Slang is defined as an informal nonstandard vocabulary composed typically of coinages, arbitrarily changed words, and extravagant, forced, or facetious figures of speech, according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary.

In other words, slang can be “a dope spin on a sick word that deserves props for being mad fly, yo.”

And yet, in the age of Twitter and instant messaging, it feels like today’s slang has lost some of its flair. Most of it is boiled down to quick-hit acronyms and shortened terms. Totes (totally), TTYL (Talk to You Later), ridonk (ridiculous)—fun, sure, but while it’s clever to be the force behind “LOL” (laughing out loud), it’s an entirely different level to create a whole dialect ending with “-izzle.” (Thank you, Snoop Dogg.)

Coining original jargon that’s able to catch on with the masses is a feat not just accomplished through popular and hip-hop culture. There are a slew of phrases that have become so commonplace, it’s easy to forget that they’re inherently slang. Here’s a look at some of these words, new and old, that have had an impact on our vernacular.

Dude
So popular it hardly seems like slang, Merriam-Webster defines “dude” as a city dweller unfamiliar with life on the range, an Easterner in the West, and a fellow or guy—sometimes used informally as a term of address. This jargon dates back to the 1880s, according to an article in the New York Times. The article, itself dating back to 1900, states, “Considering the number of German immigrants into the United States, we naturally suspect it to have been suggested by some German dialect. It can hardly be other than an abbreviated form of duden-pop, a blockhead, a common term of depreciation in many parts.”

Bling-Bling
Initially, it was little more than a written sound effect that reflected a shine. But the term was later born out of the hip-hop culture to represent garish jewelry worn in the late 1990s. Members of the Louisiana-based Cash Money Millionaires, a group of rappers from the same label known as Cash Money Records, were among the first to use the phrase in their music. Rapper B.G. used “bling-bling” in a song title as did Lil’ Wayne in the song “Millionaire Dream.” Lil’ Wayne also recorded with Cash Money Records. Since its acceptance, the term has arguably peaked in popularity. I mean, when Mitt Romney starts using “bling-bling,” it reeks of overexposure.

Yo
The phrase was made popular as a sailor’s or huntsman’s call circa 1420, according to Dictionary.com. It gained popularity during World War II as a common response at roll calls. Today, however, it’s more likely you’ll hear it in the following examples: “Yo, what’s up for tonight?” or “Yo, just do your homework, yo!” Ah, the beauty of versatile slang.

Hipster
Currently referring to a lifestyle usually defined by skinny jeans, ironic T-shirts, and some sort of artsy or nomadic background, the term itself actually sprang out of the 1940s in reference to those into the jazz scene. Nowadays you’d likely find hipsters hanging out in coffee shops feigning aloofness (especially in places like the Mission District in San Francisco, Silver Lake, California, and/or Brooklyn), though it wouldn’t be so surprising to find them in a jazz club either, for the cool factor and all.

Gnarly
Sean Penn’s “Jeff Spicoli” said it best in the 1980s classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High, bringing the term originally stemming from the word “gnarl”—meaning contorted or twisted—from the confines of surfer culture into the mainstream of pop culture. Its slang version now refers to something that’s cool or lame, depending on the user’s preference. The online etymology dictionary dates “gnarl” back to 1814, stating that the 19th century romantic poets picked it up and brought it into currency.

Geek
Another popular term derived from German, the slang version refers to an enthusiast or expert, particularly in a technological field or activity, according to Merriam-Webster, but it has since expanded to everyone from your comic book aficionado to that over-informed music lover. It originated in 1914, deriving its etymology from the English dialect geek, geck (fool) and “geck,” from Middle Low German. Of course, seeking the origin of such a word is, in fact, pretty geeky in itself, which is why it had to make the list!

Phat
Back in the 1990s, this slang phrase was all the rage as a way to point out something or someone who was “pretty hot and tempting.” Its origin is not entirely clear, though the online etymology dictionary says the hip-hop acronym used to express “great” or “excellent” goes back to the late 1980s, initially meaning “sexiness in a woman.” The spelling is attested as far back as 1678, as an erroneous form of fat (a classical over-correction). While it’s fallen out of favor in the new millennium, you might find yourself hearing it thrown around these days for kitsch sake, like “rad” or “fly.”

