Rizz, Slay, Low Down, Cool. Slang words are more than just words. They’re a peak into different worlds and a way of pushing back against the powers that be. Lexicographer Grant Barrett studies the history and use of slang. We talk the current state of slang, the best and worst slang words and what slang means to language.
Grant Barrett: 01:27
Pointless: 29:44
Top 5: 42:37
Interview with Slang Lexicographer Grant Barrett
Nick VinZant 0:11
Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode slang and slang.
Grant Barrett 0:20
So slang is a little bit of a release foul from the constraints of formal language. The funny ones don't last. The ones that are jokey or cute or hilarious or that make you giggle at first, they tend not to be the ones that have the last the longest, it's the ones that are a little more boring and have more utility. I will say I don't know about favorite, but the fact that cool has lasted so long to mean great and good, does a remarkable thing.
Nick VinZant 0:51
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review. We really appreciate it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So I want to get right to our first guest, because he is one of the world's leading experts on slang. I'm gonna mispronounce this I cannot say this word for some reason. This is lexicographer grant Barrett, is slang necessary for us or is it kind of just something that happens? Like does this serve a fundamental function? It? No, it's
Grant Barrett 1:35
not necessary. But yes, it does serve a fundamental function for us. So slang is a little bit of a release valve from the constraints of formal language. So the formal language is put upon us by the power structures, formal language, it belongs to the classes that have power, authority, strength, whether that's economic power, or educational power, or the power of governments, that sort of thing. And what slang does is it kind of represents this under power, the power of say, people who will one day have power but don't now or they have the power of fashion, or if out power of trends. So one of the long, I guess long argued maybe isn't quite the right way to phrase it. But long discussed, debates and lexicography, which is the art and craft of making dictionaries and in linguistics is what is slang. And one of the generally understood and agreed upon definitions is that it's this informal expression, that kind of a pushback against formal language. And so the reason you need that pushback is you have to take an alternate stance against that power. So yes, it's humans were resistant people, we, we dislike power, we want it. And when we get it, we abuse it. Just like if we don't have it, and think as a way of resisting that power. Do you think most people realize that though, I don't think they consciously realize it. No, but I think unconsciously they realize the way that you when you're a teenager, and it's not just teens who use slang, by the way we use it our whole lives, but it tends to be a we tend to be it's a little old fashioned when we get older, but the way that you might see us slang in front of your parents kind of coyly knowing that you might be slipping something by them. That's a kind of power. That's the kind of power to say something in front of someone else. And and get away with it, where they don't quite realize what you're saying. I
Nick VinZant 3:31
have reached the age now where I kind of don't like certain slang a little bit. Like, oh, I need to know what that means. It means man yells at cloud, right? I am the old man yelling at the cloud. Is that kind of a natural reaction that people have then as they get older? Like, well, what are you saying what does this mean? Yeah,
Grant Barrett 3:48
it really is because you you move on to other priorities, you're building a career, you're building a family, you're, you're focused on other stuff. And when you when you're coming up as a teenager, this is when you leave childhood behind, and you're not quite a fully fledged adult, you're learning what it is to be an adult, you have a lot more free time to build those people networks. And to figure out who you are, you spend a lot of time figuring out who you are. And the language that you choose is part of that. If you listen to the conversation of teenagers, you often hear them say things along the lines of I'm the kind of person who and one of those things that follow that phrase could be I'm the kind of person who says X. You know, I'm the kind of person who uses this language. And so slang is about identity as much as it as much as the clothes that you wear, the haircut that you have, or the makeup that you use or don't use or the posters you put on your wall or the plates that you put together on Spotify, that sort of thing. How
Nick VinZant 4:45
does that work, though, in the sense where slang could be highly individualized but also is uniform throughout society. And the sense that to be slang, it has to everybody has to know it, but certain people only use these words. So it's
Grant Barrett 4:59
bout pockets. So for example, the slang of a high school in Buffalo, New York is different than the slang of a high school in San Diego, California. They share some language, but they'll have different words. But their their their preoccupations are the same. Am I pretty enough? Am I good looking enough? Can I be pop more popular? Right? These are all the same preoccupations, therefore, they generate the same kind of slang and language. But the words that you use for someone of the of a that you find romantically appealing, for example, we're always every generation is coming up with new words for this every generation, again, and the words that mean cool are great or fantastic or excellent. Every generation comes up with new words for that.
Nick VinZant 5:40
Does slang always start with younger people? Or is that just kind of a misconception that people have it?
Grant Barrett 5:46
It mostly is from younger people, but you do get it from people in their 20s and 30s. And older as well. But when it's from older groups tend to have more appear in different kinds of situations that are tied, say to the workplace, for example, you will have military slang. And that tends to be people who are older in their, say, late teens, early 20s, and even 30s. And this is because of what they're doing together as a profession. Or you might have sports slang, which again, is younger adults outside of their teens or even late teens or early 20s, and so forth. So this is slang. But perhaps it's more technically called jargon. Jargon is kind of like slang for the workplace. But it's associated with these tasks that they all need to do together. And it tends to be a little more universal, maybe a lot more universal than then slaying. And it's more about accomplishing these tasks so that you don't have to keep repeating, keep elaborating these phrases.
Nick VinZant 6:45
The one that immediately comes to my mind is like the corporate jargon of I don't have the bandwidth for that. Like, that's the one that like, Oh, God drives me nuts. But
Grant Barrett 6:54
just like with slang, it tends to be that when you find yourself annoyed by jargon, or with slang, it's because it's not for you. It's not yours, and you're annoyed with it. It's like trying on somebody else's clothes that don't fit.
