Education

A ‘Phat’ Guide to Slang

By Michelle R. Davis — December 04, 2006 1 min read
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If you’ve been anywhere near a high school lately (or even a middle school for that matter) you may have had trouble deciphering the slang coming from students who are actually speaking English. “Phat” doesn’t mean fat and “sick” doesn’t mean someone is vomiting. But over in England, teachers and other adults are struggling even harder to decode the speech of students born in the U.K. but whose families speak Punjabi, Urdu, or Hindi at home, according to TES Magazine. The new slang has been dubbed Hinglish and the magazine provides a primer on it for those who are completely baffled (contemplate the words chuddies, bevakoof, and pukka). For the American version, check out this story from The Arizona Republic which comes complete with a cheat sheet of definitions and suggestions for further reading.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Around the Web blog.