Evolve or die... Verbing weirds language... No idea what slanging does, but it's interesting to ponder. Of course, some root words don't change for over a millennia or more even in English. Scary to read "Beowulf" in the original and recognize that fact.
Or not scary.
Great, I fell off my own train of thought.

I like that you mentioned the Gaels. People say Portu-GAL and don't realize they're remembering them. And that GAL-icians still speak a language today descended from them. Uruguay, where I grew up, is loaded with GAL-ician immigrants. For some reason, most of them work in public transportation, so as a kid their GAL-ician accents flavored every bus ride I took in Montevideo.

As to slang, TW. Dirty words follow here, ok?

TW

I get a kick out of how in Mexico Aztec words like escuincle are used for "kid," as in "that fuckin' escuincle broke the mirror" or "ese pinche escuincle rompió el espejo."

In the US, to have "balls' is to be brave. Same in Mexico, to have "cojones" is to have courage. But in the Uruguayan cattle raising culture I grew in, not so. Uruguayans call a fool a "boludo," male or female, ("boluda"). When someone is a drag, the effect they have on you is to make your "balls sad" ("bolas tristes"). Again, males and females both apply the term to themselves. And the bigger the drag, the more your "sad balls" sag, until you can't take it any more and they hit the floor, "tengo las bolas por el piso."

All of this comes from the tango slang of Montevideo and Buenos Aires known as "lunfardo." From Wikipedia:

"Lunfardo (from the Italian lumbardo or inhabitant of Lombardy in the local dialect) is a slang originated and developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the lower classes in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, the surrounding area Greater Buenos Aires,[1][2] and from there spread to other cities nearby, such as Rosario, places with similar socio-cultural situations.

Originally, Lunfardo was a slang used by criminals and soon by other people of the lower and lower-middle classes. Later, many of its words and phrases were introduced in the vernacular and disseminated the Spanish of Argentina, and Uruguay. Nevertheless, since the early 20th century, Lunfardo has spread among all social strata and classes by habitual use or because it was common in the lyrics of tango."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunfardo

Lunfardo is influenced by Italian slang known as "cocoliche" entering Montevideo and Buenos Aires. At that Wiki page there's a list of slang vocabulary words from my childhood that we used every day. Like "manyar" was "to eat," from the Italian "mangiar."

Lunfardo's not all just Italian, though. African words came in, too, like "quilombo - racket, ruckus, disorder, mess; also slang for brothel (from the Kimbundu word kilombo, a Maroon settlement)."

Which brings us back to the tango, because despite how "classy" it ended up looking on the dance floors of the US and France, it was born in the brothels, the "quilombos" of Montevideo and Buenos Aires. Whenever I go back to Montevideo, I stay in a hotel in the rather rough seafront neighborhood where the tango was born. "Candombe" music is played there a lot, too, and a block from my hotel there is a rehearsal space and a studio where they let the public in for free to watch musicians rehearse.

So I hope I haven't offended you too much. It's just that slang, dirty or clean, takes me back home to Uruguay.

Barf....haha

Hippy...I don't remember HOW my kids used the word...but it was strange...just really strange. (As in I think my son pointed to me in my sweat shirt and pants and said that I looked like a Hippy. Um, no, "slob" I'd go with. But I haven't seen beads since I last played dress up with my daughter when she was 4. And last I saw fringe, I'd gotten her a cowgirl costume.)

***muji, as my kids both work to learn Spanish, the insults are getting traded back and forth. My son actually used "buludo" against his sister this morning....I'll have to tell him the origins of the word (which will probably only increase the usage)....but don't worry, she'll get even***

i speak read and write what everybody refers to as english. bad english at that. However i have taught myself the art of communication! i live in the world of nuance and body tells and linguistic details. i am unable to retain other languages but i am very sensitive to what goes into communicating. slang is part of my favorite parts of any language.

i am always picking up on the stuff being said all around me. my vocabulary is peppered with terms from favorite tv shows and movies, college years in theatre and psych classes, my spiritual journey and so much more. my profanity list has all your basics along with "frell" from the show Farscape and "shite" which i think is british? "shiny" from Firefly makes it in there every now and then. back in theatre if you made an oops it was "Texture!." i've been in battles over if its "soda" or "pop" but of course everybody knows in texas knows when you order a coke you are ordering a Dr. Pepper LOL!

i used to get nagged (still do on occasion) cause of one thing i say- couple-uh-three. "just give me a couple-uh-three." hehehe

i better stop. language is just so much fun.

Speaking of old slang words, I was reminiscing with a friend the other day about old slang words and started to laugh at the "L-7" we used to call others in the late 60's. That and my flower power pants lol