Pimp his column

Here's a roundup column on language from the Winston Salem Journal that has an interesting start.

A reader complained about a Zits comic. (It has Jeremy looking into his lunch bag to find bologna and cheese on white bread, corn chips and an apple. He tells his mom, "Pimp my lunch.") The reader asked columnist Richard Creed: "Any ideas about definitions suitable for family discussion?"

Creed explains some newer meanings of the verb "to pimp" and how it ended up in the title of an MTV show, "Pimp My Ride."

I like this premise for an article; it's not as if most people are going to find the definition of "pimp" they're looking for in a dictionary. But the writing suffers from a common pitfall in teen trend stories: He sounds older than time.

Consider this sentence:

I wrote that among teen-agers pimp had become an adjective describing someone who looks great and, in teen parlance, "has it all together."

And this:

To pimp something is to make it new, fresh and fashionable. To Jeremy, a lunch consisting of bologna, cheese, white bread, corn chips and an apple is none of those. The lunch his mother prepared is cold, but it certainly isn't cool.

I think the key here is to stick to explaining whatever concept you're explaining. Do not litter your story with other bits of slang that you think will give your column that youthful air. It usually does the opposite.