It's always interesting to learn about quirky, funny, and sometimes bizarre slang from other cultures. Since moving to Canada, it's always fun to learn new words that I would never have known in Japan! In order to learn English better, I thought I would write a blog about this in English. Well, why not?
One of the slang words I picked up recently from conversations with friends is a "wedgie." It can be used as both a noun and a verb (wedgied/to wedgie).
To give a wedgie is to grab someone's underwear from behind and forcefully pull it so that it "wedges" into their buttocks. For a long time, getting wedgies have been considered a particularly humiliating and painful experience, often happening to quiet, meek boys.
↑ Pulling it up that high... that’s going to hurt. Photo from wikiHow. Wait, why have a how-to guide?
This act is common in American and Canadian media, and I've seen it before watching imported shows from Disney Channel in Japan. But I had no idea there was a word for it, and that it was so common! Many of my Canadian friends, including my immigrant friends, understand it immediately when I mention it.
Apparently, this tactic is so classic that over the years, new versions have been invented (some of which are quite horrifying)! The most famous is the "atomic wedgie," which, as my friend explained, involves the bully continuously stretching the underwear upwards until it is pulled over the boy’s head.
↑ Picture from Jacob Two-Two (a very popular cartoon in Canada). Is this some kind of creative hat-making?
Even more mortifying, the bully might hang the pulled-out underwear onto a hook somewhere up high, like a bathroom door. The boy’s feet can’t touch the ground, so his entire weight is hanging from his underwear, forcing it up into the crack of his buttocks. If the boy is fortunate, his underwear is cheap and rips easily, so he gets relief quickly. But if he's unfortunate, the cotton only stretches and doesn’t tear, so he will endure the wedgie for a long time until his underwear finally rips apart… It's painful to even think about!
I think my face looked pretty appalled when my friend explained it to me, but she assured me that pulling on a girl's underwear is forbidden, and girls are never on the receiving end. So I asked, "Why is it called an 'atomic' wedgie?" My friend explained with dead seriousness that the atomic wedge was so named because, like an atomic bomb splitting an atom, an atomic wedgie splits the cheeks of a boy's buttocks apart. Even though it’s so horrible, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at her explanation. Still, being a short and quiet person, I’m sometimes glad I did not have to go through public school as a boy.
↑ Poor Zack had his underwear hung out with the laundry... while he was still wearing it. Picture from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, a popular Disney show I watched on TV as a kid.
How many people have gotten wedgied in real life? My friend said she witnessed classmates having their underwear pulled up when she was in school, especially in junior high. However, something like an ‘atomic wedgie’ is probably rare. She's my elder by many years, so I hope that in this day and age (where social exclusion and cyberbullying are more rampant), there are fewer wedgies. Please, leave it to TV comedies and stop pulling up other people's underwear!
So here's today's lesson: While I generally love learning about slang and culture, there are some words I'm happier not knowing. As the saying goes, "ignorance is bliss!" Well then.