MovieChat Forums > Valley Girl (1983) Discussion > Slang from the early 1980's.

Slang from the early 1980's.


If someone was "hot" they were called a "fox".
If you were dating someone it was called "going out".
Can you think of any other slang terms?

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Hate to burst your bubble but those slangs have been used for decades well before the 80's; as far back to at least the 1920's.


But here are some 80's originals
Rad or Radical: Badass, awesome, more than cool

Dope: Badass, awesome, more than cool

Bitchin': Badass, awesome, more than cool

Tubular: More than cool (Though I or anyone I knew never used this)

Gaywa: To demean someone as gay.

Stoned!: Usually said simultaneously while grabbing your crotch to a person. Girls would grabbed their breast. If they looked then

they're demeaned as gay. Don't ask me how this got started. Had to be a Southern or Ghetto thing.

Booya!: (According to wikipedia) "A catchphrase popularized by ESPN sportscaster and anchor Stuart Scott in the 1990s, and later on

the television show Mad Money". Stuart is not the originator of this phrase. Kids were saying this in middle school during the mid-late

1980's and I heard my cousin saying it once as late as 1989. Though this phrase maybe as old as the late 1970's.

Trippin': Acting crazy, dramatic

For more and many I have never heard of. Maybe because I wasn't cool enough to be with the cool kids.

http://www.liketotally80s.com/2009/05/80s-slang/
http://www.inthe80s.com/glossary.shtml

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Dating was called 'going together', to which my Mom always asked 'where?'; in her day (the 50s) it was called 'going steady'.

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Psst, it was "gayWAD" not gaywa

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Gaywa was used dude, in my neck of the woods.

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But here are some 80's originals
Rad or Radical: Badass, awesome, more than cool


Rad or radical: yes. But H still hear "badass"
Booya!: (According to wikipedia) "A catchphrase popularized by ESPN sportscaster and anchor Stuart Scott in the 1990s, and later on
I heard this one in a Red Robin commercial (hosted by Melanie Paxson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Paxson this year. She may have been reminiscing the 80's (she was born in 1972) but nonetheless, the phrase was used in 2016.

Trippin': Acting crazy, dramatic
Now, THAT one is most assuredly an 80's term!

And let's not forget: Buffed: a person who is very muscular (eg. football players, Lou Ferrigno, Arnold Schwarzenegger).
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"Stoned!: Usually said simultaneously while grabbing your crotch to a person. Girls would grabbed their breast. If they looked then they're demeaned as gay. Don't ask me how this got started. Had to be a Southern or Ghetto thing."


I'm an 80's kid and I have NEVER heard of this being used the way you mentioned it. "Stoned" meant you were high.

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"Going out" is slang? People don't say that any more?

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I think the OP was saying "Going out" was the slang equivalent to people saying they were a couple, as opposed to the act of going on a date.

For example, instead of saying "Jack and Jill have been a couple for years" people would say "Jack and Jill have been going out for years."

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