Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Word To My Bugalugs

Word To My Bugalugs

It’s amazing how some words can be turned around and mean something totally different than their intended use.
I have a friend named Adrienne, who I went to high school with. She has lived in Australia for over 20 years. Adrienne and I keep in contact through Facebook, an Internet social networking site. One day, on there, she asked me if I had kept up with a classmate whom she referred to as “bugalug.” She explained to me that “bugalug” was an Australian term of endearment. Curious, I decided to look up the term on Google. My search led me to the Urban Dictionary, which I discovered had the definition of the Australian term, as well as an urban term. Apparently, in street language, a bugalug is a male prostitute. Adrienne’s bugalug, however, was a term of endearment, such as a parent would use for their child.
Slang words confuse me sometimes. It was two years before I found out that the word “homey” did not mean homosexual. I had heard my Latin American friends use the word “esai.” I thought that they were asking me to write essays for their children’s school assignments. It took writing five essays for me to figure that out. (Just kidding!)
Other words with alternative definitions include:
“Hot,” which can mean the temperature is high or that someone is sexy. Another definition is that someone is doing very well on his or her job, such as a baseball player who is hitting well, has a “hot” bat.
“Cool,” which can mean that the temperature is moderate but more towards the cold side than the hot side. It can also mean that a person has appeal or charm.
“Warm,” which can mean that the temperature is moderate but more towards the hot side than the cold side. It can also indicate that a person is nearing the proximity of an object, such as in a guessing game or blindfold game, when you tell someone, “You’re getting warmer.”
“Word” is another word that can mean something different. It can mean the words you see on this page or it can be a message, like Paul Revere had to get word to the minutemen that the British were coming. It can also be used in hip-hop street language, such as “word to your mother!”
Some terms in the Bible also have different definitions than what we would think of today. One word is “corn.” It does not mean maize, what we know as corn in America, but it means the head of a wheat or grain plant. The term “wine” has different meanings in the Bible. One term means an alcoholic beverage; the other means grape juice, basically. Also, when God refers to man in the Bible, he usually refers to mankind, including women, and not just men.
I hope that my readers are all my bugalugs (Adrienne’s Australian term of endearment and not the street vernacular) and that are all enjoying the season, which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

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