Excerpt: Slam Dunks and No-Brainers

[This is an excerpt from Leslie Savan's new book, Slam Dunks and No Brainers: Language in Your Life, the Media, Business, Politics, and Like, Whatever. Test your own pop language skills with this quiz constructed by Savan when you're finished with the excerpt.]

Here's the Deal

From the tough-guy kick ass to the airless opt, from the high-strung Hel-lo?! to the laidback hey, from the withering whatever to the triumphant Yesss!, an army of brave new words is occupying our social life with coast-to-coast attitude. The catchwords, phrases, inflections, and quickie concepts that Americans seem unable to communicate without have grown into a verbal kudzu, overlaying regional differences with a national (even an international) pop accent that tells us more about how we think than we think.

What makes a word a pop word? First of all, we're not talking mere clichés. Most pop phrases are indeed clichés -- that is, hackneyed or trite. But a pop phrase packs more rhetorical oomph and social punch than a conventional cliché. It's the difference, say, between It's as plain as the nose on your face and Duh, between old hat and so five minutes ago. Pop is the elite corps of clichés.

Nor is the pop vocabulary simply a collection of slang. Some pop phrases, like bling bling or fashionista, may technically be slang, or "nonstandard" and probably transient English. But most pop speech today is made up of perfectly ordinary and permanent words, like don't go there and hel-lo. It's how our tongues twist them that changes everything.

Here's my definition: Pop language is, most obviously, verbal expression that is widely popular and is part of popular culture. Beyond that, it's language that pops out of its surroundings; conveys more attitude than literal meaning; pulses with a sense of an invisible chorus speaking it, too; and, when properly inflected, pulls attention, and probably consensus, its way. (And if it does most of the above, it gives you a reward: a satisfying "pop.")

There have always been popular catchphrases, of course, and in the everyday jungle of small talk, they've always been used as verbal machetes, proven tools for cutting through confusion -- as well as for showing off, fitting in, dishing dirt, shutting someone up, flirting, and fighting. But today, as the media repeat and glamorize buzzphrases constantly, the ability to spout a catchy word or two has become a more highly valued skill -- a social equalizer, a sign that you, too, share the up-to-date American personality.

Or, to put that in pop: These phrases are our go-to guys -- whether flashing bling or singing "Ka-ching!," they get the job done.

And everybody has them working. Coming off a spate of fund-raisers in 2003, George W. Bush appeared on The Tonight Show and joked to Leno about the audience: "These folks didn't pay five grand apiece to get in here? I'm outta here!" As John Kerry took the controls of a helicopter on a campaign hop in Iowa, he shouted, "Rock 'n' roll!" And, of course, both men said (Bush of Iraqi insurgents, Kerry of Bush's attacks on his record), "Bring 'em on!" As it turns out, AARP-eligible presidential candidates are not so far removed, ideal-American-personality-wise, from babelicious Gen X actresses, like Cameron Diaz, who told Demi Moore in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, "Bring it on, bitch!"

Light, self-conscious, and theatrical, chockful of put-downs and exaggerated inflections, today's pop talk projects a personality that has mastered the simulation of conversation. It's a sort of air guitar for the lips, seeking not so much communication as a confirmation that ... hey, we're cool.

Human communication may seem to hold greater possibilities than that, but the first obligation of pop language is not to help us plumb life's mysteries but to establish that you recognize and can characterize any pre-characterized thing or situation. A famous person not looking up to par? Someone somewhere will say, "Bad hair day." A familiar name escapes you? I'm having a senior moment. Did you something dumb? "What was I thinking?" Producing the right phrase at the right time reassures us: I'm awake, it says. I connect.