It’s the twenty first century.
People travel along in flying cars, robots see to our every need and you can order food through your TV.
While this may not be true, they do sum up how movies of the 80’s and 90’s imagined what the twenty first century would be like.
The flying cars are still a way off but robots are a reality and you can order anything you want online. But how does the vision of the future really measure up to present day?
Have we made progress or is society slowly going backwards? When listening to the youth of today, this question becomes even harder to answer.
Terms like ‘bae’ or ‘on fleek’ and ‘lit’ are becoming hugely popular among youngsters but mean absolutely nothing to the rest of the population who speak proper English.
Bae is an acronym that stands for “before anyone else,” or a shortened version of baby or babe. It’s all the rage among young lovers who call their significant other bae or even boo. In the good old days, boo was used to scare people or to imitate a ghost.
Bae, according to Urban Dictionary, is also a Danish word for poop.
Think about that the next time you text ‘I love you bae.’
Lit is another term for something exciting or happening. A party or an event can be ‘lit.’
Youngsters also use the word lit to describe someone who is high or stoned.
‘On fleek’ is one of the more stranger and more popular terms you may hear nowadays. It basically means something is on point or perfectly executed.
Hair, nails, eyebrows, even food; basically anything can be ‘on fleek.’
Not only are these words gaining notoriety among youngsters, they’ve become so popular that they have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary as well.
Words such as bestie, selfie, bruh, bromance, chillax and even noob (a person who is inexperienced in a particular sphere or activity, especially computing or the use of the Internet), are all recognised words whether in printed or online dictionaries. Shakespeare would be appalled.
For all the youngsters out there, appalled is an adjective that describes feeling shocked and disappointed. The current state of the English language is proof that, despite all the advancements in technology, the future looks bleaker than the way filmmakers imagined it would be.
Things are certainly not ‘on fleek’ anymore.
