But First, Let Me Take A Selfie

Every generation has their own set of popular words and phrases. Each of them seeming absolutely ridiculous to the next and previous generations. I'm an early Millennial, and we said/say things like "Duh!" or "Whateveerrr!", and looking back at movies and TV shows that I watched as a kid, I realize, now, just how ridiculous I sounded saying those things. 

But the younger group of my generation is taking it to a whole new level and I find it particularly amusing. This new lingo of theirs is quite possibly the worst of them all. At least when I was saying trendy things as a tween or teen, though they may not have been complete sentences, at least they were complete words.

When did shortening words like crazy to "cray cray", totally to "toats", and adorable to "adorbs" become a thing? I don't think these kids know how uneducated they sound when they speak this way. The  Sprint commercials, featuring screen legends James Earl Jones and Malcolm Mcdowell, are a hilariously perfect example of this bizarre word amputating fad. If you haven't seen them you are missing out. Seriously. Lizzy and Kim's call is, by far, the best.

I was talking to my friend Melissa the other day, and she told me about this song called #Selfie by The Chainsmokers. Yes, the hashtag is a part of the title. While the beat behind the absurdity is pretty freaking awesome, the spoken lyrics, if you can even call them that, are hilarious to me and I applaud The Chainsmokers for this epic mockery of the late Millennials. 

One word in particular started a conversation about the weird things kids are saying now and we weren't quite sure what it meant. I've seen it used by my younger family members a couple of times now while browsing Facebook, but WTF does "Ratchet" it mean? They couldn't be talking about the wrench-like tool my dad uses to work on his truck, so I turned to my trusty friend, Google, to enlighten me. The first entry on Urban Dictionary is fantastic, but really long (Read that here). The entries a bit farther down, however, gave a more concise definition.

Here are numbers eight and nine.

8. Ratchet 

A word that people use to call something "ghetto" or the equivalent of "ghetto". 

The irony lies in that 95% of the time, a "ghetto" person is using the word. 

Example: 

Person 1: She so ratchet gurl.
Person 2: Oh the irony.

9. Ratchet 

a tasteless, classless individual (most often a female) who does vile and off color things on a frequent basis while still maintaining diva status in her own mind. 

Example:
Context: In the workplace 

Girl One: "I was waxing my butthole."
Girl Two: "Damn! Didn't that burn?"
Supervisor: "Ya'll are ratchet! Get back to work!"

I'm not entirely sure when the meaning shifted to this, but no one told me about it. I guess I'm not as up with the trends as I thought. When did I get old and out of touch?