Finding America

Me and Tarah

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This week, watch Laurence valiantly work his way through 17 phrases common to the state of California—under the profound disadvantage of having never been there.

Below are the 17 phrases in order, accompanied by their respective definitions. 

1. Bail – to leave a place. (Bail also means the temporary release of someone awaiting trial for a crime.) For example, if you’re at a friend’s house and you want to go home, you can say, “Hey man, I’m tired. I’m gonna bail.”

2. Bomb(ie) – you can say something is bomb when you really like it. When a girl is very attractive, you might call her a bombie. For example, “Angelina Jolie is so bomb,” or “Angelina Jolie is such a bombie.”

3. Bum – to borrow/have. For example, if you order food that costs $8.25 you can ask your friend to bum a quarter.



4. Butthurt – when someone gets upset over a small thing. You use this to emphasize how easily someone got upset about something so small. For example, Joe got butthurt when Cami didn’t answer her phone.

5. To call (someone) out – to say someone is wrong. For example, I decided to wait until after the speech before calling him out on his mistake.

6. Claimin‘ it – what you say when someone is bragging. For example, if someone’s talking about how cool they are because they can do a backflip on a snowboard, you can say while rolling your eyes, “Claimin’ it,” or “he claims so hard.”

7. Clutch – when someone unexpectedly has something that helps a situation. For example, if you buy some wine but you don’t have a wine opener at your house, but your friend has one in his backpack, that’s clutch.

8. Cruise – another way to say “come” or “leave.” For example, “Hey man, you wanna cruise over to my place after work?” Or, “Hey man, it’s getting late. I’m gonna cruise.”

9. Dank – another way to say something is good. This originated from marijuana, but is commonly used for other things as well. For example, “This food is dank, I could eat it every day.”

10. Drag – to inhale cigarette smoke. For example, if someone is smoking a cigarette, you can say, “Hey man, can I get a drag?”

11. Gnarly - difficult, dangerous, or challenging.

12. Heavy – when something is very sad or depressing. For example, if someone tells you their cousin died yesterday, you could say, “Damn, dude. That’s heavy...”

13. Mob – similar to cruise, but it usually implies to come quickly, often by foot, bike, or skateboard. For example, if you ask someone to cruise over to your house after work, and they say they don’t have a car you can say, “Just mob, dude.”

14. Post up – to stand around (often leaning against a wall) without doing much. You can use this when telling some to wait for you, “Just post up here, I’ll be right back,” or if you’re in the club, “hey let’s post up by the bar.” This is a little bit like hang out. 

15. Put (someone) on blast – to make fun of someone in front of other people. If someone is making fun of your new haircut at a party in front of other people, you could say, “Yo dude, why’re you putting me on blast?”

16. To rock (something) – to wear clothes/accessories with style. Also, asking someone, “Can I rock this?” is another way of saying, “Does this look good on me?”

17. Swooped – to steal/take. This is also used when you’re trying to get with a girl and someone else ends up hooking up with her. For example, if you’re sitting in the front of a car and you leave to go to the bathroom, and someone takes your spot, they swooped you (or you “got swooped”).

Sometimes, it's better hearing me in a British accent. Subscribe to me on YouTube.


Laurence Brown is a British man writing his way through the truly bizarre world of America - a place he sometimes accidentally calls home and a place he still hasn't quite figured out after seven years. Thankfully, his journey is made 12% easier by the fact that his accent makes him sound much smarter than he is. For evidence of this, subscribe to his popular Lost in the Pond web series over on YouTube.

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