One of the most important aspects of Buffy is the use of slang, commonly refered to as slayer slang or Buffy-isms, each character had his or her own way of speaking, this is evident in many of the quotes, as an example, a simple two word quote used by Willow was "bored now", you not only know that it is a Willow phrase, but was only used when she became evil, either as vampire Willow or as dark Willow.

"I hate it when they drown me"-Buffy

However the problem was, how do you get so many characters to become so distinctive, well Joss Whedon devised the perfect solution to that problem, you just create a whole language. Of course the problem is now, how do we go about creating the language of Buffy, well it's easy really, alot of the Buffy-isms that were used for the show were already in existance, such as flake, meaning someone who behaves oddly, or bad, used in context, means mistake, and example from the 1995 film Clueless, "OOPS!! my bad". Most of the true Buffy-isms, the words that were created for the show come about by using a simple system, take an everyday word and expand on it, words such as researchy, flingage or timeliness, all added to the language of the show.

"You don't hide! Your bait! Go act baity!"-Xander

You can't invent an entire language for a show such as Buffy without creating a few entirely new words, these are words entirely unique to the show, such as Slayerpalooza, meaning celebration of the slayer, Ewanage, meaning exposure to Ewan Mcgregor, or otherwhere, meaning elsewhere, as you can probably see, they are not unique in a sense, but two words made into one, or replaced by words with similar meanings, as in the use of other instead of else.

"Prince of night, I summon you! Come fill me with your black, naughty evil!"-Willow

A simple way to spot a Buffy-ism is by the use of ...ness, ...age, or the letter ...y or ...ey at the end of everyday words, for example, badness, sparkage, rampagy, or snoozey, these are the most common uses of Buffy-isms.

"Your logic does not resemble our earth-logic."-Buffy

One of the other aspects to the language of Buffy was the use of pop culture references, or in lay-mans terms, lines, characters or song/film titles which have already been used on other shows, examples are "We're gonna need a bigger boat." First used in 'Jaws', "My spider-sense is tingling." Used by spider-man, or "Does anyone feel like we've just been Keyser Sozed." A reference to a character from the film 'The Usual Suspects'. The references of pop culture were used to describe feelings, a look and many other situations, and they used extremely popular references, so that, again, it wasn't just the younger generation who understood the language. For a list of some of the pop culture used on the show CLICK HERE

"I hate being obvious. All fangy and GRR!!"-Spike

There is one small detail about Buffy-isms that is also an important part of the language, was the play on words, instead of saying 'We're not at the sending of flowers stage in our relationship, are we?', you would say 'We're deffinately pre-posey'. Then there was the melting down of complex explanations, an example, while Buffy is being interviewed by principal Snyder to be allowed back into school, Buffy says "So let me get this straight. I'm really back in school, because the school board over-ruled you. Wow! That's like having your whole ability to do this job called into question, when you think about it", and Joyce adds, "I think what my daughter is trying to say is, nah!..nah!..n-nah!..nah!"

"I guess she's not feeling real researchy right now"-Buffy

Now that you have the basics, you have to integrate them into the English language, in such a way as they make sense, not only to the younger generation, but also the older Buffy fan, so here are a few quotes used on the show:

CLICK HERE to view more quotes from the show.

That's about it really, you have the basic aspects of Slayer speak, and I hope that I have given you a little insight into the world of Buffy. See if you can come up with your own Buffy-isms and by all means send me a message.
Xander.