Nick VinZant 7:09
Yeah. And just had a self realization when you said that. It's like, oh, that isn't for me. Oh, no, the corporate world is not. Do we have to adopt these though, to some degree? Yes,
Grant Barrett 7:22
that's a really good question. I don't think I've ever been asked that before. We do have to adopt these. Otherwise, you find yourself stuck, say, in the 1820s, refusing to keep up with the language. And you do find that in American culture, for example, some of the very conservative homeschoolers will only use dictionaries that stopped being updated well before the internet age, and so they're stuck.
Nick VinZant 7:45
When we look at slang, though, are we coming up with a fundamentally new ways to identify things like no, this new slang identifies a new concept in our realities? Or are we just coming up with a new name for something that they used to have? Like the mediate example I think of is my seven year old says sauce. But we just used to call it shady. Like, are these new concepts generally? Or is this like, No, you're just, you just calling it something different?
Grant Barrett 8:16
It's a lot of new synonyms for old things. That's part of it. So yes, Sasa shady or sketchy and yeah, lots of words for the old things. But there's new stuff, representing new ideas, a lot of the new technology terms. For example, I think of some stuff that came out recently, when we're talking about girl dinner, this idea that young women don't feel like they have to go out and make a big production out of meal, whether out of the house or in the house, they just simply go to the kitchen, pull together a few items that really pleases them, and perhaps a healthy plot perhaps or not, and that's dinner, you know, don't have to like elaborately cook for themselves in order to feel like they've accomplished a meal. You know, a few nuts, a few all have some juice from the refrigerator. That's girl dinner, you know. And it says a lot about their ability to not feel the pressures to perform this meal, you know, that society says you have to have a meal. And there's all this cultural baggage that comes with these two words of girl dinner. And I think some of the some of the new languages about that, you know, I think about how, how, how blue Can I be in your podcast as
Nick VinZant 9:25
far as you want to go?
Grant Barrett 9:26
I think about a term like big dick energy. You know, they said Anthony Bourdain had big dick energy in this idea that a man through his not just his physical stance, but his personal points of view and the aura that he carries when he walks into a room is and somebody that you can find believable and, and suspect that the way that he treats the people around him with kindness has big dick energy, so it's not really about his sexual prowess. It's about his his perspective on the world and the way that he treats others. There's so much more More in this term than just those three words. This is something that I don't think we had a synonym before. When you look
Nick VinZant 10:06
kind of at it, is there a pattern that words have as they kind of climb the ladder of becoming slang? Is there a pattern like okay, this new like ribs I can think of? Is there a pattern that you would look at and say, okay, for these slang words, there gets going, this is going to happen, and this is going to happen, then this is going to happen.
Grant Barrett 10:26
It can. Every word has its own story and its own life. And it's, it's not one path, just like people. One thing that it's important about slang, and I always get asked this, I'm going to preempt this question case, it's on your list. What makes it worse fingered successful, because I think that's what's coming up into your mind is, the funny ones don't last. The ones that are jokey or cute, are hilarious. So that makes me giggle at first, they tend not to be the ones that have that lasts the longest, it's the ones that are a little more boring, and have more utility, the ones that fill a linguistic hole or a gap in the language, those are the ones that endure. And you might say, Well, why is that it's because the flashy ones burn out faster, they get borrowed more quickly, outside of the group that they were created by and for, and more easily abused, of course, by by the press and by advertising and show up in movies and, and, and and in the mouths of people that they don't belong to or it's clear, they're being co opted by script writers and CO opted by, by adults who don't really who are using for ironic irony or an order to make fun of the people that originally said them. So it's the nondescript terms that lasts the longest. And so if I were to say, modify your question within say, what is the pathway of a slang term that last? That's what I would say, the ones that are just a little more? A little more, less visible at first, you know, the kind of sneak up on you. And I think rose actually was one of those kind of, and I think it actually is already burnt out, or is nearly burnt out. It did not last very
Nick VinZant 12:16
long. Like how long are they usually around for? Well, there
Grant Barrett 12:20
is no time on that. But what we can do is look at the typical adoption curve. And this is something that you will see used again and again in marketing and sales classes, just Google adoption curve and go to Google Images or wherever, and you will see this hump, and it will show you the early adopters and the late adopters in the middle and it is exactly the same more or less for most slang, where you have the early adopters and the late adopters, and most people in the middle. I think the biggest discrepancy here is those people who are convinced at the early adopters, but are actually late adopters. And that's where a lot of this hate and disgruntlement about spying comes in if these people who, particularly who have platforms like newsletters or newspapers or radio, the people who consider themselves in touch with language, and realize as they encounter a new language, they absolutely are not in touch with language and they resent it. And the arrival of new slang that they didn't know about proves every single day. And it comes out in this dismissal of the language of other people. And the other thing that happens with this dismissal of language other people it's a it's a proxy for other biases. And in this particular case, it's a it's a generational bias. It's an ageism, or elitism or classism, but it is sometimes it's racism and gender ism and sexism. But the it's a, this kind of dismissal of the language of other people is just a way to hide your biases and claim that there's something fundamentally wrong with that kind of language. But really what it is is about you as the speaker, having a bias against the people who use that language. Are
Nick VinZant 13:52
you ready for some harder slash listeners submitted questions? Is slang unique or special in English in any way?
Grant Barrett 14:00
No, every every language that I've ever studied has this kind of informal language that has this, this register to it. That kind of talks back to the formal language and buy talk back. I mean, in the sassy sense of talking back.
