What the Sigma?

“Your fit’s eating!” a young person, who looked to be about fifteen, cried when she saw her friend.

“Thanks, girly,” her friend answered. “But I just tripped on my shoelace in front of Chad.”

“What the sigma, bruh? You have negative aura.”

I had to ask my teen for a translation.

What the sigma, she told me, means “What the f*ck?”

(But “You’re so sigma,” she said, means “You’re awesome,” “You’re above average,” or “You’re above everyone else.”)

And sigma’s apparently sigma. It’s a versatile word a lot of kids like to use.

“You have negative aura” means you have negative coolness points. If you do good things, you have positive aura. If you do embarrassing things, you can have minus _____ [<== insert any number here] aura.

I wrote an article about teen slang during the lock-up that started in March of 2020.

One kid got sent home from a trip abroad, the other’s college closed down, and the third was attending on-line school (which was a complete joke. He hacked the system so it looked like he was in class and played video games for about six hours a day).

I was inspired to do my research because I couldn’t understand a word my kids were saying.

You can find that article here.

But the kid who explained to me what the words “sigma” and “aura” mean was only in fourth grade at the time.

And now that she’s in her first year of high school, all the slang has changed.

Mom, does my hair eat?

 “Mom, does my hair eat?” she asked, coming out of the bathroom.

I knew she was asking me if her hair looked good.  

I figured it out all by myself. I used context clues. She was proud.

“You ate” means “You did good,” or “You did awesome.”

It’s the same as “You slayed,” which is still in circulation, among the old geezers who are like 20 or 21 now.

Slaaaaaay is so yesterdaaaaay.

You ate and left no crumbs

And, my kid tells me, you can also say, “You ate and left no crumbs.”

If you try on a dress and look amazing, for instance, or someone says something mean and you make a really good comeback, you ate and left no crumbs.

And you can say rhetorically to your friends: “Why am I lowkey eating right now?” (the word “lowkey” is for emphasis.)

“I ate the bio test,” she said when she came home from school. The grin on her face said it all.

“Sick, bruh” I answered.

She rolled her eyes.

So “sigma” and “ate” and “slay” all mean good but “sigma” can also mean “f*ck.”

Clear as mud?

5 more slang words we the people geezers need to know

And then there’s:

1. Sold

If you’re playing doubles tennis and your partner hits an easy ball out, you say, “Bro, you sold,” or, “You sold the bag.” That means you messed up.

2. The tea

“Spill the tea!” or “What’s the tea?” or “Give me the tea.” All these expressions mean “Tell me the news, gossip, or drama.”

If you want your teen to come out of his room, tell him you’ve got some good tea.

He’ll know you aren’t offering him a cup of organic Earl Grey.

3. Mogged

As in “I mogged,” or “I mogged you.”

Mogged means “I’m way better than you,” “I beat you,” or “I’m better than you and everyone else.”

4. Rizz

My daughter and her friend picked me up from the airport last year and Vivian looked at my kid and said, “Your mom’s got rizz.”

I had no idea what she was saying. I’d had a long day of travel, though, and I thought she was insulting me.

It turns out she was giving me a compliment.

“Rizz” is short for charisma and my daughter’s friend was saying I could attract people.

She liked my outfit: jeans, a dark blue and pink Western-style blouse, and leather cowboy boots.

(An outfit is your “fit,” by the way. And a nice way to say you like what someone’s wearing is, “Your fit’s hard.” Of course, you can also say, “Your fit’s eating,” or “Your fit slays.”)

If you feel like you’ve got good game, you can compliment yourself by saying, “I am the rizzler.”

5. Gang

Gang (or gng) and chat don’t mean anything. They’re just for emphasis, pretending you’re talking to a group of people, whether you are or not.

“I don’t know gng,” means “I don’t know, bruh,” or “I don’t know, dude.”

Try going up to a bunch of teens and saying, “What’s up, chat?”

Then walk away before they have time to answer.

Chances all you’ll hear one of them saying to another, “Chat, was that rizz?”

And then there’s “gyatt”

I like odd numbers so I’m only giving you five new words to break your brain. But, like the French, American teens like to talk about their butts.

A new word for that is gyatt, which stands for, “girl, your ass is tthick.”

If you have “a gyatt,” it means you have a juicy booty.

If someone walking in front of you has a nice-looking derriere, you might say to a friend that “he’s got a gyatt,” or “gyatt damn.”

Your turn, gng. What’s your favorite slang? Quick, spill the tea!