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Just how ‘trill’ are you? Take this millennial slang quiz

We asked some Baby Boomers and millennials to guess the meanings of slang from their generations.
We asked some Baby Boomers and millennials to guess the meanings of slang from their generations.

You know what’s hype?

Millennial slang is hype. It’s also pretty fire. Actually, scratch that. It’s straight fire, and, if we’re being totally honest, it’s probably a little turnt, too.

America’s least favorite generation might not be much for keeping jobs or securing their own housing, but when it comes to developing and cultivating popular slang terminology, it’s hard to argue that millennials aren’t on fleek.

Thanks to the power of the Internet and the ability through social media to share things instantly, these young, tech-savvy goofballs have ushered in what could very well be the golden age of slang. Spend a day with a millennial and it's impossible not to be struck by the curious things coming out of their mouths (or, more often, their texting fingers). If they’re not Netflix-and-chilling or making fun of olds, they’re getting lit or being super sus. (Assuming, of course, that they’re not too busy being salty.)

“The desire to be trendy, the desire to be with it, that’s not new — that has always been a part of slang,” explains Connie Eble, professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of the 1996 book “Slang and Sociability: In-Group Language Among College Students.”

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“The accessibility is what’s new. Now, it’s so easy to find out what [words are] new and what’s trendy.”

But what about you, Mr. or Ms. Non-Millennial (and if you’re still getting your news from a lame-o newspaper — instead of BuzzFeed or Tinder — then you are almost certainly not a millennial)?

How do you fit into this new linguistic world? How much have you picked up — and how many of these new phrases have you managed to inject into your daily conversations? Are you woke, for instance, or simply thirsty? Are you a bae or a basic? And while we’re on the subject, how are your squad goals coming along, anyway?

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To find out, we’ve devised a helpful quiz aimed at answering those very questions. Your performance over the next five minutes will go a long way in determining just how proficient you are in millennial-speak — or, to put it more aptly, just how “fr” (for real) you are as a person.


Dugan Arnett can be reached at dugan.arnett@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @duganarnett.