No Sweat, Dude, Really!

Since this column began in 1995 (10 years ago!), our country has raised a whole new generation of teenagers. So it is time we brought you up to speed on the younger generation’s slang, to give you a linguistic shot in the arm as it were.

Remember круто/крутой (cool), which was all the rage in the 1990s? Well, the word still exists, but is just no longer круто. Teens now say something is прикольно or понтово. The words are untranslatable, of course, so just memorize them.

Meanwhile, savvy teens sprinkle as many utterances as possible with the rather redundant  “на самом деле” (“as a matter of fact”). This phenomenon has grown over the last few years and bothers the older generations to no end (ensuring its continuance).

But the most irritating “cool word” is the verb париться, in the imperative form – не парься. Its only plus is that it is a perfect translation for the English  “No sweat!” Indeed, our self-assured teens, with their belly rings and low-waisted jeans drooping like slackened sails, don’t like to “sweat.” Why work hard and reap the fruits of your labor when you can have it all – and now! This idiom is particularly contagious. The other day, I caught myself saying to my wife – instead of the usual “relax” (“расслабься”) – не парься. This idiom drives me nuts – бесит меня.

And there’s another thing: бесить (to drive someone mad, nuts) has become the universal slang verb for expressing one’s discontent: Меня бесит школа, меня бесят родители, это меня бесит – you hear it everywhere. A normal verb, used to exhaustion, is enough to drive you mad!

Or take the innocuous конкретно (“concrete or specific”). No, we are not talking about its use in the normal context – конкретный ответ, конкретная ситуация. That wouldn’t be slang, would it? The usage is more like: “приехали такие конкретные ребята” (“some pretty strong and scary guys arrived”). Or: “Он так конкретно его побил” (“He beat the hell out of him”). Actually (на самом деле), конкретно is on its way out. It has ceded its place to реально, реальный (real) – which can mean “great, big, superb or very bad,” depending on the context or intonation of the speaker.

There is also the new ultimate adverb “не по-детски” (literally, “not in a childish way”). It means “big time,” “greatly,” or “superbly.” For example, recently, in a city van (маршрутка), a military school student called his friend on his cell phone: “Hey, guys, I got leave until tomorrow morning and Sasha’s parents are out. Let’s get together at his place – надо сегодня оторваться не по-детски.” (“We have to have a seriously good time.”) Note the use of oторваться (literally, to cut out, to relax, go on a bender, have fun, or better “to let all hell break loose”).

Overhearing this conversation, I felt myself smile bitterly. But, apparently, to the student and his mate, it must have looked more like a cringe. They got my meaning and proceeded to stare at me as if I were a fossil – a mammoth covered with moths. Or, to use their language, a complete лох (hapless idiot). Or, better still, the ultimate insult: лох педальный (pedaling лох).  The first time I heard лох педальный, I asked some teens what on Earth it meant. What have pedals got to do with anything?! No one knew the etymology (or, for that matter, what “etymology” meant).

Is it because the лох is riding a bicycle? To this conjecture, one 20-something simply laughed in my face. “I don’t know why we say it, simply because нам так по кайфу” (“simply because we enjoy it”). To do something по кайфу – i.e. to enjoy something, to take pleasure in doing something. Okay, this one I got, because the word “кайф” (pleasure, fun) is something we said in my teen years, in the – gulp – late 1970s and early 1980s.

“But you should say ‘в кайф,’ not ‘по кайфу.’ The preposition is wrong,” my linguist self asserted.

“No, man,” responded the fellow, “maybe you старперы (old farts) said ‘в кайф,’ but now we say ‘по кайфу.’ Don’t try to fix it, it’s too late. Поздняк метаться.”

My feet felt solid ground again – this final expression (поздняк метаться) I understood straight off. It’s easy enough. Поздняк comes from the adverb поздно (late) and the verb метаться is a quite normal verb meaning “to rush about.”

“Действительно, бесполезняк,” (it is useless indeed), I murmured, dredging up a 20-year-old idiom from my student years. And it turned the tide. The youth praised my linguistic turn.

“How do you say it again? Бесполезняк? Прикольно, чувак (“cool one, dude”). I’ll try to remember it.”

That “чувак” was music to my ears. An idiom older than even I, it is experiencing a comeback in modern slang, giving hope to those who still feel 20-something inside.

I walked away feeling completely rejuvenated.