Local Slang

[Minibit]

Whether it's a modern day city or a medieval castle or a steampunk inventor's shop, most places that maintain a steady population long enough develop a bit of their own vernacular. For example, a street may have an official name, but locals probably have something else they call it. Food and drink, locations, practices, and events, can all develop their own unofficial names according to local flavour.

Your task here is very open-book and simple; create a slang term for something and explain the origin of this slang; I'll start with some examples to get you started:

Slang: To plant a flag
Meaning (if applicable): to get something stuck to the point of being unrecoverable
Origin: The mayor at the time, stuck the national flag into a pit on the nation's holiday to commemorate the day, but he wedged it in so hard that it couldn't be got out without cutting the flagpole, so they decided to leave it there.

Slang: The Ghost Locker
Meaning (if applicable): N/A, it refers to a location
Origin: a string of missing persons cases was solved when several bodies turned up in a storage locker; the corpses had been there a long time and had decomposed considerably; they were dumped in without ceremony and the killer committed suicide before he could be arrested. Legend says the ghosts still haunt that area, seeking vengeance for their untimely demises.

Slang: Trucker's Route
Meaning (if applicable): to take the most straight or direct route without stopping; to leave by the most direct route.
Origin: used in a town where the economy is supported largely by freight services based there. Most of the deliveries are to and from surrounding cities and townships, and so the drivers typically drive straight onto the appropriate highway and get going.

Slang:
Meaning (if applicable):
Origin:

 

[Lady B]

This one is from one of my recently started RP's:

Slang: Crossing the wall
Meaning: To accomplish something seemingly impossible
Origin: The term comes from a legend about a wall which states that whoever manages to cross it will be granted a miracle. However, what it means to cross this wall is unkown, as simply walking past it doesn't generate any response, and trying to climb over or break through it results in the wall hitting back. Many people have tried crossing it, yet none of them have succeeded. As a result, people have given up on trying to cross the wall, deeming it impossible. Nowadays, whenever someone accomplishes something extremely difficult or almost impossible, others will say that they manages to 'cross the wall'.

 

[Sheridan]

Slang: Plucking A Feather

Meaning: Doing something that is painful as a like plucking hairs or biting fingers. Usually a nervous habit.

Origin: It originated when the lesser known avian race the Cloud Racers were discovered by the more common races and were a new race, most likely a subspecies of the Sky Lights and the new race was nervous and skittish, plucking their feathers in nervousness or fear.

 

[ze_kraken]

Slang: Gibson - n.

1) Someone who tells the future; a psychic.

2) (Net) Unexplained phenomena in the Net. (Syn. "Ghost in the Machine".)

Origin: William Gibson was first credited with creating the cyberpunk world as we view it today. As the world came closer and closer to his vision, it became a sort of joke or pun that someone who predicts the future or has an unexplained quirk to it would be called a Gibson.


Slang: Bakebrain - n.

General purpose derogatory term indicating someone with limited or damage mental faculties (frequently due to excessive use of neural cyberware.) (Syn. asshole, idiot, jerk, moron.)

Origin: The original line of MRAM chips (memory-storage chips for skills not naturally learned) had a nasty side effect of burning other parts of the brain to compensate for newly acquired knowledge. Later autopsies gave way to the 'Bakebrain' generation; everyone had bought an MRAM chip for something. It goes without saying that MRAMs aren't made anymore, but the name stuck for the avalanche of rip-offs that replaced it.


Slang: Chinese Take-out - ph.

Anything extremely jumbled or messy. (e.g."That riotgun made his chest look like Chinese take-out.").

Origin: Asian culture, being the most prominent, created a major influx of terms, this was just one of them that caught on among criminals and murder investigators.

 

[Thomas McTavish]

Slang: Smokestack
Meaning (if applicable): Derogatory term refering to someone addicted to smoking
Origin: The term refers to how smokers puff smoke from their mouths, and it trails away, like smoke from a smokestack.

Slang: Woodheart
Meaning (if applicable): Term to refer to someone who spends a lot of time in nature
Origin: People who spend a lot of time in the woods sometimes say that their heart "lies with the woods," and so are called "woodhearts" or "woodhearted"