[Ads-l] "slay" (adj.)

[Jesse Sheidlower]

This has been particularly big on TikTok for a while, often in very clearly adjectival uses, like "he is so slay". I think the biggest vector for the broad use of the term was Beyoncé's 2016 song "Formation," which uses it very frequently, usually as a verb:

  I did not come to play with you hoes, haha
  I came to slay, bitch....

  Sometimes I go off (I go off), I go hard (I go hard)
  Get what's mine (Take what's mine), I'm a star (I'm a star)
  'Cause I slay (Slay), I slay (Hey), I slay (Okay), I slay (Okay)
  All day (Okay), I slay (Okay), I slay (Okay), I slay (Okay)
  We gon' slay (Slay), gon' slay (Okay), we slay (Okay), I slay (Okay)

(and many other examples)

I've seen this use attributed to the 1990 film _Paris is Burning_ (which did, in fact, introduce a number of Black/LGBT terms to a wider audience), but it's not actually used in the film. (At least, I don't remember its being used, and I can't now find it in a transcript; I or the transcript could be wrong.)

As an adjective, I think predicative use is more common than attributive examples like "slay era", but that's just my sense. I also hear it as an interjection, meaning 'cool!' or 'awesome!'.

Jesse Sheidlower

On Tue, Oct 31, 2023 at 11:36:42AM -0400, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> See also "slay era," often contrasted with "flop era," e.g.:
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/14/business/whats-the-point-of-your-20s-ask-the-patron-saint-of-striving-youth.html
> "Sometimes you’ve got to be in your flop era," Ms. Flowers replied.
> "Because a slay era doesn’t mean anything if there is no flop era."
> She added, encouragingly: "Your slay era is right around the corner, baby
> girl."
> 
> https://vhtsp.com/7957/opinion/how-to-be-a-girlboss-a-step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-enter-your-slay-era/
> https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/kmarts-slay-era-continues-with-stunning-18-corset-super-flattering-012806397.html
> etc.
> 
> I wrote about "eras" (but didn't have room for "slay era") in my WSJ column
> recently:
> https://on.wsj.com/3S6zDKD
> 
> One might argue that "slay" in "slay era" is attributive, while it's more
> clearly adjectival in "a chill and slay weekend."
> 
> --bgz
> 
> On Tue, Oct 31, 2023 at 11:08 AM Nancy Friedman <wordworking at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > From the novelist Elif Batuman's Substack, reporting from the Columbia
> > campus:
> >
> > >> ...I will just mention that last week one of them sent in a workshop
> > submission with a note wishing the class “a chill and slay weekend.” I
> > hadn’t encountered this use of “slay,” and was filled with admiration for
> > our evolving language. A few days later, another person sent a draft where
> > one character says, of a boy she has a crush on: “I want to slay
> > Albert”—and this further complicated my understanding of the meaning/s of
> > “slay” which I confidently expect to expand in weeks to come! <<
> >
> > https://open.substack.com/pub/eliflife/p/another-day-another-slay
> >
> >
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org