Ailantha
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Plenty Of Slap

2/29/2016

3 Comments

 
     About a week ago I was in Panera working while sitting across from a table of teen-aged girls. 
     Though not intentionally eavesdropping,  snippets of the girls' conversation did occasionally waft my way, and at one point I heard one of the girls say, "He said I've got plenty of slap".
      I looked up from my work.  Plenty of slap?   I'd never heard that expression before and figured it must be a new addition - or maybe not so new, for all I knew - to the lexicon of the younger generation.  But I liked it, I thought it sounded cute and snappy even if I had to guess at  what it meant:  Was the boy  telling the girl that she had plenty of spunk?  Or nerve?  Was he inferring that she had plenty of money?  Or maybe it was  idiomatic slangage for a good sense of humor?  Or might it even refer to some youthfully inappropriate behavior the two might have been engaged in or were discussing becoming engaged in?
    I unobtrusively tuned in to the girls' continuing conversation on the subject and immediately realized that I had misheard:  what  the girl had actually said a few seconds earlier was that the boy had told her that she had a funny laugh,  not "plenty of slap".
   
I felt a brief twinge of disappointment that the zippy little phrase I thought I'd heard did not, in fact, exist.  But then it hit me:  Yes, it does exist!  I just invented the saying "plenty of slap"!
    I invented it but now needed to decide how and in what situation to use it.
    I personally liked the idea of the word "slap" as a surrogate for "money", as in:
    Donald Trump may be a billionaire but those others have plenty of slap, too.

     However when I ran the new phrase by some of my kids  who were home last week visiting - and eating  -  and who'd never heard of "plenty of slap" before - 
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...none of them liked "money" for  the definition of "slap".  They all agreed that "spunk" was a better and more versatile meaning.
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     Then just last night when Tommy and Randy were over,
...I asked them what they thought of "plenty of slap".
      Though both agreed that "spunk" was a good definition for "slap", after playing with the word a little they concluded that "slap" actually sounded more like  a sports-related word, one that an announcer might use, as in:  "Wendel was definitely off in last week's game, but he's showing plenty of slap today."  Or maybe as used by a couple of coaches discussing a potential recruit:  "Marzetti doesn't have the size or speed but you put that kid out there on the court, he's got a helluva lotta slap".
      I had to admit that, used in that context, "slap" was a good word.
      Well, whatever, I'm announcing that  "plenty of slap" is now officially out there in the lexicon.  Use it as you will,

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...even as Tommy and Randy digressed from the sports motif to declare that last night's roast had plenty of slap to it.
     I was quite flattered.

     Epilogue:
     (
Sigh).
     I was wrong.  It turns out that I didn't invent "plenty of slap"  after all. 
     Just as I was putting the finishing touches on this post I received a message from my nephew Randy.  In a spirit of meticulous curiosity he researched the use of the term "plenty of slap"  on Twitter.  Here are the results which he forwarded to me:

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    Apparently the term is "got a lot of slap",  but that's close enough, and from the above I'd say the established definitions of "slap" are either 1. spunk or life, or 2. make-up. 
    Mea culpa.
    And  I probably did  hear that girl in Panera right the first time.


3 Comments
Romaine
2/29/2016 07:13:19 pm

I like this term and plan to incorporate it into my vocab.

Reply
Patti
2/29/2016 07:34:57 pm

Yes, me too!

Reply
Frank H
3/1/2016 07:47:14 am

Sounds sorta micro-aggressive to me!

Reply



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