Groovy
In its heyday, “groovy” was the word. If it was cool, it was groovy. If it was fun, it was groovy. If it was excellent, it was groovy. Its popularity soared during the 1960s, only to lose its groove by the 1980s. Merriam-Webster’s dates it back to the 1930s. Supposedly, it came out of the Jazz culture where the word was used to describe the groove of the music.

Cheesy
Yes, the base of the word itself is derived from everyone’s favorite dairy product (sans you lactose-intolerant kids), but it refers to something that’s trite, cliché, or of poor quality. Example: “That romantic comedy was so cheesy; I saw the ending coming a mile away.” Its etymology stems from the Urdu word chiz, meaning “a thing.” By 1818, the British in India picked it up and used it in the sense of “a big thing,” according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. By 1858, cheesy had evolved a slang meaning of “showy,” which led to the modern, ironic sense.

Schlock
It’s not just the hip-hop culture we tend to borrow from when it comes to our slang. There are lots of slang words that are little more than twists on Yiddish terms, and that includes schlock. Spelled “shlak” (meaning evil or nuisance) in American Yiddish, we have come to know it as meaning “of low quality.” Merriam-Webster dates it to 1916, but you’ll likely hear it these days when someone is referencing a B-movie or the latest by Quentin Tarantino, who actually strives to put schlock into his work for that cult classic effect.

Cracking into the cultural zeitgeist with the right slang word isn’t always easy, but when it hits, it can explode, as evidenced above. And if and when the sun finally sets on a favorite phrase, you can be sure there’s bound to be another “dawg” or “jiggy” right around the corner.

Several U.S. groups, including consumer watchdog Public Citizen and Vermont-based Democracy for America, have called for a BP boycott. And social networking sites are becoming a place where consumers can speak out against the situation or join groups advocating for boycotts and other causes, the report stated.

“People are posting their anger and frustration on their own personal newsfeeds,” Karen North, director of the Annenberg Online Communities program at the University of Southern California, said in the report. “But in terms of people coming together as part of a collective effort, if it’s there, I haven’t seen that much of it. And that might be because people aren’t sure what the right bandwagon is to join.”

Seize BP, a campaign urging the U.S. government to seize BP’s assets and redistribute them to those damaged by the spill, is planning a week of demonstrations in all 50 states at gas stations and BP offices, according to the Reuters report. The campaign is gaining ground on Facebook, where at least five groups with a total of more than 8,000 members were advocating this cause as of Thursday.

A spoof Twitter feed, BPGlobalPR, meanwhile, purports to be the oil company’s online persona. The satirical feed has more than 114,000 followers, compared to the official BP_America feed, which had less than 10,000 on Thursday, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, the unrest over the failed cleanup efforts is hitting the convenience store industry. Philipsburg, Pa.-based Snappy’s Convenience Stores decided to debrand three of its BP-branded stations in Bald Eagle, Philipsburg and State College, and switch to an unbranded banner, the Altoona Mirror reported.

“We are debranding BP. We will no longer be associated with BP by the end of the month. We are doing this because of the backlash and bad publicity from the handling of BP’s catastrophe,” Sean Lay, vice president of operations, said in the report. “We don’t want to be associated with them any more. We’ve had enough.”

The chain has noticed a slight drop in business at the locations that sell BP products, he said.

“We want people to know we don’t own BP. We want to make sure we are politically correct, and that is why we are separating ourselves from BP,” Lay added. “We want to focus on the positive things we have done over the past 15 years.”

And Snappy’s is not the only fuel retailer to feel the heat.

“We are starting to see some impact so far, and a percent of decline or two can have a dramatic impact,” Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the independent New Jersey-based Oil Price Information Service, said in the Reuters report. “Unfortunately, it has an impact on what you might say are the victims: the marketers and the dealers that made commitments to fly the BP flag.”

He noted that historically, energy boycotts have had minimal impact on the parent companies’ revenues.

