercase, BAE actually stands for “before anyone else.” Used as a term of endearment, many mistakenly think it’s a derivative of “babe” or “baby.” We’d also point out that bae is the noise that sheep make. And we won’t laugh at you if you secretly thought it was Beyonce.
6. Dime.
Unlike the party size bag of dope from the 1960s, Dime today means 10 on a rating scale of 1-10. It’s the best something can be.
7. THOT.
Not to be mistaken for a shorthand or misspelling of the word “thought,” THOT actually means “that ho over there.” Yes, ho as in whore. It refers to a teen with loose values, as in sexual promiscuity.
8. Netflix and chill.
No, it’s not that innocent. It’s shorthand for hooking up.
9. Hooking up.
While the term “hooking up” has been around for years, some older parents may not know that it means “doing the deed,” “doing the nasty,” “getting some,” “going all the way” and “schtupping” — that last being what your Yiddish-speaking bubie used to call it long before Netflix came along.
10. TBR.
TBR means “to be rude,” and is used in the context of “I don’t mean TBR but ….” (a barrage of harsh feelings follow).
11. Peep.
Peep can either mean your friends — as in your “people” — or to look at or listen to something.
12. GOAT.
GOAT stands for the “greatest of all time.”
13. TOPE.
Tope is a mix of “totally” and “dope.”
14. Dope.
No, you silly. Well, actually yes, “dope” is a reference to marijuana. But it also means seriously great. So if you see this on your kid’s phone, don’t call for an intervention just yet.