As a (relatively) young American, I must vouch that I had never, ever heard this word before this program. If a foreigner was to tell me that he / she had fallen on his / hers, I’d laugh — out of bewilderment.

Point: not everyone in America uses the same slang, or even speaks with the same accent or inflection. Just as though there is putonghua, or the common dialect in mainland China, the youth often have their own slang that outsiders (and parents) wouldn’t understand. And slang is slang — it’s not meant to be standardised or commonly understood, no matter the language.

This is something that an Australian coworker-friend and I tried to explain to our students in mainland China. Confusing for the students, who assume that there must be a “standard English”. Try talking about chips in England and in the USA…

To be frank, I’m somewhat confused by this program. Wouldn’t it be good for Voice of America to introduce the notion of voiceS in America? Wouldn’t it help English learners to understand that English speakers are individuals and thus have individual styles of expression?