Slang

It is interesting to me how slang changes. I am thinking of it because I was inputting the last comments of two of my editors, Lois and Nancy, in Book Three (due out in late October). I smile every time I see them circle and put question marks next to phrases that seem second nature to me. Two in particular I saw today were "Pathetic much?" and "It is so on." It amuses me that these simple things confuse them, having not heard them before. I guess that it part of the generational gap. Of course certain slang words like cool and such make it into the popular lexicon, but certain phrasing remains isolated, sometimes even to an area or group of people, long before it becomes common knowledge. Things I have said since high school sound strange and foreign to people when they first hear them. It makes me a little self-conscious, as my books are set about another generation or two into the future and I have not given them their own little language quirks; I've merely used the ones I know. Also, will people reading this a few years down the road even understand what I mean? Will they just be confused as my editors are and think that there are typos? I don't know, but that's ok. I don't plan on stopping the slang. I think it adds to the characters and gives them a distinct voice. And that is really all that matters.

Qop! (Randal Graves played by Jeff Anderson in Clerks the cartoon)
[opening argument to the all-black jury of NBA players] Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Dante Hicks is just like you. He lurves grape soda. He knows what it's like when the guy at the supermarket won't take your "food stamps". Or how it feels to wait all month for your "welfare check". [waving his arms from side to side] Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho! Thank you.