Nick VinZant 14:15
Is there discrimination over it? No, yes. I'm
Grant Barrett 14:18
100% Yeah, absolutely. Tons of bias against against slang, a partly because some people misunderstand what slang is something. It's all dirty words, all the four letter words all the naughty stuff. And that's not true. The naughty words as a matter of fact, many of them are not even slang. They're part of the standard dialect, part of standard English, the F word, the S word and so forth. Those are standard English. Those aren't slang. And people don't understand that. Because they're old. There's some of the oldest words in English. As a matter of fact, there
Nick VinZant 14:51
doesn't seem to be at least from my mind a lot of slang words for cuss words. Like no, you just use the cuss word.
Grant Barrett 14:57
Ah yeah. There are a lot of there. There are a lot of words for fornicating. And there are a lot of words for caca. Yeah, that's true. A lot of words, a lot of words for derriere. And as a matter of fact, the night that my wife and I became a couple we were at a bar with a bunch of people, linguist lexicographers, as matter of fact, coming up with synonyms for the word but for derriere. So that's an important moment in my life. It
Nick VinZant 15:22
Can you trace any of the words back to like one person.
Grant Barrett 15:27
Occasionally we can you're talking about etymology, like it's it's rare though. Most of the fun stories you know about word origins are either invented or unverifiable, but yeah, occasionally, yeah. Particularly the eponyms which are words that are named after a person there's the
Nick VinZant 15:43
the there's a slang word, usually go through different iterations before it hits mainstream. Yeah,
Grant Barrett 15:50
often because their slang is often orally transmitted first, kind of like a, you know, kind of like mono. So it goes person to person without ever reaching paper and oral transmission is really weak transmission. It just is not effective. It, it loses a lot. It's like the telephone game, if you've ever played that, yeah, yeah, yeah, a party where that doesn't take very many people before it loses some of its value becomes saturated, or sorry, D saturated, it loses a lot of detail, bleached of meaning, and, and value. So yeah, once it reaches paper and says to be a little more established than the mean, and becomes more firm and more fixed,
Nick VinZant 16:31
can you think I know is putting in your spot a little bit? Can you think of an example off the top of your head that kind of speaks to that?
Grant Barrett 16:38
Yeah, actually, a really good example of one that I find kind of irritating, I do get irritated about language sometimes is the low down and the low down. So in some parts of the society, people think that to be on the lowdown only means that you're gay on the side that you're in the closet, particularly in the African American community. But for but it long has only a long has meant to be anything on the on the side to be hiding who you really are to be like, say a criminal on the low down or have another family on the low down. But some people swear up and down that it only means that you're gay. On the side without you know that you have a gay lover on the side without your family knowing. So it's one of those things where the meeting even now still isn't fully settled. And people just can't accept that there might be more than one meaning.
Nick VinZant 17:28
Are there words though slang words that would say okay, it's in this group, it means this in this group, it means something completely Yes.
Grant Barrett 17:35
To be out of pocket. So let me ask you, Nick, what does out of pocket I mean to you?
Nick VinZant 17:44
Two things. In the business world, it means that you're not going to be able to like respond quickly to emails and questions and things like that. And then to be out of pocket pocket more. And like, I don't know, the social world, we mean, I think of it as being not knowing what's going on.
Grant Barrett 18:02
Yeah, there's, there's three. So there's the best in a sense, which means to be unavailable. But there's another business sense, which means you might be paying for things out of pocket. And then when you get back to the office, you will reconcile with your receipts and stuff. And those are related. But the second sense that you were talking about is usually more defined as to be wild and unmanageable. And this comes from African American English. And that is the sense that most white Americans don't know or they're surprised to hear.
Nick VinZant 18:31
Are there areas of the country? Where might you know, we have an international audience, but primarily in the United States? What are there areas of the country that you would say, Oh, they have the most, they have the most unique slang or they use the most slang versus places that like, that's not really a slang place.
Grant Barrett 18:49
Oh, no, everyone's got their thing. The question is, which variety has been mostly lifted up as ordinary. And by that, I mean, we. Every culture promotes one of its dialects as the prestige dialect. And in our country, we have promoted at least more recently, this kind of what we call standard American which is more or less generic Midwestern dialect kind of the news newzik newscaster dialect as the standard American prestige dialect and if you have this dialect, you're considered average and normal. It wasn't always the case. It used to be this East Coast dialect that sound a little bit more like a Boston Brahmin or a New Yorker with this almost Mid Atlantic pronunciation of the RS kind of a almost snotty kind of Harvard Yalie kind of sound. That that changed at some point. So let me ask you when you drive down the road and you see a VW bug with one headlight, what do you do you say something?
Nick VinZant 19:54
I immediately think slug bug.
Grant Barrett 19:57
You don't say you don't say punch bug or put No, no
Nick VinZant 20:01
slug bug. Okay, so buggy but slug bug is the one that I go with? Yeah.
Grant Barrett 20:06
What do you what do you call those little crustaceans that appear in ditches and creeks that make these little mud holes?
Nick VinZant 20:12
crawdads?
Grant Barrett 20:14
Not crayfish mud bog. Oh, so there's all these different dialects. So we may be one country, we may most of us speak English and all of us spend the dollar. But we are not a monolithic country that speaks one language and we have never been, then there's never been one English. So I guess what I'm getting at to answer your original question is, everybody has really interesting language and really extreme slang. And there's no one place that does it. All it takes is a little bit of field work. I can ask anybody in this country who's lived here for a while, a handful of questions, and we will pretty soon get to something interesting. What do you call it when you give another kid a ride on your handlebars?
