I don’t know why but my cousin Damien always used to shout "stem!" whenever I did something dumb. Or if I tripped, came in last place, or hit the tennis ball over the fence. I did a search for "80s slang" and nothing came up. Really, there aren’t enough resources out there for good 80s slang. Terms pulled from Fresh Prince songs or something. It’s all Bart Simpson stuff. But I don’t remember the 80s in terms of not having a cow, man.

Frickin’ A, is still a term I use, despite having no actual fondness for it. It’s just managed to work its way in there. For some reason I keep thinking of this kid named Grimace from fat camp who used to "churn butter" every time "The Humpty Dance" played over the loud speaker.Though that happened in the early 90s, not the Max Headrom 80s. At flagpole lineups they’d play it, and he’d perform, kids clapping. He had the body of a clown, just naturally. He even walked as if he was wearing those ridiculous clown shoes. He kept a pick in his back pocket, despite being white and having a shorn head. I don’t know that his given names was Grimace, but that’s what kids called him. He didn’t seem to mind. Actually, his real name was Tony. It just came to me. It’s fun remembering.

But it’s so odd there’s no proper slang bin. Urbandictionary is dreck. I also believe a lot of it was regional. "Wicked bad" was something kids from Boston said, but not so much the kids in New York. Also when people say "the 80s" I think they forget that’s an entire decade, filled with ten individual years. They took me from 867-5309 to "Girl you know it’s true." From Garbage Pail kids and plastic charm bracelets and Lisa Frank stickers, to fluorescent tube socks and rubber bracelets. But the words, I wish I could get them all right. Do you remember any? It would be a help.

The stuff I remember:

Radical. Totally rad. And just plain "rad."
Go suck an egg.
Sit on it, and rotate (while flipping someone the bird)
No duh.
I’m going to totally rank her out.