In other BP news, a group of BP gas station and convenience store owners in Massachusetts are dealing with two blows to their business — high prices and consumer fallout due to the spill — and are considering filing a lawsuit, the Patriot-Ledger reported.

Station owner Maurice Succar noticed fewer drivers pulling into his location before the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“I’ve been running the station 15 years. I can’t last anymore,” Succar said in the report, noting his station pumped half its usual volume last month.

The root of the problem stems from the fuel’s price per gallon, according to the report. The retailers are required to sell the company’s fuel at prices too high to be competitive, Warren Kirshenbaum, an attorney hired to represent the station owners, told the newspaper.

Fifty to 75 Getty, Lukoil and BP stations have partnered and they have instructed Kirshenbaum to file a lawsuit. The attorney blames BP’s local fuel distributor, Green Valley Oil, for setting prices that average 10 cents to 15 cents per gallon higher than what competitors are charging, the report stated.

“I think they’re trying to manipulate the market,” Kirshenbaum said in the report.

Green Valley, a limited-liability company located in Providence, R.I., reached a deal with BP Products North America Inc. to convert 235 Getty stations in New England into BP stations, with Green Valley paying a commission to stations that sell its fuel. Succar’s station, though, has seen its commission payments plummet along with its sales volume, according to the report.

In a letter to Green Valley, Kirshenbaum accused the company and its partners of “price manipulation” and said Green Valley was “protecting its own revenues” by requiring set monthly lease payments based on “pre-contractual volume estimates.”

In a May 12 response, Green Valley denied that it had manipulated prices. In the letter, Green Valley attorney Gary W. Smith stressed that gasoline prices are constantly in flux and vary from company to company.

“Contrary to the suggestion in your letter, Green Valley has no incentive to limit the sale of its gasoline at the retail level,” Smith wrote in the letter cited by the paper. “As a distributor, Green Valley is in the business of selling gasoline and it has every incentive to sell more gasoline.”

In Massachusetts, the price of unleaded regular gas averaged $2.76 per gallon, according to a survey by AAA Southern New England that was cited by the Ledger. Succar’s BP station was charging $2.85 for regular last week, while down the street, a competitor was selling a gallon for 11 cents less.

“If they say $2.85 and I put $2.84, I have to pay that other penny from my own pocket,” Succar said in the report.

His station usually sells 140,000 to 170,000 gallons of gas a month, but in May, it sold only 78,000 gallons, he told the paper.

Two Green Vally executives, Edward J. Janoski Jr. of Sandwich and Joel A. Despres of Providence, did not return phone calls to the paper. Smith declined to comment as well.

Now that McCrary is the proud owner of the site, http://www.bluffcitypd.com, the Gray, Tenn., computer network designer has been using it to post links about speed cameras – like the one on U.S. Highway 11E that caught him – and how people don’t like them.

“It’s kind of surprising that they’d just let it lapse like that,” McCrary said, adding that the new site has logged 1,200 unique visitors since he took it over May 22. “I figured they would be aware [it was about to expire] and renew it on their own.”

Domain names – such as the one for the Bristol Herald Courier’s website, http://www.tricities.com – serve as an easy-to-remember substitute for the numerical Internet Protocol addresses that direct people to specific locations (or websites) on the infinite landscape of cyberspace.

Domain names are bought and sold on a subscription basis through hundreds of website hosting companies, such as Go Daddy, which according to a company spokesperson currently manages more than 41 million domains including “www.bluffcitypd.com.”

When someone buys a domain name they can do whatever they want with it for the year that it’s registered to them. They can sell it, use it to keep someone from making a website, or use it to host a site that makes fun of or attacks a company with that name.

But at the end of that year-long registration period, the web hosting company regains control over the domain name and has the option of cancelling it and effectively taking down the customer’s website or selling the domain to someone else.

Go Daddy Domain Services Director Camille Ede said her company tries to avoid either option by sending its customers an e-mail letting them know about the domain’s status 90 days before its expiration date, 60 days before the expiration, 30 days before, 15 days and again five days before the expiration date.

