While we were working with our local newspaper on this story they just published about us (click here for more behind the scenes info on this story), one idea that came up was to do a “hot and not” list of our slang lessons. That is, a list of recent lessons on cool slang and a list of older, out-dated slang lessons.

The idea was ultimately scrapped, but not before I spent a couple of hours creating just such a list. While I am proud to say that we never actually did a lesson on “gettin’ jiggy wit it,” here are six slang lessons that either because of the context or the ever-changing nature of slang, are now rather amusing.

6. “old G” -  First off, the quote in this lesson comes from rapper Jadakiss. Um, who? But furthermore, I think even old Gs realize it’s not 1992 anymore and have quit talking about how gangsta they are.

5. “dope” – While this term is still commonly used (although not around anyone’s grandmother, of course), what dates this lesson is one of the example sentences that was used: “Mark bought a dope CD yesterday. It’s by this group called the Gorillaz. Have you heard of them? I think they’re from England.”

4.  “girlie men” – This one probably hasn’t seen much use since Hanz and Franz were on SNL, but the kicker here is that the quote for this lesson comes from none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger,  of Terminator and now Governor of California fame.

3. “wife beater” – I’m glad this one went out of style. I haven’t heard anyone call an undershirt a “wife beater” in several years. It used to be kind of sketchy to walk around wearing a “wife beater.” Now it’s probably sketchier to use the term “wife beater” to talk about anything other than a criminal.

2.  “off the hook” – This phrase truly died only recently when Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele starting using it in interviews frequently. Nothing kills slang like someone who is completely and totally uncool using it to try to be cool.

1.  “the three R’s” – I’ve come to learn that some crazy stuff happened before I started working here two years ago, but even I am surprised that this phrase became an Ebaby! lesson. I mean, most of our out of date stuff comes from the ’90s. I don’t know how far back you have to go to get to when this was a cool phrase. Maybe you could ask Donald Trump, who gives us the lesson’s quote.

So there you have it, the “not” list. The “hot” list isn’t nearly as funny. That’s probably why this idea never made it into the newspaper. But nonetheless, here’s what I came up with.

5. “bail out” – If you wanted to read a newspaper after October 2008, you needed to know this one.

4. “Joe six-pack” – It’s hard to believe it’s been less than a year since the US presidential election launched an unknown plumber into fame. Give this one 5 more minutes and it will be in the “not” pile.

3. “such as” – While not really slang, this one counts as “hot” because it was inspired by the incredible and viral misuse of this term by Miss South Carolina.

2. “dialed in” – Maybe it’s just me, but I hear this one all the time now.

1. “watered down” -  And finally, in the age when any band that was popular at any time can come back and make money on a tour with one or even zero original members, this one comes to us from Rage Against the Machine, who reached their prime back when most of the “not” list was in style and remained dormant until last year.

With both free and Super Memberships, user generated lessons and celebrity lessons, social networking and direct help from a live Ebaby! teacher, English, baby! does a lot of things for a lot of people.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been working with Ryan Fleming at Willamette Week, our hometown, Pulitzer Prize-winning newsweekly, on a story that hit the streets of the Portland area this week. Often when Ebaby! gets mentioned in the press, it’s for a specific thing we do (like when the LA Times featured one of our celebrity lessons). And that’s great! But Ryan did a wonderful job of exploring many aspects of our site.

The article features quotes from one of the members we met in Beijing and one of the most active teachers on our site, as well as an excursion into our archives of more than 3000 lessons. And the illustration by Jonathan Hill that accompanies the article is probably the best visual representation of the Ebaby! mission created to date. So head over to wweek.com and leave a comment!

I am being published! I will have to give you more details as they come. But as luck would have it, about six months ago an educational researcher and professor at Columbia University, Lori Langer de Ramirez, Ed. D., found my students’ wiki and loved it. She asked me to write a narrative about how I used the wiki in my ESL class and why. Well, it is getting published in her book about Web 2.0 in language classrooms. I am so excited. My little teaching narrative will compliment the more theoretical, research-based chapter on wikis in her book.

This achievement inspires me in a few different ways. First, as a fairly new teacher, I feel empowered by the Internet’s ability to level the playing field. What are the chances that the author would have found me and been able to peek into my classroom like that without the Internet? Second, it inspires me to try more new things because people notice! They noticed me! Not like being noticed really matters. (But we all know it does.) Anyway, I will keep you posted about when and where to buy the book.

And P.S. thanks for all the encouragement you guys gave me to teach abroad. I am excited about that too.

Image:  Zoha Navehebrahim

Portland’s NBC affiliate, KGW, recently opened a Today Show-style studio in Pioneer Square, right in the center of town. Every night at 7 local news rock star Stephanie Stricklen broadcast’s live in a show called Studio on the Square, and since Ebaby! hit a million members, Ebaby! CEO John Hayden was one of her guests last week. Watch the video here.

It was really fun to see what goes on behind the scenes of a broadcast from the Studio on the Square. We were amazed that it took so few people to run the studio–only Stephanie and one crew member were on site! They communicated with people at other locations through headsets.

Since one of the main things John and Stephanie talked about was our celebrity English lessons, John decided to demonstrate the concept by asking Stephanie to give a lesson. She’s pregnant, so John had her define “bun in the oven” on the air! We’re going to make a full lesson out of it and post it on English, baby! so stay tuned.

Here’s a photo of John getting his microphone before the broadcast.

And here’s a view of the studio you don’t see on TV.

English, baby! is kind of a crazy business. In our press release about reaching 1 million members, we mention almost a dozen features or services we provide, and since 95% of the people who use those services are outside the US, it can make our business seem even weirder to people here at home.

Barry Moltz, who hosts a popular small business radio show called Business Insanity Talk Radio took note of these facts and invited Ebaby! CEO John Hayden to be one of his guests for an episode called the “The Weird Business Show” alongside the entrepreneurs behind Fantasy Baseball Sherpa, ParkingSpots.com, a home staging company, a phone company for people who have had their phone disconnected and more (a clip of just John’s portion of the show is on our press page). It was a lot of fun to learn about other “weird” businesses.