I was on the phone with Sun Day advertising representative Kurt Kuehnert the other day, discussing a client’s ad copy, and he said, “They want either red, white, or blue.” He immediately interrupted himself with, “Wait, that’s wrong. They want red, white, or blue….”
Can you see the difference? Let’s clarify it. Here’s the rest of Kurt’s comment: “…You can’t say ‘either’ for more than two choices.”
Kurt’s very correct, and he’s talking about the either/or clause. The use of either before a selection can only be used to describe a choice of two or two groups. If you want to be grammatically correct that is. You can force the use of “either” for more than two choices by separating each choice with “or” (ie: red or white or blue), but it’s not in good form, and it’s kind of like a game of deduction.
So, Kurt, I’d say that your oral grammar is right “on fleek.”
Although I’d never say that because fleek isn’t a word, yet it’s gaining so much Internet traction since last year that even companies like Taco Bell and IHOP are starting to use it in their marketing material.
So what’s a fleek?
When I first heard it the other day, I would have guessed a wild vegetable that grows along a the bank of Midwest river. And I’d be wrong. Although I could be right because it’s not a word, so who’s to say a fleek isn’t a vegetable that grows wild along a river? Well, any botanist would say I’m wrong because there’s no such thing as a friggin fleek.
So again, what’s a fleek?
The short answer is Who knows? Since it’s not a word, it has no actual definition, but it’s most popularly used in place of the phrase “on point” (hence my above usage). Why is “on point” no longer good enough to occupy the space in our vocabulary it’s held for ages? The short answer: Who knows.
But you can blame it on the constant impact the Internet and social media sites are tolling on today’s vocabulary; “on point” is only the most recent victim. It reminds me of when the word “bling” hit the scene in the late 90s and early 00s. And although I don’t use the word “bling” (nor will I ever), it has a definition and an etymology that dates back to the 70s so at least that much is going for it. And the word matches its usage to describe ostentatious jewelry that sparkles a lot. Fleek has no such history. It’s as made up as a word in a Star Wars language. Alien. Fleek could be Tatooine for hello. It could be.
It first appeared in the Urban Slang dictionary in 2003, meaning “smooth” or “nice” or “sweet,” at least in regards to each word’s slang definition (slang to define slang…seriously?). It appeared again in 2009 with an updated definition: awesome.
Again in the slang variant of the word, not awe-some or worthy of awe. However, it wasn’t until 2014 that fleek hit critical mass.
And it came from a 16-year-old girl named Peaches…sort of.
While her mother was shopping in Burlington Coat Factory, Chicago native Peaches Monroe, which is actually a handle at various social media sites, waited in the car and decided to make a few-second video she intended to upload to a site called Vine. In the video, she said her eyebrows were “on fleek.”
Monroe says, according to a Newsweek report, “It [on fleek] just came out of the blue.” Whether she’d heard it before or she divinely crafted it on the spot, the term immediately went viral.
Monroe says to her (Newsweek) that fleek means to be fabulous and comfortable in your own skin.
However well-intentioned, it’s still a lawless word. Excuse me, a lawless thing. An it.
The issue I have with fleek is not that it’s slang. I use slang. Slang is a big part of our vocabulary. And I think slang fills, in most cases, an important language gap.
As a writer, I’m constantly on the lookout for new words, words to make my writing, my dialogue more precise. Sometimes it’s true that we don’t have a word for “it.” Enter slang to fill the gap and turn a shapeless pronoun into a proper, comprehensible thing. Furthermore, slang is only slang because we’re either using it differently than its intended use or it’s simply not found in a proper dictionary.
My issue with “fleek” isn’t even really that it’s not a word. I could grab onto that. I think it would be pretty cool to make up a word.
My issue is that it doesn’t fill any language gaps. It’s not helping anyone be more precise in communicating their thoughts. It’s like trying to fix something that isn’t broken or reinvent the wheel without any upgrades in manufacturing. In fact, going on the wheel analogy, it’s kind of like making a new wheel and removing its radial thread. Sooner rather than later it’s going to fall flat.
Then again, language is a moving thing that carries us through the ages. I just think we need to give it a little more gas than fleek to get us to where we need to go.
