What has influenced your slang the most, and are you actively or passively hoping it will influence your childrens slang? Is there anything about those influences that makes it more likely that you will try to use that language?

For me, Battlestar Galactica (obviously) and to a lesser extent, Serenity/Firefly have both influenced my slang use. Heinlen would probably be the most influential author. Both shows are very complete, cohesive universes, the little phrases they use are both so odd and so appropriate that I just get all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about it. Little things like "in the black" and "atmo" and stuff spacers SHOULD say.

Slang (dialoge in general) is something that Whedon and the Battlestar writers get top marks for, that Roddenberry was HORRIFIC at and that Lucas's successes I believe were more a factor of who he chose to act.

What's your slang? Does media influence it or are you stuck with the slang of your peers?

Whedon, especially where it comes to adding -y to things. Sandwhich-y. Whedon-y.

I also really enjoyed the cadence of OLD Television Without Pity. Before they sold their souls.

And I don't know where I got dude, because I've never even visited California, but it's everywhere in my speech and writing. I call my kids dude. I don't know where I picked it up, but it is as firmly entrenched in my vocabulary as "uh" or "um".

A few years ago, it seems like TV and radio people started saying "F" when then meant "Fuck." Now I say "F" a lot, to cope with an unprofessional potty mouth, so I guess my son will do it, too.

(At work, I also use "jeepers" and "golly gee whiz" to keep out of trouble. And it makes people laugh.)

Whedon's weird Chinese-ish slang on Firefly is funny to hear, but has not caught with me.

And I've never been to the South, 'cept Florida, but one of Baby T-Rex's main nicknames is "Bubba." At his tumbling class the other day, I noticed a dad calling his son Bubba, to, and this guy seems to be from the Middle East.

Maybe we are all attracted to slang from parts not our own. I am in CA, and I do say "dude," but not very often to my son. He's "Bubba-licious."

I say For the love of Pete a lot when I'm frustrated. It's more polite than goddammit, which is my favorite bit of profanity and which, if Mr. S hears the boys say it, will cost me my ass. And not in a good way (he's pretty anti swearing--I don't understand it, seeing as how I curse like a sailor, but there it is).

I also say y'all a lot and call people things like sweetie and hon. I don't know that it counts as slang, exactly, but it's a verbal tick that I can't seem to shake at all.

wookie - you're my girl and all but um, i have NO idea what the first part of your post says. :) that slang is effective.

i'm partial to the local slang which is infused with surfing terms. and if you count cussing as slang... :)

T-rex - I call El Destruco bubb (drop the a) a lot. Or monkamoo. Which is what El D says when you ask him a series of animal sound questions.

ks - i use the love of pete one all the time too! i have been trying to curb my potty mouth too. I'm so afraid that El D's first phrase will be "stupid fuck" b/c of my mumbling while driving.

The novels of Charles Dickens.

I don't know that I have anything in particular that influences what words I use...it's more if it tickles my funny bone while addressing the issue at hand in a perfect way. So it may be a show, a movie or a book. The trashy and funny romance novels I share with Ellie have a few phrases I've picked up.

Although one of AlphaGeek's buddies says 'dude' all the time, and from just being around him, I now say it all the time as well.

I pick up slang from here or there and I make up slang too. When I hurt myself these days I try to say "Frick" instead of fuck, which is from Scrubs. I also use "dude" and occasionally "y'all" with ironic emphasis. But most other slang phrases we use around here are self generated. "Stealthy like a phoenix," "Do the needful," "Moose: the family fraternity!" These are all reoccuring phrases that we picked up through random life experiences.

Over the years I've picked up a lot of slang from the various places I've lived. Philly, the South, rural midwest, and Northern England (it makes for a weird accent I'm told).

I too swear like a sailor. Mo never picked the words up and tried them out but Max is turning into a little parrot. Some self censoring is needed.

I too curse like crazy. I have tried to stop but it is part of my being. I love frick, frack and heck.

My worse slang is "like." I don't know what I watched in the late 80s, early 90s that turned me into a Valley Girl, but I hate it. I have been trying to catch myself doing it, but sometimes I just can't do it. Like, there are times when I type it! ;-)

cussing. and lots of it.

i also say "dude" and "totally" like a true californian. dude, toooootttally.

My husband and I have been together since high school. Because of this, we have ten trillion inside jokes that used to mean something years ago and now we just find it funnier than shit to say these ridiculous catch phrases from our youth and have our children repeat them - not getting what the fuck it is they are saying.

Now that they are getting older, we sometimes get asked to explain the things we say. It's still fun to hear them say "Juice!", or "Way to go, Lobes!", and know this only means something to us and some of our friends.

Other than Dickens, I'd say my slang derives principally from Beavis & Butt-head and Strangers With Candy.

Cowboys and Marines have totally affected my slang - lets just say people with delicate ears should not be around when I'm on a ripper.

I also do the '80s valley girl/surfer thing.

Like totally dude, oh my god!(with hair flip)

My preferred slang involves using as many swear words as possible, so I'm really hitting a wall here with D at home. I find myself trying to come up with alternate pronunciations of swear words he's already picked up so he won't freak the squares. I think I've convinced him that "Oh shit!" was actually "Push it!" and "Fuck!" was actually "fork". I don't know if outsiders will really buy the reinterpretations, but it makes me feel a little less guilty to hear him say "push it!" in response to something falling on the floor.

Blimey, JTC!

I actually say gnarly on occasion. I swear I was Californian in a previous life. Sigh.

I love the Whedon "add a -y to everything" thing and I find myself doing that occasionally.

To stop myself from cursing like a sailor after I had kids, I found myself inexplicably falling back on the "catholic curse words" like "Jesus, Mary and Joseph" and "Mother of God!" when I'm upset. I couldn't believe it when I heard those come out of my heathen mouth. And when my sweet-faced little Luke started saying them they sounded almost as foul as "fuck."

Wookie, that's shiny!

I do the boring V-chip word replacements: dangit, shoot, heck, etc. I am a 50's sitcom.

Most of my slang comes from either modifications of the heavy swearing I did in college (I had to clean up my language when I joined the Navy if that give you a sense of where I was on the spectrum!) or from slang that I used ironically and then found myself stuck with! After a few years in the South, for example, I started calling all kids honey or sweetheart, which I need to work on since I now work with 8th graders full time.

Offsprung.com

A lot of my slang comes from inner-family communications, mostly with my sister. Both my sister and I rarely say each other's name, but call each other "Chocolate" but pronounced more like "Chkrt." or sometimes with a midwestern "a" sound, like "Chaeklit". We also say "Swedish" a lot. Poopsie sometimes. And, creative variations on common swearwords. Like rather than calling someone an asshole, we call them an ass-hat, ass-clown, cockbag, or fucktard - this last one almost always brings a smile to my face. I dare you to say it outloud, it might just please you more than you could know. Instead of douche, or douchbag, we've gone to douche-nozzle. Crapface is a cleaner name that we might call each other. We also say "Furk" instead of "Fuck".
You know, I really enjoyed that transition that the word "bitch" made from being used to refer to mostly women, to it's now liberal usage when applied to men. I thought it was pretty hilarious the first time I heard a guy called a "bitch"...hahahah. Alternately, my sister and I sometimes call each other an "asshole" just for shit's and giggles, but never a bitch.

Looks like I'm in good company!
"Dude", "For real?", "for sure", "sweet", and "wHat(emphasis on the H)" are all daily members of my vocabulary. And of course shit, fuck, damn, ass...or any combo of the 4.
My pottymouth comes and goes for the most part. It really depends on who I'm around (though more than once I've caught myself saying "FUCK" in public).