History Main / FutureSlang

* ''Literature/EndersGame'': The students at the battle school developed their own slang, though most of it doesn't apparently extend beyond its walls.

* AlanMoore's ''TheBalladOfHaloJones'' does this, so much so that some of the herdience can find it tricky to get into at first. Cheeses, though, it's worth the effort.

* When ''{{Deadlands}}'' left behind the "Weird Western" motif for [[AfterTheEnd more]] [[SpaceWestern futuristic]] incarnations, the slang changed, as well. "Brainer," short for "no-brainer" is either "dumbass" or "dumbass without PsychicPowers", depending on who you ask. "Grape" is a [[FantasticRacism derisive word]] for the natives of ''Lost Colony'', the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy anouks]] who have been at war with the invading humans off and on for a few decades. "Wine" is, well, the red stuff you get when you squish a grape...
* In an interesting past-slang example, the Planescape setting for ''DungeonsAndDragons'' (And the PlanescapeTorment PC game) had Planar Cant, largely derived from old English thieves' jargon and Cockney rhyming slang. There's a whole sodding dictionary of it [[http://mimir.net/cant/cant2.html here.]]

** The ubiquitous "smeg", a multi-purpose expletive which appears to be perhaps the "only'' swear word in existence in the future. And the related insult, "smeghead".

** The ubiquitous "smeg", a multi-purpose expletive which appears to be perhaps the ''only'' swear word in existence in the future.
** Only gimboids would think that, goit!
** Now, now, there's no need to be a gwenlyn about it. The modo might just have not seen the early seasons.

* An episode of the original ''Series/TheOuterLimits'' titled "Soldier" had a far-future soldier appear in 1960s time. A language professor is brought in to translate the soldier's gibberish, only for the professor to point out the soldier is speaking English, just faster and with some futuristic slang. When the soldier is decamped to live at the professor's house, we later see the professor's son learning the slang easily (as children pick up on slang usage more quickly than adults). The episode was written by HarlanEllison, who has a thing about street slang.
* On QuantumLeap, which takes place [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture in the near future,]] Al frequently uses "nozzle" as an insult.

* ''ChildrenOfMen'' had both "fishes" (LaResistance led by Julian) and "fujis" (refugees).

* ''{{Gattaca}}'' used this primarily as ways to deride people born through natural conception -- "godchild", "faithbirth" and so on.

* ''{{Idiocracy}}'' has a few, the most common one being "scrote", which a lot of people use as "dude". No points for guessing the origin of the word. Also, the future cops really like the term "specific individual", which has become equated with "criminal".

** SpiderManShatteredDimensions and VideoGame/{{Spider-Man Edge Of Time}} both got a lot of mileage out of this one. Spidey even lampshades it in the latter game.

** SpiderManShatteredDimensions and SpiderManEdgeOfTime both got a lot of mileage out of this one. Spidey even lampshades it in the latter game.

* ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'' has some famous futuristic slang is Nadsat. Isn't that just [[WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture horrorshow]], my [[FakeRussian droogs]]? The book[[note]]Or rather, the American edition of the book[[/note]] contained a complete glossary; with the movie, you figured it out as you went. The glossary was added over the strenuous objections of the author. He wanted you to be lost for a while until you picked it up on your own. [[BilingualBonus The slang, however, is heavily Russian-influenced and speakers of Slavic languages could understand it easily.]]\\

''[[Series/DoctorWho Ware spambots, and build high for happiness.]]''

[[Series/DoctorWho Ware spambots, and build high for happiness.]]

Slang has changed over time, and undoubtedly will change more in the future. Therefore, in the interests of verisimilitude or just to sound interesting, writers who write stories set in TheFuture will include their idea of Future Slang as an attempt to (mildly) avert EternalEnglish. Often these will be drop-in replacements for current phrases, unless they are subject to BilingualBonus.

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* ''{{Otherland}}'': Tad Williams has invented quite a bit of slang for his SF novel series. He also shows different use of slang in different social classes.

* The first season of ''Series/{{Babylon 5}}'' featured the expression "stroke off", in place of the current "fuck off". Presumably this refers to [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar masturbation]].

* In the new version of ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'', "frak" is used to replace "fuck" in every form. The polytheistic characters (the majority) also pluralize "God" i.e. "OhMyGods!" etc.
** The original had frack (which has carried over in both forms to StarWars), and a billion other ones that didn't take (the original BSG pretty much paved the way for the "let's find an annoying way to make our characters sound different" crowd, all but a few fortunately dropped with the new series).
** Except that the original doesn't take place in the future. It's in the present and the new series [[spoiler: takes place in the past.]]
* ''Series/DoctorWho'' does this from time to time. ''Paradise Towers'' is a particularly ''ice hot'' example.

** In ''The Sontaran Experiment'', the human spacemen use a 'future English' that sounds vaguely South African, with words like 'yunnerstan?'.
*** If that's supposed to be [[DontExplainTheJoke "Do you understand?"]] then it also sounds vaguely Australian too, given our habit of mushing together words.