Nick VinZant 20:55
Oh, I don't I don't even have a word for it. Some people call it pumping. That doesn't make any sense to me. That's fine.
Grant Barrett 21:02
That's it doesn't have to make sense to you make sense to them.
Nick VinZant 21:05
I wouldn't have realized that there is kind of a unique local slang for every day.
Grant Barrett 21:10
Let me ask you this, Nick, when you were in school, and another kid got in trouble in classroom, in the classroom, and he had to go to the office. And the teacher sent this kid to the office. Was there a noise that everyone in the classroom made together? Like? Yeah, yeah, do the noise for me. When part of the country they go all or, um,
Nick VinZant 21:40
why is that? Just that's just how that happened.
Grant Barrett 21:43
I don't know. But it's in the southwest and up through the Rocky Mountains and actually in part of Vermont strangely. So this is what I'm saying. It doesn't take very long when you start talking to people about stuff that goes far beyond Coke versus pop and pops versus soda. It goes far beyond that, before you get to the bottom of this stuff. And you start to realize, okay, we could be here all day talking about this stuff.
Nick VinZant 22:06
slang word that took you the longest to figure out what it meant. Yeah,
Grant Barrett 22:10
this isn't slang so much as dialect. It's a phrase called to who laid the rail, T O space W H O space, LD space, our AI L. And basically what it means. So like, I would say, Nikolay PATA who laid the rail, I don't have a clue. It just means you did it with a lot of force. You just did it with all your energy and all your mind.
Nick VinZant 22:38
Now I kind of get it.
Grant Barrett 22:41
But I was like, I must have worked hours and hours on that and to dig in the historical record for ages and ages. It just still it's like a strangest construction, though, as to who laid the rail? Is
Nick VinZant 22:55
slang though usually shortened firm form, or does not always, always say it? Well,
Grant Barrett 23:01
yeah, it's a misunderstanding of language to think that humans always seek the shortest form they don't. They absolutely do not. At the same time, we're shortening things, we're often lengthening it. It's, we do not necessarily seek the seek the short form, we're not looking for efficiency. We're looking for clarity. And clarity sometimes requires a longer form.
Nick VinZant 23:21
Is there a pattern to Jin Z slang? Is there a pattern at all to the current slang that we have? All
Grant Barrett 23:27
of their stuff seems to be about taking the surface that they've been given and make it work. And by that, I mean, the surface being all these commercial tools. They've been given all these commercial systems, they've been given all this commerce that is plastered around them. They take it as given and then try to subvert it. Within its own parameters, they accept the framework. And so I think some of their languages about that as well. They accept the framework of the language they're given. So sure, there's a ton of tick tock slang, tons of it, but it's all within the framework of tick tock. It doesn't really leave tick tock.
Nick VinZant 24:11
It's very specific to the thing that they Yeah,
Grant Barrett 24:13
yeah, it's specific to that university of TiC tock failed tomorrow, that language would go poof, it doesn't have much residue outside tick tock. It's um, it's walled gardens. Were all ELA all it's gonna take us for one storm for that, that garden to go poof, and it will have left nothing, no impact upon the language as a whole. Almost none.
Nick VinZant 24:38
Can you think of a word that would be like a good example of that? No.
Grant Barrett 24:42
I mean, I used girl dinner which actually did come up on Tik Tok and did escape but I think it was because I feel like the words that do escape are plucked from tick tock rather than escaped. Tick tock, if that makes sense. It's like people who monitor tick tock for language see stuff and talk about it as a tick tock phenomenon. It's not that it accidentally leaves tick tock and shows up in the outside world, people go, Whoa, where did this come from? And it turns out it was from tick tock. I don't know, I might be too cynical on this. But I just it's in contrast to the way it was when I was coming up. That's all. I'm not saying our way was better. But I just there's less of the DIY. Do it yourself, break the systems and then make new ones they are accept accepting the systems, and then trying to make it work their way? It's different.
Nick VinZant 25:33
Let's do the easy ones. Right? What is your personal favorite slang word? I
Grant Barrett 25:37
don't know. I mean, what are you going to do with this answer when you get it? That's my question back at you. I
Nick VinZant 25:42
always find it fascinating to know what somebody who really knows about some things thinks is the best. Because to me, that's kind of like knowing like the inside track. Like Who do the people who play in the NFL really think is the best player, not the person that the media analysts push forward. So I always think of it as being like, what's the interesting? Like, what are the people who really know think?
Grant Barrett 26:08
All right. There's a term that's I don't know how slang it is. But there's a term that I came across in an old newspaper once that I'm fond of, and it's one politician called another one, a revolving bastard. Because he was the son of a bitch, no matter which way you looked at him.
Nick VinZant 26:28
That is good. That is good. There is something about the combination of certain words that just like oh, I know exactly. I've never heard that combination before. But I know what that person is like, Oh, yeah.
Grant Barrett 26:44
But it's also because the guy making the insult sets himself up for the punch line. Right? You can just see him deliciously rubbing himself up. So he, he's his own straight, man. And just.
Nick VinZant 26:57
Yeah, it's just, it's covered from every angle. Right? Is there one though, that luXy can ographers. And people such as yourself would say like, that's the best one of all time. That is the Michael Jordan LeBron. I
Grant Barrett 27:10
will say, I don't know about favorite. But the fact that cool, has lasted so long to mean great and good, does a remarkable thing. And even during this whole time, hot has undergone some transfer transformations, you know, hot has developed new meanings and other things, but cool to me, like, you know, he's a cool dude, that still exists, but it's still slinky. It's not really standard yet, if it ever will be. That's an amazing thing when somebody other words have burned out in the same amount of time.
