This is an All Ears English podcast.
Are you slaying English?
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
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Have you heard native speakers using this trendy new word, slay?
Have you ever wondered where it comes from or how to actually use it yourself?
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Hey, Aubrey, how's it going today?
How are you feeling?
I am great.
Lindsay, what is something great that has happened to you this week?
Something great is that I got to go to a hockey game last night and we had awesome seats right by the right on the ice.
And I went with my father-in-law and my partner and it was just, it was cool.
It was a good night.
The game was exciting and tense and you know, like with the guys coming right up against the glass and it's like Ooh, it scares you a little bit.
That was pretty great actually.
Yeah.
It sounds like your seat's slayed.
They're like right up front where you could see.
Yeah, they slayed.
Yeah, corporate benefits for my partner.
I guess you know it's pretty awesome, the best you get those perks, the box seats.
What about you, Aubrey?
What's something great that happened this week?
Anything come to mind?
I sort of have a similar experience.
We went to an ASU football game and we met up with friends there and they were in nosebleed seats.
So far up, really really far cheap seats.
And then we said goodbye and went to our seats and my husband had gotten them a while ago, a sort of season and they were so close, especially compared to our friends' seats.
They felt amazing.
So we were like, okay, slay.
Let's watch this from right behind the players.
We could like hear the players talking to each other.
You're like, don't mind if I do.
I'll take my seat now.
Yes.
Yeah.
So you may have heard us say slay a few times, which Lindsay and I don't normally say that often.
But this is fun slang that is becoming more and more common in English.
I hear it on podcasts a lot.
My kids say it all the time.
Yep.
It came up on a recent episode that you and Michelle were recording, right, Lindsay?
Michelle must have said it because I never say this phrase, but I hear it.
Well, here's how it came up.
You were talking the regular verb sleigh.
You were talking about the word slew.
And you were like, yeah, this is actually also the past tense of sleigh.
And then you kind of mentioned it.
You're like, OK, we should do a follow up episode.
OK, got it.
Got it.
So I emailed Michelle.
I was like, are you planning that?
Because if not, I want to.
I think it's so fun.
Yeah, we want to make sure our listeners know this is kind of everywhere. as you said, Aubrey.
So we are going to have a really nice rundown on this today.
So our listeners come away feeling like they can at least understand it and maybe use it if they want to right.
Yes.
And stay to the end for details about that episode.
If this doesn't sound familiar, you might not have learned about this word, slew and these other interesting ways to say a lot of something.
So stay to the end.
You can definitely listen to these out of order and we'll share details.
Yes.
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Awesome.
So let's dive in here first with this verb slay.
Yes.
So the first we're going to talk about the way we use it less commonly.
You may read it in an old book or like a fantasy book.
It means slay, to kill violently right, or like in great numbers.
So if it's maybe a book about war, i see this most often.
If they're it's like about someone slaying a dragon yes, like strike down something, or a knight slaying we'll usually use the verb slay if they're not killing a human, but killing like a mythical creature.
Right, exactly so, to kill something violently or maybe in great numbers, Right.
There's a war.
We'll hear like, you know, thousands of soldiers.
Right.
You know the I'm trying not to use it in past tense, because first we're talking about present there.
Yeah.
But the tricky thing is the past tense.
Yeah.
What is the past tense, Aubrey?
Yeah, the actual correct past tense is slew.
So it's like he slew the dragon.
But we use it so rarely.
We hear it so rarely because it's sort of being replaced with slayed.
People would more likely say he slayed the dragon.
So now dictionaries will list both.
And that's especially happening because of what we're going to talk about in a minute, this new phrase.
Slang, slayed, you hear that everywhere.
So now slew sounds strange because it's so rare.
Okay.
So we're going to give our listeners permission to choose either one.
Our approach to language is that it does adapt.
It does change.
Some people don't believe that wouldn't agree with us, but we believe that the approach is actually more about connecting.
Right, Aubrey?
Definitely.
And it is interesting.
This may be different around the world.
Someone might be listening in the UK thinking like, no, you can't say he slayed the dragon.
You must say the knight slew the dragon.
Yeah, I'm sure.
But in the US, that would not be considered a mistake.
It's very common.
For sure.
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So that's one example.
