“The young always have the same problem – how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.”―
T E E N A G E U N D E R A G E M E R R Y M A K E R S
A few weeks ago partner Susan and myself challenged readers on our alternate website, WEEKLY PROMPTS, to invent the type of verbal expressions that teens today might ascribe to. The Saturday Challenge was INVENT SLANG.
It also offered everyone the opportunity to tap into their own teenage past and create expressions that might covertly describe the way you feel about things and life in general. These could be personal expressions that at times only you will be able to decipher and understand.
Slang is the informal teenage language that is more popular in speaking than in writing. It is the new way of speaking of the young that has been quite a trend for a few decades. It consists of a vocabulary often times unknown to the elders. This is where it gets descriptively disgusting.
I had problems with this challenge until I stumbled upon one that befuddled even me. The phrase used was “BOOT AND RALLY“. A real head scratcher. I stumbled across this term in a book I am currently reading.
The term means to “Party until you puke” and then after vomiting get back into the thick of things. The vomitorium is descriptively suggestive of the way in which Romans used to engorge themselves with food and drink, go outside and stick an ostrich feather down their throats, vomit freely and then rejoin the festivities.
Actually a vomitorium was a passage situated below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheater or a stadium, through which big crowds can exit rapidly at the end of a performance. They can also be pathways for actors to enter and leave stage. The Latin word vomitorium, plural vomitoria, derives from the verb vomō, vomere, “to spew forth”.
In ancient Roman architecture, vomitoria were designed to provide rapid egress for large crowds at amphitheaters and stadia, as they do in modern sports stadia and large theatres and not necessarily a place where you go to expunge your food.
In Vietnam, the vomitorium — in this case, a sink designed to be puked into — is a staple in supersized beer clubs popping up all across Ho Chi Minh City. The vomitorium, most often located in a bathroom, is clearly marked with signs illustrating the sink’s usage, as well as unmistakable instructions like “game over.”
In case you didn’t notice the photo at the top of the article is the band “Emphatic” .
For now I will boogie on out of here and let you enjoy the day. 🙂
Take care. Be safe.
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