AMERICAN SLANG: BAE, GOAT, AF

Welcome to the Summer of Slang,

where every video in July and August, we go over American slang terms and meanings.

Today we’re looking at slang that uses acronyms, like GOAT and BAE.

What do they mean?

How should you use them? Let’s find out.

In this video, we’re also going to talk about when it’s appropriate to use slang.

Hint: not all the time.

Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that I just released a new episode on my brand new podcast and it is also on slang.

Just like this video series.

The podcast is called the Rachel’s English podcast.

And there will be new podcasts once a week.

I’ll be covering all sorts of topics in learning English and spoken English.

Idioms, slang, questions from you guys.

So be sure to check it out.

So much good stuff there. Okay.

Back to slang.

An acronym is an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words.

So ‘bae’ comes from a phrase with three words that start with B, A, and E.

Before anyone else.

So this would be your boyfriend or girlfriend, your significant other.

David’s my bae.

But, what often happens with slang is a term will evolve.

And from what I understand, now anything can be bae. Like, ‘pizza is bae’.

Someone who really loves pizza might say that.

GOAT.

A phrase where we have a phrase with four words beginning with G, O, A, T.

This stands for greatest of all time.

The absolute best, the absolute best at something.

Of course the word ‘goat’, not in all caps is also an animal.

Unrelated meaning.

Unless you think a goat is the greatest animal of all time, then the meaning is related.

I said in my last video, a great way to get context for the meaning of slang is to go to Instagram.

Let’s do that.

3.3 million public posts.

Looks like most of them have to do with sports, doesn’t it?

This person says ‘2 GOATS’, greatest of all times.

We have Jay Z and Michael Jordan.

Here’s Michael Phelps.

Olympic swimmer.

Happy Birthday GOAT!

Greatest of all time.

And it looks like we even have some actual real goats.

And finally, AF.

Now, I need to be careful here because I don’t want to be marked as explicit for using this cuss word.

This stands for ‘as fff.’

F beginning a four-letter word which is probably the worst cuss word in American English, or at least one of them.

F consonant, UH as in BUTTER vowel,

and the ending K consonant.

So I’m not going to say it. You probably know it.

But you can add this to pretty much any phrase to show intensity.

An extreme amount.

I’m tired AF.

That means I’m sooo tired.

Now, even though you’re not saying the cuss word, you're just saying 'F',

it is slang that involves a cuss word. So be really careful about how you use it,

when you use it, where you use it.

I’m hungry AF!

Only use it around people you’re comfortable swearing around.

And actually, that takes me to an important point.

When is it appropriate to use slang in general?

I guess the main guide that I would use for this is:

only use it around people who are also using slang.

Let the people you’re talking with guide the appropriateness of that.

For example, I would say in general, it’s not a good idea to use slang in a work environment,

but maybe you work in a laid-back setting with lots of younger people and they use slang a lot in conversation.

Great, then you can feel free to use it.

Honestly, when you’re in a situation where other people are using slang,

that’s really where you’re going to get to know what current slang is,

what it means, and how to use it.

And if you don’t know what it means, don’t be afraid to ask.

It’s not just because you’re a non-native speaker.

It’s because it’s slang, and lots of native speakers also don’t know what certain terms mean.

Let’s go over the pronunciations.

So we have bae, goat, and AF.

What’s interesting is, bae and goat,

we say both of those as words.

But AF, we say the letters out loud.

When you’re saying a sequence of letters, it’s always the last letter that gets stressed.

So it’s a-F. Fff-- Not A-f.

a-F. da-DA.

Stress pattern: da-DA. Second syllable stress.

Bae: simple pronunciation.

B and the AY diphthong.

But I’ve been teaching English long enough to know that a lot of people have problems with the AY diphthong.

It’s really common to say beh- or bey instead.

Eh, ey.

Both of those are vowel sounds. But we need a diphthong:

a changing sound with two positions.

Bae--

So drop your jaw: bae-- then bring it up. Bae.

Bae.

You’re my bae.

Goat: We have another diphthong.

Two positions: jaw drop and lip rounding.

Oh, oh, oh. Goat.

Goaat.

Now, the ending T pronunciation can be a True T, goat,

or a Stop T, goat.

Goat, goat, goat.

Make up a sentence with one of these slang terms and put it in the comments.

Fun! And if you want to see other videos I’ve made on slang,

learn even more terms, check out this slang playlist.

If you want to see my absolute most recent video, click here.

If you’re new and you want to know more about what kinds of English lessons I do, then click here.

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