Nick VinZant 27:44
Why hasn't why? Why is cool, stayed utility.
Grant Barrett 27:46
Absolute utility, again, utterly ordinary word but absolutely utility. That's what you need in a slang word anywhere it actually it just needs to be useful, and not altogether flashy.
Nick VinZant 27:59
Can you look at an age bracket and say, okay, by the time this word hits this age bracket, it's over.
Grant Barrett 28:08
No, it's not about age brackets. It's, I always say that, Oh, once it appears and an ad on the side of a bus, it's done.
Nick VinZant 28:15
It's done. Once I hear it in a commercial. It's done.
Grant Barrett 28:18
I remember when I saw bleen, literally on the side of a bus in New York City. I'm like, I got words over. That's yeah. Finished, shows up in Newsweek finished over gone.
Nick VinZant 28:30
Oh, what do you think is the next big one?
Grant Barrett 28:32
That's a fool's game. predicting anything in language is a fool's game.
Nick VinZant 28:37
That's pretty much all the questions that I have somebody wants to learn more. Where can they find you? Where can they catch the show that kind of stuff?
Grant Barrett 28:44
Yeah, the best place to find out more of the kind of stuff I was talking about the language things that I was sharing is to go to my radio show, it's called a way with words, you can find it on any podcast app and at our website at wayward radio.org. Or you can go to our website at Grant barrett.com to Rs two Ts or it'll take you there too. I have that domain. Also.
Nick VinZant 29:04
I want to thank grant so much for joining us. If you want to connect with him. We have a link to him on our social media sites. We're Profoundly Pointless on tick tock, Instagram and YouTube. And we've also included his information in the episode description. The way with words radio show and podcast is really interesting. So if this was an interview that you enjoyed, it's definitely worth checking out. And if you want to see some of the things that we talk about, the YouTube version of this interview will be live on May 23 at 12:30pm 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw, and get to the pointless part of this show. How quickly do you feel like you adopt new trends are you like, ahead of the curve behind the curve someone in the middle I
John Shull 30:00
mean, I think it all depends for me. The only trends I really seem to follow are either food based or entertainment based. So I'll give me like a C minus C, I'm average.
Nick VinZant 30:15
I don't really think that I adopt any clothing trends, or anything really besides like, Okay, I'm going to try this food. And I'm going to try this entertainment. Otherwise, it basically has to last until it's filtered out. Like I will buy clothing until you can't buy that style of clothing anymore. That does annoy me though, when something that I have liked, become so out of style that you can't even buy it anymore.
John Shull 30:40
Are you going to tell us what you wore to your rave this past weekend,
Nick VinZant 30:44
I wore pants and a shirt. My wife had to think about what she was going to wear to a concert because she hasn't been to a concert like a rave in a long time. But for men, it's much easier like pants and a shirt. And if it's hot outside shorts and a shirt, it's so much easier to be a man, it's so much easier to be a man.
John Shull 31:06
Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think if you're a man out there, and you're saying that it isn't. You obviously don't live with a woman. Maybe
Nick VinZant 31:14
it might be harder to be a really stylish man. Like maybe I could see it being harder to find really stylish clothes for men than it is for women. But I don't reach that level of style. So I guess I've never ran into that difficulty.
John Shull 31:30
Yeah, I'm not even close.
Nick VinZant 31:32
I don't even you want to tell the people.
John Shull 31:36
I mean, I prefer not to tell the whole story. But in 30 seconds, this past weekend, I was playing softball at a friend's birthday party, he rented out a softball diamond. And we were playing and I was pitching and someone had a pop up in the infield. And I went to go run after it to grab it. And I went to pivot and run off my you know, a pump with my right foot and or my right leg and felt the pop looked down and my calf was all disfigured. Can't really walk and um, you know, it's just I'm a bigger guy. So like using crutches I'm, I'm tired after
Nick VinZant 32:17
going down the hallway, I feel like that should have been improved by now. Like we should have moved beyond crutches. But the real reason I bring this up is not necessarily because I feel bad for you. But because a few weeks ago on this show, you hurt your back. And we had a conversation about how you needed to reestablish dominance, for lack of a better phrase that you appeared to be weak in front of your wife, and that you weren't setting a good tone for your wife or for your children. And now you have responded by tearing your calf muscle. So what are you going to do to show that you're still a capable man, that if somebody tries to break into the show household you can handle yourself, because right now, you're looking pretty soft. You're looking for a guy that if the woman went action calls, he's gonna hurt himself, and you're gonna have to end up taking care of him.
John Shull 33:06
One of the other ladies there, called my wife because I wasn't, I was too stubborn. I wasn't looking good. But without getting into a lot of details, but it was my kids come running over. My oldest daughter goes, Dad kind of cookies, like doesn't even ask me how I am. So that's how little respect they have for me. So I don't I don't know how I'm going to recover from this because according to the doctor, this is going to take a couple of months to heal fully. And then by that we're going to be in the end of summer already. Oh
Nick VinZant 33:38
my god, you can't even go down in your basement that you've been working on for the last six and a half years and you were so proud. Oh, now look at you surrounded by. That's your wife's domain, isn't it? Look at you. Well, rounded by knickknacks.
