REGIFTING What’s the deal with gift-giving etiquette? While the act of regifting has probably existed since gifting itself, the term was popularised due to the famous show about nothing, Seinfeld, and refers to the cheeky practice of taking a gift and passing it along to someone else. After Elaine finds out that a young Bryan Cranston gave away her gift to Jerry, she angrily calls him a “regifter”, before an impromptu makeout sesh. The term has since lived on as a descriptor for the polite disposal of unwanted gifts – a reminder when you’re stuck with a lousy Secret Santa pressie.

JUMPING THE SHARK First coined by radio personality Jon Hein in 1985, the term references a Happy Days episode where Fonzie literally jumps over a shark in water-skis – a moment that is used as the visual marker of the show’s decline ever since. Basically, if something has “jumped the shark”, it’s no longer good. Other TV shows have been gifted this pejorative, notably The Simpsons, Game of Thrones and Community; but it’s also been used within politics, journalism and many times against Elon Musk – even before he bought Twitter.

CATFISH Another term named after an aquatic creature, a ‘catfish’ – or someone who is ‘catfishing’ – refers to a person who has deliberately created an online false persona or identity, or who has edited their selfies beyond the extreme (although even Henry VIII accused his fourth wife – Anne of Cleves – of not looking like her painted portrait). While we can attribute the word’s widespread use to the hit MTV show, Catfish, it originated from the 2010 documentary of the same name that follows Nev Schulman as he builds a romantic relationship online only for the truth to unravel and he soon discovers… well, you can probably figure it out.  

RED-PILLED If you’ve ever had the misfortune of wandering upon some alt-right gibberish written up by chronically online weirdos, odds are that you’ve probably heard this term before. Taking inspiration from a scene in The Matrix where Neo literally swallows a red pill to leave his fake reality in order to enter the real world, the idea of being ‘red-pilled’ is born out of incel philosophy (aka, ‘women are bad’), although it’s also used extensively in white supremacist online forums. Despite its less than savoury legacy, The Matrix’s openly trans creators (the Wachowski sisters) have revealed that the ‘red pill’ was an allegory for the transgender experience this whole time – go figure.

GASLIGHT While it may seem like this term only became a popular buzzword in the last decade, its origins can be traced back to 1938. The idea of ‘gaslighting’ came from the thriller play Gas Light, which became better known after the release of the 1944 film adaption starring Ingrid Bergman. Set in the Victorian era, the story follows an heiress who is being driven insane by her husband’s emotional manipulation, and the title refers to his lies about dimming the household’s gas-powered lights. Today, ‘gaslight’ is used as a colloquialism for a serious form of emotional abuse within relationships – although there’s criticism that the term is thrown around a bit too casually these days.

FRIEND ZONE Listen, we love Friends, but it’s safe to say that the transphobic jokes, fat-shaming antics and an extreme lack of diversity don’t really translate all that well in 2023. It doesn’t help that the beloved sitcom also bore the term, ‘friend zone’, which has since been co-opted by ‘nice guys’ who use it to complain about their inability to turn their non-sexual female friendships into romantic ones. Not that it’s necessarily Friends’ fault, but we shouldn’t be taking relationship advice from any of the show’s characters anyway (except Phoebe – she knew her stuff).

These slang words come straight from the pages of issue 117. To get your mitts on a copy, swing past the frankie shop, subscribe or visit one of our lovely stockists.