Language Investigation 2

Among friends, there is certain language that one becomes accustomed to within that group. When you are with these people, the words and phrases you use with them sound natural and everyone knows what you are talking about. However, if you were to use that same language around someone not involved within your circle of friends, it may not make sense and the words that may come so naturally and make perfect sense to you become a barrier between you and your other audience. I will tell you about some of the words and phrases that I use amongst my group of friends, however, even some of these become further exclusive based on the hobbies or skills of certain friends.
For example, amongst my snowboarding friends, words such as chill, switch, sketch, and kicker come up. Not the most exclusive words, but for people who never snowboard or ski, they might to sound familiar at all. Chill simply means relaxed, and can be used anytime to describe a relaxed situation. Switch simply means that you are riding with the opposite foot forward as you are used to and can be used anytime to describe when this is happening. Sketch is short for sketchy and can mean when something is dangerous or risky. Kicker typically just means a jump, and can be used to describe really any jump that sends you into the air.
Amongst my gaming friends, there is another set of words and phrases exclusive to the group. Some such words are pwn and newb. Pwn is a word that means to destroy or dominate an opponent in a game and can be used anytime such an act occurs. Newb means someone who is new to a game or is not very good at the game, and can be used to describe any such person.
As far as my athletic friends who lift weights often go, words such as set and bulking up are popular. Set simply means a session doing a certain lift in a row. It can be used to describe any straight session of lifting weights. Bulking up means gaining muscle tone. It can be used anytime you are working out specifically to gain muscle.
Another set of friends where terminology is somewhat exclusive is amongst my drinking friends. Words such as wasted, shotgun, and pong come up often. Wasted refers to when one has had too much to drink and is acting foolish or passes out. Anyone who is intoxicated and doing something they wouldn’t normally do could be considered wasted. Shotgun is an act in which one punctures a hole into the bottom of beer can and then places that to their mouth as they pop the top and quickly drink a beer with the added help of gravity. Shotgun is a verb and can be used to describe such an activity. Pong is simply short for beer pong, a popular drinking game that is more formally called Beirut. The word can be used to describe the game, for example, “Let’s play pong,” or, “I have next game of pong.”
Another set of friends I have in which language can seem exclusive is amongst my friends who are very music involved. Some of them may even be described as emo, just one of the words that could be considered exclusive. Other words you might hear with them are mainstream or mosh. Emo refers to a certain kind of music popular for emotional lyrics, but has come to known as a stereotypical group consisting of tight jeans and hair covering their faces. Mainstream just means music that is popular amongst most people and therefore typically disliked by my music obsessed friends. Mosh just means to charge and run into a lot of people at a concert.
All of these words and phrases are perhaps not the most exclusive and probably sound like common language to many of us who are involved in many different social circles, but to someone who is distant from a certain group or has no experience within the world of another group, these words may just sound like jibberish. For example, grandparents might not know what many of these terms mean, so while they may not be exclusive to everyone, particularly youth, they still remain exclusive enough to use caution when using them, because sooner or later, someone will not know what you are talking about.