Slayer Slang: A "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" Lexicon. The Demystification of Buffyisms
Written: Nov 12 '05 (Updated Feb 20 '06)
Product Rating:
Pros: Extremely interesting read, gives you tons of examples and references.
Cons: Might be too overwhelming for casual Buffy viewers.
The Bottom Line: Ever wanted to know what the characters were talking about on the television show? This might take a while to read but when you’re done, you’ll be a "Buffy-Speak" expert.
Freak369's Full Review: Michael Adams - Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire ...
When a friend suggested that I check out the book “Slayer Slang” I bust out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for Joss Whedon and all the stars of the television show but is there really a need to have a book dedicated to understanding the verbage? I can, most of the time, admit when I am wrong and in the case of this book, I was. It’s not just the definitions of some of the obscure words and terms used on the show but it really gets into the creation, evolution and original meanings of some of them. I went into reading this half heartedly expecting to flip through pages, pick out things that caught my eye and really not think of it as an educational read. I don’t think that I gained any I.Q. points from reading this but I did come away from it with a newfound respect for the amount of work that went into creating a Buffy language that would capture the essence of the era - not just her teen high school years but post high school as well.
Slayer Slang: A “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” Lexicon
The book is broken up into five major sections; each one of them taking you deeper and deeper into Buffyville. One of the biggest problems I had with this was trying to understand the formatting that was used to list some of the words. This happened when I hit the “Slayer Slang” section, a part that makes up about half of the book; this is why it is extremely important to read and understand all the parts of the “Guide To The Glossary” chapter that appears right before the Slayer Slang section. There are things like forms and etymologies, definitions, illustrative quotations, show references, page numbers when the word was taken from a book or graphic novel, cross references and bracketed initials of characters who said the word most often. To give you an example of what I am talking about here is a shorter one ...
AIMnessn Having access to AOL Instant Messenger
2000 Sep 1 The Bronze “I noticed elsewhere that you were bemoaning the lack of AIMness” [AOL Instant Messenger + -ness suff]
That is one of the shorter less complex ones that you will come across in this section of the book. But I really have to say that reading the first chapters of the book will prepare you for theheavier stuff that you will encounter. While it might seem like a waste when you are reading the earlier stuff, it will eliminate the need to have to flip back through pages trying to figure out what everything means. Some of the words that I found really interesting were ‘angsty’, ‘Scareapalozza’, ‘stammery’, ‘Destructo Girl’, ‘dateville’ and ‘hackery’. Some of the words like ‘hang’ and ‘Scooby Gang’ seem pretty straightforward until you hit them in this section - then you get these huge lists of references that show how much flexibility the words really have within the context of the show.
Chapter 2 delves into how the slang used on the show was created. Through a clever use of prefixes and suffixes they took seemingly ordinary words and give then a Buffy feel. You learn about words like Buffivor [Buffy + survivor], deadfill [dead + landfill], Buffinator [Buffy + Terminator] and my personal favorite, vampnap [vamp + kidnap]. This might not sound like it is all that complex but there is a lot of thought put into the words that were picked to work with. All of the information is backed up by the grammar squad [the team I dubbed “Grammar Gang”]; the pages are jam packed with examples of how common words are combined, streamlined and the use of prefixes and suffixes so it is pretty hard to not ‘get’ the concept unless you are like me and like to skip over these section. Just like the manual for programming my DVD player, sometimes I assume that I am above and beyond these types of primers - that usually results in me wasting a hell of a lot of time and eventually have to go back and re-read the skipped sections. Do yourself a favor and just read the freakin’ thing from start to finish.
The Word “Much”
I was really hoping that this book would shed some light on the use of the word much in the show. Having lived in Southern California it seemed like it was part of almost every conversation I was involved in or had to misfortune to overhear. “Pump much” was heard at the gym, “obsess much” was heard at the mall and of course, “droll much” which was a throw back to the cult classic film “Heathers”. Imagine my surprise when there was a whole section dedicated to this four letter word and it did reference the film “Heathers” and the term “God, Veronica, drool much?” It was really interesting to see how the omission of a single word in a sentence can take it from being a run of the mill question to something that’s ubercool [another Buffy word]. If you asked someone “Do you walk much?” it comes off like a rather plain sentence but if you phrase it as “Walk much?” it comes off a little snooty - like “Can’t you afford a car?”. You also get a very lengthy explanation of the FUDGE factor. This is something that you really have to read to understand [page 95 will take you right to it]
Frequence of use
Unobtrusiveness
Diversiy of users and situations
Generation of other forms and meanings
Endurance of the concept
This falls under the “Studying The Micro-Histories of Words” section, something that helps to shed light on the word “Buffy”, actuation of words, lexical gaps, loose idioms and how a single word can take on a variety of meanings when it is used in difference sentence structures. The use the word ‘wiggins’ as an example of how actuation plays a major role in how words on the show take on different meanings depending on how it is said as well as in what context it is being used. One thing that is a complete blessing is the index in the back of the book. Having this allows you to look up words or terms without having to hunt or search for them within the pages of the book. You’ll find such terms as unbudger, snoozey, driveyness, mootville, bezoar, buffkin and humanimal. The index also lists a plethora of characters, to me this was a huge help in getting some background information on some of the lesser known characters - point blank - the ones that I knew little about or weren’t sure where they appeared in the shows timeline.
The Bottom Line
If you go into reading this thinking that you are going to just get the basics of what the words mean then you are going to be in for a real shock. There is a good bit of information about the origins of words, what types of reference materials were used to gather words and how some of the terms that appeared on the show have become mainstream and commonplace terms in our everyday life. Until I read this book I never really stopped to think of all the unique Buffyisms that are used on the show, in the comics, books and graphic novels. I wouldn’t say that this is award winning grammar but it goes to show that even something as off beat as Buffy Speak can be highly enlightening. No doubt, fans of the show will love this book because it references a lot of the shows, places, characters and books. Casual viewers will benefit from the early chapters that provide you with background information as well as a step by step guide to understanding the terms. I got a lot from this book, a hell of a lot more than I expected .... if you ever wanted to learn more about slayer slang then this is the book for you!
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