Word Buzz Friday

The English language is constantly inventing new words and phrases. Some of them make sense and some of them are ridiculous. Urban dictionary tries to keep up with the thousands of new words and slang being created every year.

Some of their words for this week are:

Yellular: The loudness one adopts in response to a bad cell-phone connection, in the misguided hope that talking louder will improve the connection. "I'm so embarrassed. I went totally yellular at a restaurant last night." Laundry Limbo: Intentionally rewashing clothing simply because you don't feel like putting it away "I had a shirt I knew was clean, but I was too lazy to hang it up so I just kept it in laundry limbo"

I'm guilty of both of those! How about you?

Then, do you remember my post on calling women chicks? We found this from the comic strip Pearls Before Swine.

Is calling women "chicks" derogatory?

I was talking to a friend online who is several years younger than me and I met, coincidentally, in a gym class. He was telling me about all of his great plans to meet "chicks", score with "chicks", watch "chicks" dance, and play beer pong with "chicks". After a couple of minutes of reading his non-stop stream of IMs, I interrupted and asked him if he though he would get more "chicks" by calling them something a little more female friendly. "Like what?" He asked.

That got me thinking that I had a student in Chile (who had a very cushy job in a big bank) who would always refer to women as "chicks" as well. On many occasions, I was tempted to correct him, but he was just so earnest about it and I found his misinformation sort of cute and I just couldn't correct him.

So, I pose the question, is it derogatory to call a grown woman a "chick" if you are a college sophomore? How about a Chilean businessman learning English?