Slang Files · 🤙 Approval & awesome
G33Z3R Slang Files · 1975–1990
Bad (meaning good)
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Bad has meant good in Black American speech for a very long time; it was jazz slang before it was anything else. Gen X heard it as a compliment on the playground and then heard Michael Jackson build an album on it.
It's the word that taught a whole generation that tone changes meaning, and it's still in use in exactly the way it always was.
Sources: Wiktionary — Bad (meaning good)
The drive, the dance, the heartbreak, the summer. Add a memory of Bad (meaning good).
Approval & awesome · 1980–1999
Means: Very (wicked good, wicked cold); also excellent on its own
Approval & awesome · 1984–1992
Means: Impressive, bold, or, about a person, attractive
Approval & awesome · 1987–1993
Means: An exclamation of joy, usually before a jump
Approval & awesome · 1989–1993
Means: Great, said with the guitar riff
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