The knight slew the dragon, if you want to use the 100 correct way of saying it, or you can break the rules and you can say her performance slayed right, yeah.
And this is where we get into that slang right, and then it becomes slang yeah.
We also want to point out the Grammar is tricky here because
Just like a lot of verbs in English, the past participle is irregular.
So it is slain, S-L-A-I-N.
Wow.
And this makes it really tricky.
So then you would say the warrior has slain his enemies or they have slain many soldiers.
Yeah.
Right.
So that's where it gets particularly tricky, when the past tense verb is different from the past participle.
Even native speakers will often make mistakes in that case.
I feel like this grammar could almost be a trivia question.
It's so rare and challenging, don't you think?
Absolutely.
And a lot of native speakers would get it wrong.
Yeah, 100%.
Hopefully we would get it though.
Yeah, right.
One other place that we hear this a lot is sports reporting.
So I pulled an example from just this month, October of this year in the New York Times.
The author was Justin Williams.
And the sentence was the mean green.
So this was a sports team.
I didn't look up which sports team they were referring to.
But it said, we'll try to slay a USF squad that already has wins over Boise State.
So they're using this verb to to mean beat them at a sport.
So, of course, it doesn't literally mean kill like slay, right?
It's also used this way to say to win at a sport.
And he probably selected that verb for his headline because he knows that slay is also popular as a pop culture term right now.
So, you know, it kind of impacts the actual grammatical form of it as well.
So it's interesting, right?
Yeah, really interesting.
So let's dive into that slang form.
This is how you'll hear it most often.
If you hear someone say slay, Slay or that slayed.
It's slang.
It means to do a really good job, a spectacular job.
Yeah, it's similar to killing it.
Right.
I'd more likely say, oh, you're killing it.
Right.
Oh, totally.
I say killing it a lot.
Right.
You're killing it, killing it or crushing it.
You're crushing it.
Right.
Exactly.
And this could be about slaying.
Fashion, a performance, being confident, a speech.
You could say this to someone.
Oh, you killed it.
Or you slayed means the same thing.
Yes.
Yeah.
And it's interesting how we can just say slay instead of we don't have to say you know you slayed or you know anything else.
And that's actually more common, right?
Instead of saying, we wouldn't say like, you are slayed.
We just say, okay, slay.
And that means slay. you are slaying, right?
It means you are doing well now.
Yeah.
So it's kind of exempt from conjugation, right?
Yeah.
And like we were saying about the tickets, it's not always about performance.
That was like, oh, cool.
That's awesome.
So in other words, okay, all right, slay.
Yeah, slay.
Let's give some examples.
So for example, I love going to his live concerts.
His band always slays.
Yeah.
Or maybe if a friend is performing you could turn and say to another friend she's absolutely slaying.
Or you slayed that competition.
Here we are putting it into the past tense as a verb, right?
Exactly.
Right.
Or if a friend does well in a performance, like we were saying, you could just say, okay, slay.
Yeah.
It means like you did well, you did great.
I wonder if it's like a trend that people just use one, essentially one verb and they don't conjugate it, like when we were recently doing a tour in florida with my dad a few weeks ago.
Our tour guide, he would ask us questions like oh, do you prefer to walk to this place or should we drive there?
You know, my dad would say let's drive.
And he said and he would say track track track, like maybe that was just his personal, like got it Yeah.
Got it.
Instead of got it, he would say track.
Maybe that was just him, but I don't know.
I haven't heard that, but who knows?
Maybe in a couple of weeks, all of a sudden, everyone will be saying track.
He's starting a trend.
It's very possible.
It's interesting.
You're going to see this word slay on social media, right?
Often it's commented on posts or videos where instead of saying, you did a really good job.
I really like this video.
They'll just write, Slay.
Well, you know, you slay, whatever, something like that.
But it's interesting.
We never use those past tense verbs, you know, slew or slain.
You would never use with this slang.
It's either slay in present tense or add the ed, slayed, that slayed, right?
This is where you wouldn't say slew.
You wouldn't say slay.
It doesn't make sense because it's slang.
Yeah, I mean, slang is supposed to be easy to say, you can deploy it quickly, and then you move on.
You know, you make a comment and you move on.
So keep it simple, right?
Yeah, it kind of does make me want to say to my kids like, oh, that slew.