Once the expiration date arrives, Ede said in an e-mail she sent the Herald Courier on Friday, the company replaces the website’s content with a special warning notice letting the site’s visitors know the domain has expired and will be deleted or sold in 42 days.

McCrary saw this notice when he had some questions about a letter he received in the mail letting him know he had to pay $90 because he was caught driving 56 mph through the 45 mph zone that Bluff City’s speed camera has actively patrolled since Jan. 1.

The camera issued 1,662 citations for speeding during its first six weeks on the job, according to an investigation conducted by Herald Courier staff. It issued another 541 citations from March 19-22 when fans for the Food City 500 were in town.

Each one of the citations comes with a $90 speeding ticket that Bluff City splits with American Traffic Solutions, the Scottsdale, Ariz., company that operates the speed camera and dozens of others like it across the country.

“I was going to give [the police department] a call and noticed their domain was about to expire,” said McCrary, who sat back and waited until the 42-day window was over. “As soon as it expired I went ahead and bought it.”

While McCrary was pondering his purchase – something that cost $80 because he signed up for a few services Go Daddy offers along with its domain registration service – the web hosting company made two final attempts to reach the police department.

In accordance with its policy, Ede said, Go Daddy sends its customers an e-mail five days after a domain name expires and 12 days after a domain name expires, bringing the total number of e-mails a customer receives to seven – five before the expiration and two after.

“With more than 8 million customers worldwide,” Ede said in her e-mail, “Go Daddy must rely on its customers to take an active role in monitoring their account information.”

During a Friday interview, Bluff City Police Chief David Nelson admitted that he did not play the “active role” that Ede recommends her customers take when it comes to monitoring their websites.

“It just slipped my mind,” Nelson said, adding that he knows little about computers and the more technical aspects of running a website. “If you open up a website and let it go down, somebody can buy it – I did not know that.”

Because he’s not that familiar with computers, Nelson said, he let one of his officers manage the site and handle its domain registration. That officer, he said, has been out on medical leave, after he came down with a bad illness a few months ago.

“It’s just one of those things that happen,” Nelson said, adding that he turned the matter over to the town’s manager and attorney to see if there was anything they could do with it.

So far, McCrary said, he hasn’t heard anything from either town official about taking over the website. However, he has heard from a lot of people who have run across his new site and have e-mailed him their thoughts about it or the stories he links to.

“Most of the people think it’s a speed trap,” McCary said of the feed back he’s received from the website, something he admitted took him only 15 minutes to put together on a Saturday afternoon. “In my opinion, it looks like this camera thing will come to an end.”

As for Nelson, the police chief is now at the point, two weeks after losing his website, where he can laugh about the situation. He said he has learned his lesson.

The police department is now working with different company to host its website, Nelson said, adding that this company won’t sell the new domain name to someone else.

“We’ll have more control over [our new website] than we did with Go Daddy,” he said. “And this one will be a lot better,” than the one the police department had before.

The ads have already been removed from Apple’s site, and have been replaced by the company’s “Why you’ll love a Mac” promos. The “I’m a Mac” campaign launched in 2006, and has been one of the company’s most successful marketing efforts (at least when it comes to raising its brand recognition). Last month, Justin Long signaled the end when he told an interviewer: “You know, I think they might be done. In fact, I heard from John, I think they’re going to move on.”

Fortunately, nothing really disappears on the internets, so go ahead and get your Hodg on with this collection of the ads:

That’s because they’re concerned not only about privacy and protecting their online identities, but also because Facebook is attempting profit from their personal data.

They’re worried that, while users playing the popular Facebook game Farmville, just to name one example, marketers are plowing through their profiles looking for ways to milk user identities.

Loved Avatar? Listen to K’naan? Like to cook? Planning a vacation?

Facebook apparently is ready to market that information.

“Facebook does things with my data that they wouldn’t do with me as a physical person and I think that’s a very dangerous road to go down,’’ says Toronto design strategist Matthew Milan, co-founder of QuitFacebookDay.com.

QuitFacebookDay.com went online May 12 and, as of late yesterday afternoon, had attracted some 11,200 committed quitters. Facebook itself has about 500 million users.

