JEWELERS ARE COOL PEOPLE — there’s no doubt about that.
But as the years go by, it’s possible to get just a bit out of touch with the latest slang, even in your own industry.
So we prepared a handy guide as part of Big Survey 2016. The question was: “What’s your favorite piece of slang or jargon that has entered the industry in the last five years?” We were looking for slang that might be used at the bench, in your finances or with customers.
For this task we brought in our teenage editorial assistant, also known as the boss’s daughter, to help. The result was that bling, my bad, WTF, what’s up?, awesome, sick as a positive adjective, and Google as a verb, didn’t make the cut (we did stipulate “in the last five years”).
So what was left, and what did she consider cool?
- Awesomesauce. “We use it frequently to refer to sales, our team, our customers, our designs … it’s fun and all-encompassing,” explained our hipster jeweler.
- “Tszuj” as in “tszuj it up,” meaning bring it to another level.
- Pregret (knowing you will regret something before you do it) got a couple of mentions, although there was only mention one for “This could be the next Y necklace.” But we liked it nonetheless.
- Yuge! “That sale was YUGE!” (For which we can thank The Donald).
There was no shortage of ways to disparage small diamonds:
- Sailor diamonds (I color I clarity. Aye, Aye!)
- Frozen spit diamonds (low-grade diamonds bought from the mall).
- Tweezer taffy.
- Internet diamonds – as “no jeweler would have bought that one.”
- Conarderly, also spelled “kinardly,” for a gem so small you CAN HARDLY see it. (We’re not sure it’s all that new but given that slang comes and goes in cycles — i.e. our linguistic expert says “peace” as a way of saying farewell is back — we opted to include it.
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Others that made our cut:
- Five tabler (you can see that ring from five tables away!)
- “Slinging” diamonds, to mean “selling” diamonds. “Shifting inventory” serves the same purpose.
- Stack it up, to urge someone to add more jewelry to their personage.
- Gletz, not new but it’s such an inside word for a small crack or inclusion in a diamond that we felt compelled to keep it.
- Pindant: a pin that can also be worn as a pendant.
- Hot mess, replacing fubar.
- Re-purpose (particularly useful for a design that goes awry).
- Vintage-retro look (“which means they want a new ring with the hand engraving all over it.”)
- Selective participation — aka LAZY!