Smellsineer! Classroom youthspeak: your ultimate guide

Scoldineer! Borrapin? Wossateittel? Stephen Petty offers new teachers a guide to the esoteric vocabulary of youth
29th August 2019, 12:03pm

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Smellsineer! Classroom youthspeak: your ultimate guide

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/smellsineer-classroom-youthspeak-your-ultimate-guide
Smellsineer!: Stephen Petty's Ultimate Guide To Classroom Youthspeak

New and young teachers will tend to be far better than most of us at translating classroom youthspeak. 

However, they may need help with some of the more ancient classroom dialect coming their way, such as “Scoldineer”, “Smellsineer” and “Wossateittel”. To the less initiated, this threesome may sound like forest dwellers eaten alive in succession by some rampant goat in a Grimm fairy tale. But listen to your pupils carefully, and they all translate into plain, ordinary English.

Below is my brief introductory guide. They are not in alphabetical order - they are (more helpfully) put in the approximate order in which a teacher might expect to hear them in a typical lesson. 

First, I give the noise the student makes, then a full translation of what they are actually saying. 

Classroom youthspeak: a glossary
 

“Smellsineer”: “Good afternoon Miss/Sir, I trust you and the learning are going well today! Upon entering the classroom I sense that it gives off a slightly used and not altogether pleasant aroma. Perhaps another class has already been in here today, I would venture? They appear to have a slightly different scent from our own.”

“Scoldineer”: “The temperature in this room is not to my liking. That is why I wish to ignore the school-uniform rules and sit here with my coat on until advised otherwise.” 

“Issonfreeze”: “Your explanation of the diagram is a little confusing, Miss/Sir, as there is no diagram. It may be there on your desk computer, but you have still got the projector locked on the previous page of the PowerPoint (again).”

“Wossateittel?”: “Even though I know what to do, I cannot possibly begin to write my answer until you have given me a heading for it.”

“Borrapin?”: “I have lost my pen/failed to bring one to school. Would you happen to have a spare, please?”

“Toomuchryeeen”: “I am unhappy about the amount of written work that you are requiring us to undertake today.”

“Snotjusmee”: “Yes, I was repeatedly talking/laughing instead of listening, but why are you just selecting me for admonishment when there are others equally culpable?”

“Dinget wottodoo”: Sometimes translates as: ”I genuinely found today’s task beyond me.” 
Alternative translation: ”I will, as usual, avoid too severe a reprimand for having done no work by successfully tapping into your customary lack of pedagogical self-belief.”

“Sheezeonwossapp”: “I don’t like that girl, so I am quite happy for you to confiscate her phone.”

“Eezchooeen”: “That boy snitched on me and caused me to lose my phone. So I have been waiting for my moment to get revenge on him.”

“Iadmeeandupages”: “I have been waiting for at least two minutes for you to come to help me.”

“Leftitatmeenanshouse”: “I have not done the homework, and it is unlikely that you will get in touch with my grandmother to check the veracity of my story.”

Bellsgone: “The bell has not yet gone, but please let us out early so that we can be first in the canteen queue for food.”

Stephen Petty is head of humanities at Lord Williams’s School in Thame, Oxfordshire

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