Tech sites such as Gizmodo, Mashable and Wired — not to mention the Columbia Journalism Review — have all chimed in on the privacy complaints in recent days.

“People get hurt,’’ explains web technologist Joe Dee, Milan’s partner in QuitFaceBookDay.com. “It’s one of those things that you don’t think about until somebody near you gets really burned — until you get one of these stories that your friend got fired, or a relationship got destroyed or somebody has been stalked, or one of these worst-case scenarios — you won’t understand the implications of sharing that much.’’

To avoid their data being mined, users have to click as many as 170 buttons to change Facebook’s latest default settings.

Even then, not everything can be hidden. For example, your group memberships are visible to those you “friend.’’ So, if you support a political cause that might create trouble at the office, you are exposed.

What’s more, at nearly 6,000 words, not counting links, Facebook’s privacy policy is complex.

The debate over the site’s policies heated up in the last month after Facebook changed its settings — again — while automatically sharing users’ personal information with third parties.

Which would explain why “delete Facebook’’ and “quit Facebook’’ are trending this week on Google.

At the same time, tools such as ReclaimPrivacy.org have sprung up to analyze user accounts for privacy problems. On Wednesday, Firefox announced a new app that automatically restores user privacy settings.

Coincidentally — or not — Facebook announced on Tuesday that it will change its privacy settings to make them “simplistic.’’

“This should be compared to almost any other company out there where there are no privacy settings at all,’’ said head of public policy Tim Sparapani in a radio interview. “So Facebook should be getting credit here for giving tools in the first place.”

But, notes Dee, perhaps the pressure is getting to them: “Maybe it’s the message we are sending to them that, coming and unlocking everyone’s door to their home while they’re sleeping isn’t really a nice thing to do.”

If you visit certain sites while logged in to Facebook, an app for those sites will be quietly added to your Facebook profile. You don’t have to have a Facebook window open, you don’t need to signed in to these sites for the apps to appear, and there doesn’t appear to be an option to opt-out anywhere in Facebook’s byzantine privacy settings.

These apps appear to be related to Facebook’s sharing tools. The sites currently leaving this trail all have Facebook Connect integration, and the list includes heavyweights such as the Gawker network of blogs, the Washington Post, TechCrunch, CNET, New York Magazine, and formspring.me.

It isn’t entirely clear what information these apps are pulling from user profiles or feeding back to Facebook. They don’t show up automatically on profile pages, but if you go to an application’s profile page, you can see a list of your friends who also have that app installed, essentially getting a unintentional peek at their browsing habits. On the other side there are sites like the Washington Post’s, which has a Facebook Network News box showing a list of your friends who have recently shared a Washington Post article on Facebook.

How to block the apps

Opting out of Instant Personalization does not stop these apps from appearing. Unfortunately, removing these kinds of applications requires more vigilance than just un-checking a box.

To see a list of your current Facebook applications, click Account in the top right corner of Facebook, then select Application Settings from the drop down menu. If you click on the Edit Settings link for one of the new applications, you’ll always see one tab called Additional Permissions that has a box that’s unchecked by default. Checking it will give that application permission to “Publish recent activity (one line stories) to [your] wall.” Sometimes there is a second tab with an option to add a bookmark for that link to your wall. And a few apps also have a Profile tab where you can add a Tab to your profile for that site and pick its privacy level.

Clicking the X to delete an application will temporarily remove it from your applications list, but it will just be re-added as you return to that site. One work-around is to always log out of Facebook before surfing the Web. Another is to block each application after they appear. In order to permanently block an application, you have to click on the Profile link for that application, then click Block Application.

What Facebook intended

There is some evidence of how Facebook’s newly rolled-out Open Graph API are supposed to be used for cross posting comments and reviews on Facebook and external sites. For example, if you are logged in to a site like PCWorld or Macworld using Facebook Connect and you leave a comment on an article, you’ll see a pop-up message asking if you’d like to publish the comment as a story to your wall. If you click Publish, the comment will show up in your friend’s news feeds. They can choose to block all stories from that site.