They would just be so confused though.
I dare you to try it and they probably would roll their eyes or something.
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All right, Aubrey, we are back.
Let's see how this looks in a role play then using this cool young person slang.
Yeah, shall we?
This is a little tricky to use. both meanings in a role play.
So we're friends at a Halloween, like a costume party.
Okay, which yes, perfect.
Here we go.
Yeah, I'll start us.
You are absolutely slaying in that Edward Scissorhands costume.
Did you make it yourself?
Yes, I'm a bit nervous, though since these are real blades, I have to be careful not to accidentally slay someone.
Oh, wow.
Imagine the headline, party guests slain on Halloween night.
I hope it would at least mention how good the costume was, though the use of real scissors ended up being unwise.
It cannot be denied that the killer's costume slayed.
That's actually a great idea, an Edward Scissorhands costume.
I love it.
I have a friend that did Edward Scissorhands in New York and he made it all himself and it was fantastic.
He had used all these belts.
And then, but I think he had real blades for this.
So we were like, be careful with those.
Yeah, really scary.
But cool.
I love that movie in the 80s when it came out.
Johnny Depp, he was so good in it.
Don't you think?
So good.
Yes.
I love Johnny Depp.
Yeah, me too.
Me too.
All right.
So here we're using this in a few different ways, right?
So for example, you said you're absolutely slaying in that Edward Scissorhands costume.
So you are doing an awesome job.
You're just, you're killing it. right?
Yeah.
You're killing it.
You look amazing.
What a cool costume, right?
That's what that means.
And I could say, wow, look at this Edward Scissorhands costume slay, right?
I could use it that way and just say slay, or I can say you are slaying in that.
Love it.
Okay.
And then I'm saying I have to be careful not to accidentally slay someone.
Now this goes back to the meaning of, you know, like physically killing someone.
And this is just like you're being funny, right?
Because you normally would say like of accidentally cutting someone or poking someone.
You're sort of exaggerating to be funny.
And then kind of the play on words of like, I just said you're slaying.
You're like, I need to be careful not to actually slay someone.
Yeah, that's kind of fun.
Kind of fun.
And then you said we're making up a headline.
Let's imagine the headline.
Sometimes we do this as a banter.
I do.
Right.
We just try to imagine what the newspapers would say.
And your idea is party guests slain on Halloween night.
And then you say, well, I hope they'll at least mention how good the costume was.
And then you sort of imagined a line from the article.
And you kind of have to change your voice when you're doing this, right?
If it were written, there would be like quotes there.
And if not, you have to change your intonation, like you did when you were reading the role playing right.
Yes.
You said though, the use of real scissors ended up being unwise, it cannot be denied that the killer's costume slayed.
I love this newspaper.
I would have really good.
All right.
Really good stuff.
So we've shown our listeners here a new slangy term and then also how it translates into an actual verb.
I love it.
Exactly.
Tricky verb, tricky grammar.
And in order to get details about when slew came up, because it has a different meaning, to mean, like a lot of things a slew of candy, a ton of candy, a lot of candy.
That was episode 2511, right here on All Ears English called.
Got a Boatload of Work.
How to share it in English?
Yeah, sometimes it's fun to see what is the origin of an idea for a new episode.
You know, it's just these ideas come out very naturally in conversation, guys.
So go and check out that episode.
Aubrey, any final takeaway on using this new trendy slang?
Yeah, this is great slang for connection.
If you have a friend that is slaying in some way like they made an amazing costume, you definitely should recognize it.
Give them some credit, right?
Oh, 100%.
This is how relationships and connections are built, right?
Enjoy those small moments like Halloween costumes, other things.
Maybe for the holidays, they bake amazing cookies, right?
Yeah.
Great tickets to a sports game.
These are the good moments in life.
So be sure to recognize them.
All right.
Love it.
All right, Aubrey.
I challenge you to go use this word, but in a weird tense with your kids and see what they say.
Oh, your outfit slew yesterday.
What?
And then just be silent and see what happens.
Just be silent and see what they say.
They've probably never heard slew in the past tense like that.
So I'm sure they're just going to be confused.
You'll have to report back.
I will.
All right.
Well, have a good day, Aubrey.
We'll see you soon.
Awesome.
See you next time.
Bye.
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