• honeyontoast@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    They must have been really desperate to make that jab because “slipping up” has been a common phrase for decades (at least in the UK). So the “up” has been dropped and we’re left with “slipping”, if it takes a native English speaker more than ten seconds to work it out I’d be worried for their cognition.

    • evranch@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      Even more relevant, “you’ll never catch me slipping” in some form has been a common phrase in rap/hip hop since the 80s, meaning to be caught off guard (obviously).

      I have no idea why they decided to look foolish by defining such a common word

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      There was also a meme where a lady posted a photo of her taking a selfie of her asleep on a bed, with the caption “Females be like ‘bae caught me slippin’”. Bae, of course, is a modified form of “baby” meaning romantic partner, but the use of “slippin” in this meme created a lot of confusion and online debates, or “flame wars” as we called them in my day, about whether it or not it means “sleeping.” The facts that either “slipping up” or “sleeping” could mean “being caught unaware or unprepared” further compounds the contentiousness.

      Eventually, everyone realized it was a stupid argument and started talking about how to pronounce words instead.