** Actually, that last one isn't slang--an "arn" is a measurement of time, roughly analogous to an hour.
* ''{{Firefly}}'' had a mishmash of Mandarin (or the actors' best stab at Mandarin) and cowboy slang for its future-folks. ''Dong ma?'' The Chinese swearing resulted in characters calling each other "motherfucker" [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar in perfect safety from the censors]]. Or sometimes more colourful terms like "explosive diarrhoea of an elephant".
** It also used "shiny" for "cool". This may be derived from current Hebrew slang, of all places, which does the same.
** They also used "rut" as a replacement for "fuck" and its derivatives, e.g. "no ruttin' way!"
** Of course, there's always "Gorram" which is a slurred future version of God damn. And there's "humped" as a way of saying screwed.
*** Interestingly, "gorram" already existed as a dialectal variant of God Damn, and to hump does mean to screw but it's rarely if ever used figuratively.
** In a blink-and-you-miss-it line in "Heart of Gold," homosexuals are referred to as "sly."
* The protagonist in ''Series/{{Life on Mars|2006}}'' has a problem with this, having come from thirty years in the 'future'.
-->Sam Tyler: "We suspect Ravi of importing scag."
-->(Everyone stares blankly at him)
-->Sam Tyler: "Smack? Heroin? Bloody heroin!"
* And who could forget ''Series/RedDwarf's'' ubiquitous "smeg", a multi-purpose expletive which appears to be perhaps the ''only'' swear word in existence in the future.

* In the ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' episode "The Way to Eden", a hippy-like cult uses "reach" as a synonym to "understand in a age-of-aquarius way." ''I reach you, man!''

* An episode of the original ''Series/TheOuterLimits'' titled "Soldier" had a far-future soldier appear in 1960s time. A language professor is brought in to translate the soldier's gibberish, only for the professor to point out the soldier is speaking English, just faster and with some futuristic slang. When the soldier is decamped to live at the professor's house, we later see the professor's son learning the slang easily (as children pick up on slang usage more quickly than adults).
** The episode was written by HarlanEllison, who has a thing about street slang.
* On QuantumLeap, which takes place [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture in the near future,]] Al frequently uses "nozzle" as an insult.
** In one episode, Sam had to also explain the word "awesome" to a girl in 1965. She didn't quite understand the meaning.

* ''Film/{{America3000}}'' took this into overdrive, especially with a speech by Korvis:

* ''{{Bionicle}}'': The [[BlowYouAway Le-Matoran]] from have "Treespeak", a dialect similar to NewSpeak, that involves merging two words together, such as "bald-land" to refer to land with no obstructions, or "tree-high", to indicate that something is as high up as the treetops.

* ''MagicTheGathering'' used slag (and other metal related terms) in their Mirrodin expansion, which was based on an artificial plane. "Slag" and other terms (often relating to Oil, Maker, etc.) are often used in robot-related media.
*** Slag is also a real British slang word for loose woman (synonymous with slut).
*** Slag was originally used to refer to the "partially vitreous by-product of smelting ore to purify metals."
** Also of note is "dreg", used as Literature/NineteenEightyFour's "prole".

-->Sam Tyler: "Smack?heroin?bloody heroin!"

** The franchise sometimes used the swear word "zark" as a replacement for "fuck", as in: "Zarking photons! That hoopy frood sure knows where his towel is!" It is likely this is a corruption of "Zarquon", a famous religious figure [[spoiler: who appears briefly at the End of the Universe.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'': has the word ''slag''.

* ''CyberTeamInAkihabara'': Suzume Sakurajosui thinks this trope is so very super-electric, that it is.
* ''Macross'' toys with it with the word "Deculture", originally a Zentradi swear word. By 2059, as shown in ''MacrossFrontier'', it's become a common enough slang word that it's even used in advertising, though the meaning has changed, probably by in-universe MemeticMutation, to be used in positive contexts as well. The most accurate English phrase to "Deculture" would be "Oh God".
* LightNovel/KyoukaiSenjouNoHorizon uses Judge and Tes, short for Judgement and Testament, as replacements for yes in their homelands, this also doubles as an easy way of knowing who is from where.

* Used in ''{{Batman}}: TheDarkKnightReturns'', where it didn't shiv, but was instead nasty. ''Balls'' nasty.
** Mutants make an appearance in the present day in [[GrantMorrisonsBatman Batman Incorporated]]; their vernacular is still impenetrable.

* ''TheMazeRunner'' is riddled with this. "Shanks," "Slinthead," "Greenie," and "Slim it" being prominent examples.

* ''EndersGame'': The students at the battle school developed their own slang, though most of it doesn't apparently extend beyond its walls.

* The ''InDeath'' series, set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, uses a judicious and mostly unobtrusive amount of FutureSlang. Notable examples are "mag" (possibly abbreviated from "magnificent" and roughly synonymous with "great" or "awesome") and various terms such as "iced" which are all clearly derived from "cool." Strangely enough, only the American slang is changed. British and Irish characters still use the same words and phrases.
* LarryNiven's hero Louis Wu often uses "tanj" (There Ain't No Justice) as a swear. Tanj sees widespread use throughout the KnownSpace stories, as do a few other unique curses; Belters in particular are fond of swearing by Finagle and Murphy, and tend to see the flatlander habit of swearing by deities as rather odd and quaint.\\

* The ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' series is chock full of both {{Unusual Euphemism}}s and CurseOfTheAncients style language, but it is unique in that its FutureSlang evolves over the course of the series. Things are described as being as ferocious as Radeligian cateagles or lacking the sense of a Zabriskan fontema -- but only after they have been introduced already. The series also has FutureCurses involving the god Klono ("Klono's carballoy claws!" and so on) who's apparently been invented so that Lensmen can curse a blue streak without blaspheming against any genuine religious beliefs.

* In ''Literature/{{Bumped}}'' by Megan McCafferty, which takes place in 2036, all of the slang relates to pregnancy or reproduction. In this society, everyone over 18 is infertile, so teens are paid top dollar to be surrogate parents for rich older couples.

* The protagonist in ''Series/{{Life On Mars|2006}}'' has a problem with this, having come from thirty years in the 'future'.

* AlanMoore's ''TheBalladOfHaloJones'' does this, so much so that it can be tricky to get into at first.