The way people from previous generations used slang terms in the past to communicate, in comparison to the way the youth uses slang terms in modern day, 2026.

By: Shaylin Bogart

Slang has always been a way for people to communicate with their peers in a way that made sense to each other, and this causes the meaning of words change over each generation as it comes and goes, which is why the same word that meant one thing 20 years ago can have an entirely different meaning in the modern age.

But this begs the question, how can something as simple as slang evolutionize the way humans understand each other?

Mr. Paul Freeborn, an English teacher here at Redwood High School, says, “Slang is how language is fluid and changes over time. Some of that saying gets picked up and adopted into the broader language. And there, what you’re talking about is kind of a communicative function of language.”

It’s important to acknowledge that even informal language such as slang still has an impact on speech and though patterns, mainly on the youths in society to be specific, since they are usually the ones looking to connect with others around them and the way someone speaks is an indicator of compatibility.

There are studies which back up the claim that slang is the fluidity of languages that causes changes through the course of years, according to apa.org. “It tells you who’s similar to you, who’s different from you, which is something that all language does. If someone speaks really formally versus informally, it gives you a sense of who they are, how you relate to them, and how they relate to you.”

Slang is a way to either bring groups of people together or a way to separate themselves from others, including three youth seperating themselves away from previous generations.

Mr. Jon Woodbury, a Biology and AP Biology teacher here at Redwood, said that he grew up with Facebook and MySpace, and whenever adults were on Facebook or MySpace and using the terms that were were using, they would make those terms such as cool beans, YOLO, dude, that’s tight, the bomb, etc, considered uncool. So he’s started to use six-seven in order to make it uncool so his students won’t want to use it anymore.

However, he believes that he might have made the six-seven obsession with the students worse.

Abigail Zapata, ’29, says, “One piece of slang that I despise, it has to be six-seven.”

For the most part it’s agreed that six-seven is an old and overused slang term, even among students they have the same thought process when it comes to the slang term.

There are old slang terms that should make a comeback due to the fact students still find slang from previous decades interesting.

Liz Garcia, ’26, says, “It’s definitely more of a 90’s slang term but I still love the word rad or even radical, like, that word specifically is so funny to me.”

Between generations most of the time words retain the same or similar meaning and so we can still understand slang words even decades later.

But in some cases when people from two generations talk to each other, slang words may be accidentally misunderstood between the two generations.

Such as the slang term people still use in 2026, cringey.

Mr. Freeborn says, “Yeah, no, something that was cringey would be the old, lecherous old guy kind of peering in on the young women, you know, that’s the way I would have interpreted the word cringey.”

All in all, every generation of people in existence have taken words and given them a new meaning to communicate with each other in various ways.

No definition of slang terms are right or wrong, it’s just two definitions from two seperate generations and decades that confuses each other.

Garcia says, “It’s kind of funny when adults try to use modern slang, and it gets funnier when they actually use is correctly too, because, like, you don’t expect it.”

Shaylin Bogart
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