John Shull 33:51
And paddywax it will you know, the problem is with any muscle like this is I could ignore the doctors, right? I could go back to work. I could try to drive, but like it's just gonna keep returning. So like I have to keep my leg up. I have to like follow their orders or like it's never gonna get better.
Nick VinZant 34:10
You're gonna have to listen to somebody that's gonna be difficult.
John Shull 34:13
Yeah, so anyway, so I'm just a hot mess. I don't even know how to I don't even know. I just
Nick VinZant 34:18
How are you gonna recover in your children's eyes? What's your plan? Because right now your child is looking at you like, oh,
John Shull 34:24
yeah, like, look at this piece of shit. Yeah, I did. I don't know. I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to buy them off with amusement park in my backyard or something. You're gonna
Nick VinZant 34:34
have to I think what you should do is you should hire somebody to get in a fight with you and you're going to have to win the fight. You're going to have to hire somebody to like fight you in public, in front of your wife and daughters. And you're just going to have to like just destroy them while still injured. And then you can you regain your manhood because you've been challenged twice and it's
John Shull 35:05
I wasn't going to bring this up and I feel like I have to say that's one thing for you to feel sorry for me which you won't. So I think we've talked about on here before so I have a blood I have a blood disorder a minor blood disorder. It caught it caught, it doesn't I don't clot like normal people. I'm not a hemophiliac, which is like the worst kind you can have. But I, I have like, it's ugly sister, right? Anyways, so I get to the ER and that my leg is swollen up, I think I sent you the photo, it was like three, it's like three days, like
Nick VinZant 35:34
a legitimate if you've torn a muscle really bad. It's like that's a problem.
John Shull 35:38
And I'm not even joking around when I say this, but I was in and out of it. But I remember the doctor looking at me and my wife, and they're like, if we can't get the swelling down, and there's a lot of internal bleeding of it's going into like his thigh and you know, into his back and stuff. Like, we may have to consider amputation. Holy. Oh, now. Now, I don't know how serious they were. i He wasn't kidding. I know that. And it was the resident it wasn't like the actual MD or whatever. Yeah, it's still he's still you hear that shit? And I'm like, Well, I lose my fucking leg. Like, what? What is happening? That's
Nick VinZant 36:19
one of those things that like, It's surreal. Yeah,
John Shull 36:22
it's, you know, then I looked down on my leg and it's, I just have the, you know, my calf is just a, you know, whatever. An oval of blood. It's just yeah, anyways, long story short, two things, one, you know, love those around you that take care of you and to maybe maybe stick to you know, sports when you get old like us that don't require, you know, intense movements.
Nick VinZant 36:47
Listen, I've been saying this for a long time. Maybe I haven't said it to you. But I've been saying this to anybody. Listen, once you hit 30s Stretch your calves. Stretch your calves, you got to stretch your calves and you got to take care of your Achilles tendon because if you're a man, that stuff is gonna rip. It's a huge problem. Like I think it's way up there that a lot of people have Cavin until Achilles tendon injury. So stretch your calves. Man
John Shull 37:11
it was we don't we don't have to spend it. It doesn't need to be the John Shaw broke his leg podcast, but I can tell him in the doctor made like a pincer grip with his index and thumb and went up my Achilles. That's weird, too. That's a weird sensation. He's like, gab, your Achilles is intact. Yo, right. I'm like, you motherfucker, that hurts. But anyways, so,
Nick VinZant 37:34
you know, take care of yourself. So you gotta, you gotta hire somebody to fight. You have to hire somebody to fight. That's the only way that you're going to be able to redeem yourself. Can't be completely ridiculous. They've got to be three to four inches taller. You got to pay them off to fight you. Maybe one of our audience members would be interested in making some extra money. And they can pay them off. Oh, is that is that illegal? Is it illegal to like beat somebody up for money in order to regain your reputation? Is that illegal in some way?
John Shull 38:07
I mean, I guess if there's no, not true criminal charges, then who cares? To your money at that point? It's your decision.
Nick VinZant 38:16
Yeah, if I was a police officer, I guess when I showed up there, I'd be like this. Or the like the district attorney be like, I'm not prosecuting this. It's a waste of my time. Were you able to get anything done? While you were weeping? All weekend crying into your pillow at night? Did you get any shout outs Did you do your thing later, you're not gonna be able
John Shull 38:37
to work do that. We're gonna pass on the segment this week, just because Okay, okay, sitting here. You know, doesn't feel the greatest even with my leg up. But I'm not gonna leave the people out. They're the ones who mattered, not us. So of course, I pick the hardest names that I could find. But here we go. Nice. Nice. So Louis Ziraat J. Guillermo zamakona. Melissa home. Michael Haynes. Theo Charles. Michelangelo. Carbine don't hear a lot of Michelangelo's Michelangelo's
Nick VinZant 39:14
No, not a lot of cool names. full names are going out. You don't hear a lot of like, see a lot of mats you know see a lot of Matthews see a lot of the abbreviated versions of names. I'm an abbreviated name myself. Are you actually a Jonathan?
John Shull 39:29
I believe I am Yes.
Unknown Speaker 39:32
You don't know.
John Shull 39:35
There are two questions on my birth certificate that are questionable one is if a Madonna Jonathan, because if you have some people in my family I am if you ask some other people. I'm not on my birth on my birth certificate I am. And then also I don't have a suffix. But I have the same name as my father. Same exact name.
Nick VinZant 39:58
I feel like somebody just didn't fill out your birth certificate with a lot of time and effort. It's like it's another John.
