Category Archives: Folk speech

Destruction

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angelas
Performance Date: 4/22/16
Primary Language: English

Piece:

Destruction (pronounced like Christopher Walken shouting)

A melee (Super Smash Brothers Melee, a game by Nintendo) term from the melee community—a commentator named D1 would try to hype up the game whenever something cool happened. Because he over-exaggerated how intense the gameplay was and continuously said “destruction” at mildly interesting moments, the phrase became a joke in the community and is used whenever you want to hype up something that isn’t actually hype worthy.

i.e. whenever a player accidentally kills them self or misses an attack.

Informant & Context:

My informant for this piece is an active member of the competitive Super Smash Brothers Melee community, which has been active since 2001. He has attended multiple tournaments and watched others on live stream web sources such as Twitch and Youtube.

Thoughts:

I find it interesting that a lot of the folk speech insults in online games originate from an attempt to parody something in the community’s spotlight. This particular one parodies a specific commentator in combination with a particular player’s mediocrity. Folk speech in this community is also highly interesting due to the local nature of the game; since the game is offline, the only way to spread game culture is to attend tournaments and other events related to the game.

Johnnystock

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/22/16
Primary Language: English

Piece:

In melee (Super Smash Brothers Melee, a game by Nintendo) you have 4 stock lives. There’s a player named Johnny who has a habit of playing poorly—he overall is just mediocre and then suddenly you’re just dead.

“So is Johnnystock like the first two lives where he plays poorly?”

No. It’s just like when someone suddenly kills you. Like out of nowhere.

Informant & Context:

My informant for this piece is an active member of the competitive Super Smash Brothers Melee community, which has been active since 2001. He has attended multiple tournaments and watched others on live stream web sources such as Twitch and Youtube.

Thoughts:

This is the first piece of folk speech in video games I’ve recorded that isn’t an insult. Since it is mostly used in verb form (to be Johnnystocked) it serves the purpose of lauding the Johnnystocker rather than chastising the Johnnystocked individual. This is an example of folk speech arising as a manifestation of the actions of those at the center of the community (the professional players).

New Zealand Slang

Nationality: New Zealand
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/27/16
Primary Language: English

Piece:

“Do you have any slang in New Zealand that you don’t hear here at all?”

Oh yeah, we have lots.

Togs – swimsuits (apparently the old english form for swimsuit)

Jandals – flipflops

Motorway – freeway

Cuzzie – friends

Scarfies – people from Dunedien

Jafa – (Just another fucking Aucklander) People from Auckland

Stubbies – really short pants that men wear

Chur – thank you. I lot of people say chur instead of thanks.

Wops wops – middle of nowhere

“Is there a reason for any of this?”

No. Well some of them maybe

Westies/Bogans – People from west Aukland but it’s like dumb unwashed hippies

Munted – Broken

Oh, and we call ketchup tomato sauce.

Informant & Context:

My informant for this piece is a USC student from New Zealand who lived in Auckland for 18 years. The above are popular youth phrases in New Zealand whose meaning does not carry over to the US.

Thoughts:

The most interesting ones of these to me are Jafa, and Westies because they are discriminatory phrases about people from Auckland, the city my informant is from. The previous pieces of folklore I had acquired from this person suggested a greater assimilation of culture between different peoples in New Zealand, but these phrases suggest that there are stereotype based rivalries between different geographic groups in New Zealand. Though I did not get one, I’m assuming there is also a word that Auklanders use to insult the people that call them Jafas or Westies.

Noob Origins

Performance Date: 4/27/16
Primary Language: English

Piece:

N00b and nub are corruptions of “noob”, itself a corruption of “newb”, short for “newbie”. “Newbie” was in use at least as far back as the BBS era of the 1980s and early 1990s, where it referred to a user who was new to BBSs. It was less of an insult and more friendly than “noob”, which was popularized by Counterstrike players in a context where a poor player can ruin the game for others.

Newbie itself is modern slang, where according to Wikipedia it referred to new soldiers in Vietnam. The word’s origin before this is unclear, but it appears to be a word created to turn the adjective “new” into a noun, perhaps as a diminutive (Barbara -> Barbie, for example).

 

Informant & Context:

My informant is a commenter on the website Stack Exchange, who goes by the username Joe Dovakhiin, a popular message board website in the online gaming community. The comment was in response to a forum question about the origins of the word Noob. I believe the comment was legitimized by the more than twelve thousand thumbs ups it received by other forum users.

Link to forum: http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/10420/how-did-the-term-noob-originate

 

Thoughts:

This is one of the most classic or conventional gaming insults in my opinion. It is a phrase that has continued to be used throughout my lifetime, and has a life span almost as large as the video game industry itself. This phrase is especially interested because it has maintained popularity in the entire gaming community whereas other phrases have gone in and out of style like fads.

Taking someone to the Squash Courts

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angelas
Performance Date: 4/24/16
Primary Language: English

Piece:

At the boarding school Cate, “taking someone to the squash courts” meant you were going to hook up with someone. Not that people take others to the squash courts to hook up with, but once upon a time people did that. At least that’s what people say.

Informant & Context:

My informant for this piece is a student at the University of Southern California who graduated from this boarding school (Cate). His knowledge of this phrase dates back between 3 and 11 years ago, though it is reasonable that it has existed for longer. The squash courts at the school were a very secluded and private place.

Thoughts:

American culture has a huge phobia of sexuality—it is extremely taboo. Whereas in other cultures that coveted spot is taken by violence, American children are taught to hide their sexuality. As a result, different pockets of the country choose to make euphemisms to describe the act, acknowledging it while at the same time making it a more speakable act. In my opinion is essentially equates to using “He who shall not be named” in place of Voldemort (in reference to Harry Potter). Even hook up is a vague term as it implies a consenting, physical act between two individuals, but does not describe the nature or extremity of the act. I believe that the term “hook up” is so colloquial as slang for engaging in an act of intimacy that it has become necessary for teenagers to water the phrase down further, so as not to make themselves feel dirty while talking about the act.