Annoyed by "Newspeak"

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It depends on where you're from what you call it. Nothing to do with political correctness.

Yes, quite a while ago.

what's the weather like in the 80s? here's a tip, invest in a little company called microsoft

We New Yorkers say "blackboard," by the way.

The world hasn't gone mad but the world has gone green. In the U.S. at least, chalkboards are usually green although some are black. Calling it a chalkboard covers both.

A lot of people complain about acronyms, but they've been around forever and are a part of everyday language. It's pretty silly, but I owe it to an episode of Family Ties for knowing scuba stands for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.

Acronyms are an excellent mnemonic tool, at times. They can also be quite illustrative.

One should, when communicating with someone, make sure that the recipient of the communication understands the meaning of any acronym.

If one only communicates via acronyms or other modes of "shortened" speech, it might be conceived, by the uninitiated, as a foreign language. One should seek to communicate mostly in the full-throttled version of their language.

You haven't truly experienced acronyms until you've had a military career.

Actually, "wicked" has a longstanding use in the New England region of the United States. It's used as a superlative, roughly equivalent to "very" or "extremely." For example, someone might say "that maple syrup is wicked sweet," or "it's wicked hot out there today!". It's probably the only place on earth where someone might reverently say, without any sense of irony or blasphemous intent, "God is wicked awesome!"

I grew up in New Hampshire, and it's been in use there for as long as I can remember.

Guess there's regional variation, because where I'm from "wicked" was used on its own in a similar way "cool!" or "awesome!". This was around 10 years ago.

Edit: sorry about the format before, dunno what happened there

Last edited by iliketrees on 24 Jun 2015, 8:33 am, edited 2 times in total.

It's very much a regional thing. In Tennessee, where I live now, if anyone has heard the term it's been in the sense you describe. In New England, it's almost always used in conjunction with something else. As far as I can tell, this usage goes back multiple generations.

Fascinating.........apparently the word "wicked" derives from the Old English wicca, meaning wizard, so I guess it could have positive connotations, depending on the attitude towards wizards at the time the word was first coined. I guess "wizard" shares its roots with "wise," which has to be good, doesn't it? Mind you, I don't think the modern kids who first flipped the use of "wicked" had that in mind.

When you say "wicked pissah" to something in Boston, that something is something which is extremely cool to the person who said "wicked pissah."

It's somewhat akin to a 1970s African-American saying that something is "bad."

or a present-day American saying someone has "mad skills," or that something is "mad cool."

Pretty sure I've heard "pissah" (probably, if ever put in written form, would be "pisser") used to meant a toilet. So literally they are an evil toilet.

LOL....I've never heard the bathroom/toilet/WC referred to as a "pisser."

I know there's a sculpture known as the "Pissoir" in Brussels. There's no blushing shame attached to that name.

I've seen that statue. Do you know the history behind it?