John Shull 40:06
Definitely the second part, like I didn't even want this fucking kid, that's probably my father.
Nick VinZant 40:12
I actually to interject a story of my own into this regard, I actually had, like, because somebody, when my parents or when somebody did my taxes for the first time, like, and I don't mean it like that, like when I was too young, I was like 16 working and I do my own taxes or whatever. They misspelled my name. And so I'm forever in the IRS is system is a name that is not mine. It's a problem every single year. They put a space in my name. So my last name is VinZant. But it's all one word. They put a space in between it, which is not my name. So I'm actually in the IRS. A system is a name that is not my legal name. I mean, it's like, it's semantics are whatever the thing is, but still,
John Shull 40:55
when I was younger, and would travel with my father, we would always get hung up. Because we have the same name. And if they wanted to be dickheads they weren't they and they would be and made for some frustrating moments sometimes.
Nick VinZant 41:12
Like who wait, what, wait a minute, like who? Who's giving you trouble? Because your dad's name is John and your name is John.
John Shull 41:20
Like not even but it's the same name. Jonathan, Euclid Shoal. It's the same name. And they'd be like, why did why aren't you a junior? Why aren't you a senior?
Nick VinZant 41:31
Oh, why aren't you a junior a senior? You know,
John Shull 41:34
I'm just gonna say that there's a famous photo of my dad holding me in the hospital with a cigarette out of his mouth and a can of beer. Next to his side who celebrate,
Nick VinZant 41:46
he was celebrating the birth of his his baby boy, that's in
John Shull 41:51
the hospital. In the hospital. He was smoking and drinking. And that was barely 40 years ago.
Nick VinZant 41:58
Well, I think we've identified the source of the problem that your dad was smoking and drinking in the hospital and you're over there turning around in a corner and tearing your right calf off your leg. So clearly, he's a hard man and Mira soft and you're soft. Maybe you should start drinking and smoking in the hospital.
John Shull 42:14
Not gonna lie to you. He's he sent me some pretty funny text messages about it. My My father is not a forgiving man. All right, where was I? Serrano Williams, John Luke Barbin. Ivan Diaz, Ed James, in Jonas HealthVault.
Nick VinZant 42:37
All right, so let's go right into our top five. So our top five is top five slang words.
John Shull 42:42
My number five is lit.
Nick VinZant 42:46
Yeah, that's a good one. I feel like any of them that kind of make you laugh are going to be good ones. Like, oh, yeah, though. I like that one. Like rager I don't have it on my list. But like rager is a good one, too. I like it. Like, I like those.
John Shull 43:01
Yep. rager. Okay, so
Nick VinZant 43:04
just lit. My number five is Steezy, which is a combination of style and easy. And the first time that somebody has said that to me, and then I saw something like a snowboarding video, I was like, oh, that's what Steezy is it perfectly. I like Steezy because it perfectly encapsulates what you're looking at. Like, Oh, I get that. That's a great way to describe that.
John Shull 43:30
I can honestly say I've never even heard of that word before. So congratulations,
Nick VinZant 43:33
nears 100 Steezy what it doesn't make sense. But then once you see it, it will make sense. You're like, oh, that's exactly what that means. It's one of those words that it needed to exist. It summed up something very well. That's why I like Steezy.
John Shull 43:49
just immense. Gucci. Yeah.
Nick VinZant 43:58
But have you ever used that word? Have you ever actually used it?
John Shull 44:03
I have not. But somebody that I work with said it to me and said Hey, show you're so Gucci. And I didn't get the connotations till I had to look it up like a real old man.
Nick VinZant 44:16
Oh, yeah, we're not the kind of people that can use the word Gucci. No, no, like, we're just not cool enough to be like, That's Gucci. I could never say that.
John Shull 44:24
Yeah, we're, yeah, nope, not even close.
Nick VinZant 44:28
My number four is yeet the man yielded himself off the building. It doesn't mean is that it means like, you just went for it. Like I love yeet I think that's hilarious.
John Shull 44:41
I just don't even know what that means. Like, heat. There was a wrestler. He did like his tip. But what does that mean the Eat you're so yeet I'm going to eat. You're going to eat me together.
Nick VinZant 44:56
I see what you're using it in the wrong context, man. You got to understand And the slang before you can use the slang yeet is like going for it. Like I'm going to jump off this building into a pool. I'm going to eat myself off this building. You got to use it in its appropriate context. You can't just use it for everything.
John Shull 45:15
It's just not so dumb you.
Nick VinZant 45:18
It's amazing. I love it. I love it. Number three,
John Shull 45:22
flexing.
Nick VinZant 45:24
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I like flexing also, like swallow a lot. That's my number three is swore because it just makes me laugh every time I hear it, especially if somebody is described as a soulmate. It's like, oh, that's my soulmate over there. Like I just laugh every time somebody says swole.
John Shull 45:44
I mean, right now, I think I have the biggest right calf of anyone in Michigan. So do you want to be a soulmates? For? For one episode? We can be soulmates?
Nick VinZant 45:52
I mean, I'm going to try to do it through you know, the way that it's supposed to be through diet, exercise and performance enhancing drugs. Not through just tearing my Did you at least Did you catch the ball? Did you at least catch the ball?
John Shull 46:07
Oh, no, man, I did. Not to put myself anywhere near this category. But if you've ever seen it happen on like, from an actual athlete, where they're just like, I'm done, and they just walk off the field or run or like hobble, that's exactly what I did. As soon as it happened. I've felt that hurt. It looked down. And I just started hobbling my way to the sideline. I'm like, I'm, it's over like, yeah,
Nick VinZant 46:30
yeah, it's done. Did you did you? Did you shed a tear? Did you cry a little bit?
