When a package arrived at my office from Prospect Park Press containing a new paperback original called Talk Like a Californian by Helena Ventura, I smiled at the clean, sunny layout and laughed at the wit of the more outrageous of the usage examples. Then I tucked the book away with the idea that it might soon come in handy.
Four days later, I stood in front of a classroom full of high school juniors and seniors at 2 p.m. on a Friday — the last class period of the week. What could I possibly do to capture the imaginations of this entire group with the freedom of the weekend so near at hand? First, we had a quick look at the classic Saturday Night Live sketch known as "The Californians," and then we began to play the traditional schoolroom game of Dictionary. It's the one where people have to guess which of the four contestants has given the real definition of a word, while the other contestants get points for creating false definitions that fool their classmates into thinking they are real.
Playing Dictionary with a copy of good old Merriam-Webster is fun, but playing it with Talk Like a Californian is, wait for it, hella fun. Show me a 17-year-old who is tired of making up mock definitions for "tightsauce," and I'll show you a child who is tired of Snapchat. Each round of the game brought new heights of zaniness, especially when it came to writing the usage examples. According to the book, "gandolf" is surf-speak for "an older, wiser guy," but my students kept wanting to make it a verb, as in "gandolf — the act of surfing with a midget on your shoulders." Usage example? "Dude, let's hit up Steve for a gandolf sesh." You will have to imagine what they came up with for "tightsauce" yourself; Talk Like a Californian defines it as "outstanding and/or attractive."