I feel like a lot of the slang was made up? Or did people actually used to say phrases like:
I gotta motor (I got to go )
That is so very ( very=cool? )
buggering ( sleeping with )
get crucial (get serious)
Thats all I can think of, what other weird slang did you notice?
As someone who grew up in the 80s and was in high school when I first saw this, yes. Motor, what's your damage, all the lingo was very true to the 80s. Very "valley" 80s speak, even though I was living in Oklahoma. Fashion, down to the hair scrunchies, were dead on.
The mentality was also quite accurate. This guy in my German 2/homeroom class committed suicide our junior year, and Psych stopped teaching the suicide unit, in fear of encouraging other students.
Never knew anyone who played croquet, though.
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I grew up in the 80s and don’t remember these slang words being around before Heathers. After Heathers, though, they were everywhere.
share"I got to motor" was heard a lot. In 1984, Night Ranger released "Sister Christian". This song had the lyric, "Your motoring". The slang may have came from that lyric.
"Buggering" I heard a lot from my British friends. Not so much American.
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The slang was very West Coast. We didn't use that in NY.
But the fashion was pretty close to the times. Although on the East Coast, we looked more like JD (motorcycle jackets, Black clothes etc) than we did Veronica.
Daniel Waters (the GENIUS WRITER of 'HEATHERS')once stated in a interview that he based the Dialouge PRIMARILY on His way back then TEEN SISTER & her BITCHY High School friends while he was at home in OHIO (growing up) & states after school they'd all come over the house & hang with her...He was always amused & analytical of the way they 'TALKED' -w- such Slang & Vulgar Vanacular....etc* .......It wasnt 'til Later he moved to CA & actually WROTE 'HEATHERS' *(while working partX-somewhere-i believe maybe a video store, like Quentin Tarantino did-/-odd jobs etc.)that he most likely Fused thenIN -thee mid/late 80'S "CALI/VALLEY/HOLLYWOOD Slingo" *(slang/Lingo)incorporating then REAL MODERN LIFE X verbage as 'MOTOR' ,'Crucial','Damage',& all Good ol' American Cussing *(for the exception of 'Buggering':that IS INDEED British!!).......Awesomely Daniel stated- HE IN FACT stole "VERY/VARY" from his sister & her pal's!! .;> <3
"HOW VERY!!!!!!!"
I don't recall many of those particular expressions being common among the Val-speakers, but it seems to me the reign and influence of the Vals by the late '80s was ebbing anyway, they were more of an early/mid 80s phenomenon. But I was in college playing in a punk band by then, so it's very possible that I just cared less what the cool kids were doing or what slang they were using. ;)