It’s already been a rough week for Facebook and privacy. Recent issues have revealed a disorganized and buggy platform, and raised concerns about Facebook’s ability to responsibly store and manage users’ private information. Hopefully this latest issue is just another bug and not a new way of operating for the social networking site.

Facebook’s response

After this story was published, Facebook spokesperson David Swain contacted us and confirmed that the appearance of unauthorized apps was a bug:

“In this case, there was a bug that was showing applications on a user’s Application Settings page that the user hadn’t authorized. No information was shared with those applications and the user’s list of applications was not shown to anyone but the user. This bug has been fixed.”

It does appear that unauthorized apps are no longer being added to users’ pages, however any unwanted applications that were previously added will still need to be removed manually.

Step 1:
Cut the doweling down to 3ft (you can leave it at 4ft if you want but we found the kids had a hard time with this size so we shortened it)


Step 2:
Make a couple of cuts to your PVC. For a 3ft sword you want 1 28-inch piece, 1 8-inch piece and 2 3-inch pieces

Step 3:
With the 28-inch piece, place an end cap on one end and a 4-way on the other.

Slide the dowel into this piece

Step 4:
Place an end cap on the 8-inch piece and slide over the dowel connecting it to the 4-way piece

Do the same for the 3 inch pieces

Step 5:
Measure off your pipe insulation to just a few inches over the length of the word. For this we went with 30 inches.

Take off the end cap and slide the pipe insulation on. You don’t want to cut the insulation and put it on because you want to compact it on the pipe. Slide all the insulation on and compact it so that you have enough room on the tip of the sward to place the end cap on. Then make a small slit on the insulation and pull it up over the end cap.

Step 6:
Take a 2×2 square of duct tape and cover the ends

Step 7:
Beginning at the tip of the sword, run a line of duct tape around it, then run a spiral down the length of the sword

Follow this for all points of the sword. At the base of the sword you can get creative and glue a jewel or put stickers on it. As a final touch, run a straight line of duct tape from the base, around the tip, and back down the other side. This will give the blade a straighter look.

Step 8:
Using black electrical tape on the handle, run it in a spiral motion just like you did for the blade.

Now you have a foam sword that is durable but still safe to play with. The dowel inside the PVC offers enough strength to keep the pipe from bending too much and breaking. With the dowel being slightly smaller it also creates a nice “cracking” sound when you strike something.

Total cost of the project: $11 for two swords (not including the tape)

Mike Steadman paid $44 for a “working” time clock for his small Cape Canaveral welding business in November 2008, but it didn’t work — and now he’s out $7,000 for legal fees and still facing a $15,000 defamation lawsuit from seller Elliot Miller, an attorney living in a $3 million dollar waterfront home on Miami Beach, WFTV reported.

Perhaps he should have purchased a stone and a slingshot.

“I made the mistake of leaving my honest opinion online,” Steadman told Florida Today of checking “negative” in the feedback section eBay asks all buyers to complete at the end of a transaction. “The comments are there to let other buyers know who they’re dealing with. [But] because I don’t have the money to fight them, I’m losing. It’s not right. I’m speechless.”

Steadman says when he received the clock, it didn’t run, stamp time cards, or work with the accompanying set of keys as advertised. “When I opened the box it was in 3 pieces [from three separate models] that didn’t even fit.”

Miller refused to grant a refund, so Steadman filed a complaint with PayPal’s buyer protection plan and eventually got his $44 back. But the bad taste lingered.

“Bad seller,” he wrote in an effort to warn other buyers about EMiller1313. “He has the ethics of a used car salesman.”

Unfortunately for Steadman, Miller is juuuuust a tad uptight about feedback. He filed a lawsuit in Miami-Dade court last February, claiming that the single comment lowered his perfect 100 percent positive feedback rate to just 98.6% — thereby “seriously harming” his “commercial reputation.”

Seriously seriously? Apparently so: Miller wants $15,000 in damages from Steadman, whose lawyer quit last week when funds from a second mortgage on his house ran out.

We hereby suggest the buyer who left Miller’s only other negative comment — “Seller suggested we unload obviously broke unit on another unspecting buyer” — start dodging anyone who could possibly be a process server.