John Shull 46:38
Not that I remember. But I did pass out three times,
Nick VinZant 46:42
including passed out from it.
John Shull 46:46
I did, including a once in the emergency room triage. In which then it it cascaded into this whole thing to where there was like I passed out woke up there was like a team of eight people around me taken off my shirt and putting things on my chest and you know, my wife was there. The best part of that whole story was when I passed out in the triage I fell into her boobs, but I don't remember that so
Nick VinZant 47:14
man, how did you pass out like why would you pass out from that just the sheer pain
John Shull 47:21
Yeah, so I'm not smart enough to remember what this is called. But a video Vegas reaction or Savio Vega reaction or something? Visceral vago? Yeah, instant vague earlier. Yeah, Vincent Vega apparently like your body will, you know compensate for the extreme pain? And, you know, put you to sleep? Like
Nick VinZant 47:44
seems like a bad reflex. Right? Like I'm running from this dinosaur. Well, you wouldn't be running from dinosaurs. But I'm running from this lion and I hurt my leg. Well, let's have you pass out. Like that doesn't seem like it should. I don't think we thought I don't think the old brain thought that went all the way through. But I'm not a doctor. I'm sure number two
John Shull 48:06
did you did you say oh yes. Well, so what was your number three I swore. I feel like one and two are pretty similar for me. But my number two is cap.
Nick VinZant 48:18
Oh, for an ill for a number two.
John Shull 48:23
I've I was thinking about this list and cap is probably the healer. Yeah, it's probably the only one I still hear on a regular basis is cap
Nick VinZant 48:32
that's one though that even though is big and as popular it is I don't understand why exactly that makes sense. Like to me that teams it seems like too much of a stretch to get it to mean what it means like oh you Kappan like I don't quite I feel like that's pushing it too far like that. That's why my number one and number two are ones that I ultimately went with ones that I think have stood the test of time and probably are never going to go away like cap is going to go away RES is going to go away but my tie between dude and bro I don't think ever go away. My
John Shull 49:13
number one is bro
Nick VinZant 49:16
your number one is bro
John Shull 49:17
yeah
Nick VinZant 49:20
cool is my number one. Cool how cool is better?
John Shull 49:26
I don't even think of cool as a slang word anymore because I feel like it has just made its way into the vernacular and it's just a it's just a regular part of English language now
Nick VinZant 49:36
that's how dominant of a slang word it is though. But it's not that the reason that I would put it above bro. Is because bro is like at least derived from something like it's just short for brother. But cool is its own word. Even though I guess it does technically mean something else. But at the same time, nobody's going to get like everybody understands different reading cool to the touch and cool as in like that's cool. I don't think that one ever will go away I think cool is the dominant number one
John Shull 50:09
Yeah, I mean once it once again maybe I should add cool on the list. But to me it's just a word like eat right I don't understand eat. I don't get cap. I don't get bussen I don't get russon I'm going to drink some robot tussen but cool to me is a word. You know what I mean? Like cool is like bro like, Yes, brother is a word to me. But bro isn't you know, like, bro is just Hey, bro, what up, bro? You know,
Nick VinZant 50:34
I can kind of understand that. I would also want to think of pretty
John Shull 50:39
heavy painkillers. So I'm not making any sense. I apologize.
Nick VinZant 50:43
I think you did pretty well. I mean, not on the baseball diamond. Not in front of your van. Oh, you got your crutches in the back. Just to show everybody. Oh,
John Shull 50:53
they're right there. Oh, my God.
Nick VinZant 50:55
Look at you just just milking it. Milking while your wife is standing there ashamed.
John Shull 51:04
She is a champion shouldn't be ashamed. But you know, stretch. It's so weird. Well, you know, they're I don't even know what it's just it's all disappointing. So we should end this on a high note this this week's podcast? I don't know what what's the I know we can end it on.
Nick VinZant 51:21
turnt that's my honorable mention is turned. Turn. bougie. I don't know. bougie to me is like also as the same lines is cap. Well, I don't really understand what it means. Like I don't get it. I don't I don't quite get it. Do you have anything in your honorable mention that you want to mention before your other leg before you hurt yourself? And God, I'm calling down karma. I gotta weigh in the stairs after this. I better I better be careful.
John Shull 51:48
That's the worst part is I can't go into my basement at least for a little while. Well, I may try to venture down there at some point. But right now it's honest to God. I don't know how I get back up. Um, do
Nick VinZant 51:59
you stand out seemingly looking at your basement thinking about it. Just staring down the stairs like whoa, boom, you could go to my basement. I
John Shull 52:06
did like crutch over there today. And I'm like, it's only like 11 steps. And then no one would find me.
Nick VinZant 52:12
But oh, yeah. Nobody's gonna find your body. Yeah, um, my wife would. But nobody's gonna move here.
John Shull 52:21
My wife's on that stage already to where like, she's tired of taking care of me already. It's been a day and a half. I can just tell that she's like, suck it up you pussy. But yeah. Yeah, she wants to say that out loud. With your
Nick VinZant 52:35
bucks. 50 bucks lose a fight to John help him restore his manhood in marriage. Ah, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it. It really does help out the show. And let us know what you think are some of the best slang words. I think that there's better slang words than cool. But overall, like that, that that's the biggest slang word to me. Just just because it's endured so long. And when's that? Gonna get phased out?
Unknown Speaker 53:18
You