Yesterday I shared a scattering of current silly slang terms—today a few more of these. Check out this list:
High Key—this yet another fairly obvious variation on a familiar expression. We’ve often called someone who is quiet and doesn’t push themselves forward as ‘low key’—which started in 1803 as a term used in photography, then over time it spread more widely. ‘High key’ is just the opposite—but would anyone understand what you meant if you said ‘High key’?
HMU—this is one of those initialisms that were first invented in text messaging, and have now made their way into emails. It stands for ‘hit me up’ and it means ‘make contact with me.’ I have to say that none of these supposedly clever initialisms impress me!
IJBOL—and this is another one. It stands for ‘I just burst out laughing.’ Would you be able to work that out just from the initials? That makes it very silly. This is an update on the earlie initialism LOL—Laugh Out Loud. (I love the story of the grandma who put this in her emails to her grandchildren because she thought it stood for Lots Of Love!)
IYKYL—and yet another one! This one is ‘If You Know You Know.’ It’s supposed to refer to common knowledge or share knowledge. But it always strikes me as a challenge to anyone who is not in the charmed circle, who doesn’t know. Because IYKTK also implies IYDKYDK meaning ‘if you don’t know, you don’t know—and I can’t help you, so there!’
Ick—this one is not new, and it means what we have always meant when we said that something was ‘ick’. But, apparently, it is very fashionable just at the moment. The Merriam-Webster people say: ‘Ick has been used in print as an interjection to express disgust at something unpleasant or offensive since at least the mid-20th century, and likely has been used in speech for much longer. Use of ick or the ick as a noun has been credited to an episode of the television show Ally McBeal that aired in 1998 in which the title character tells her friend that “Since he’s my boss I don’t want to go out with him just to get hit with the ick.”
Jit—according to the experts at the Merriam-Webster this is the trendy way to call a kid a kid—you don’t call that youngster a ‘child’ or a ‘kid’ you call them a ‘jit’ instead. Really? Not only is this a silly bit of slang, it’s a totally unnecessary one. The Merriam-Webster people say: ‘Online use of jit dates back to the early 2000s, though the term, which originated in African American English (specifically, by many accounts, in Florida), is much older.’
And that’s quite enough silliness for the time being. Tomorrow back to real words!
Tonight I'll join Peta Credlin for 'Words Matter' on Sky News.
The current issue of The Spectator Australia in newsagents now has a cartoon of Nigel Farage (as the shark from 'Jaws') on the front cover -- and my language column in the back.
The latest edition of the podcast 'Words with Kel Richards' is now available (after a short delay). You can find it (with the dateline '19 March 2026() by scrolling down this page--or from wherever you get your podcasts.
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The latest issue of Australian Geographic is now at newsagents -- with a big beaked kookaburra on the front cover, and inside my two small columns on 'Ozwords' and 'Placenames.'
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* My latest book is Sherlock Holmes: 5-Minute Mysteries -- containing 50 new stories I have written about the great detective. You can find it on Amazon. Just go to Amazon and type in Sherlock Holmes: 5-Minute Mysteries in the search panel. Or use this link: h Amazon.com.au : Sherlock Holmes 5-Minute Mysteries Kel Richards
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BY THE WAY...
If you'd like to see my A-Z list of Aussie slang, you'll find it here in the Australian Geographic website -- A-Z list of Aussie slang. Here’s the link: The A-Z of Aussie slang - Australian Geographic
The liveliest part of this website is usually the Q and A page -- be sure to check it out from time to time.
