Off the Hezie with an Eargasm: Slang Dictionary Is So Obama

This year's book marks its 20th anniversary

By SCOTT WEBER

Updated 9:27 AM PDT, Fri, Sep 25, 2009

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If you still use "dude" or "cool" in a sentence, you’re yesterday’s news. Time to update and grab a copy of the latest UCLA Slang Dictionary. It’s off the hezzie.

With more than 1,000 entries, "U.C.L.A. Slang 6" has words that are a full-on eargasm. Produced every four years since 1989 in conjunction with an undergraduate linguistics course, the dictionary has become an UCLA institution.

Consider a few of these gems:

Blaze: To smoke marijuana.
Bromance: Extremely close platonic friendship between two males.
Epic fail: What a mistake! What a failure! Oops!
Fro-yo: Frozen yogurt.
Man crush: Guy that a guy believes he'd have a crush on if he was a girl or gay.
Biznatch: to meddle in your business
Sister from another mister: Very close female friend who resembles a close sibling in feeling
Skrilla: Money
Schwa: Wow
Destroy: Do well
Obama: cool or rad
Walk of shame: Walk back home after spending the night with a guy.

This year's book marks its 20th anniversary. The 160-page volume comes complete with terms, definitions, parts of speech, sample sentences, usage notes and the etymology of words. The reference provides a glimpse into how language evolves and aims to serve "as the latest word on slang used on the Westwood campus," according to the UC Newsroom.

Thanks to the entertainment industry, slang spreads far beyond its roots.

"Slang seems to originate on the West Coast and move east because of Hollywood and the recording industry," said Pamela Munro, the dictionary's founding editor and a UCLA professor of linguistics.

"So 'U.C.L.A. Slang' tends to be a harbinger of slang that already is -- or soon will be -- spoken across the country," she said in a UC news article.

If you just can’t bring yourself out of the ‘rad’ 1980’s, don’t QQ (cry). Munro assures us cool is still part of the dictionary.