The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #111106   Message #2338918
Posted By: Azizi
12-May-08 - 10:25 PM
Thread Name: BS: New Words & Phrases You've Learned
Subject: RE: BS: New Words & Phrases You've Learned
Here's some information about Valley Girl talk. [I vaguely recall posting this same quote on another Mudcat thread, but I don't have a clue which one it was].

"In "Like, totally, the end of one mall's era," CNN April 15, 1999, Anne McDermott wrote the following: "There was a time when the Sherman Oaks Galleria was the most famous mall in America, at least among those of a certain age. They loved the Galleria and loved that it was mentioned in the 1982 Frank and Moon Unit Zappa hit single, "Valley Girl." And why not? The Galleria was widely considered to be the birthplace of the "Val" (as Valley Girls would refer to each other in a kind of shorthand). It all began in the fall of 1980. That's when the Galleria opened in the heart of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, better known locally as "the valley." Back then, the three-story, skylighted, enclosed structure was considered the epitome of all that was cool in mass consumption. Teens discovered the Galleria and quickly packed the place. It had everything: trendy boutiques, Pac-Man game booths and what passed for exotic fare at the food arcade (yes, even hot dogs on a stick). Plenty of the mall rats enjoying all this were boys, but, for some reason, it was the girls who were noticed. And somehow, someone, somewhere, thought to call them "Valley Girls." Like, totally, a lingo To be called a "Valley Girl" was not exactly a compliment. It conjured up images of vacuous, giggly girls with lots of time on their hands and a bizarre language on their lips. Moon Zappa captured a lot of that talk in 'Valley Girl,' the song she wrote and recorded with her father. Naturally enough, she learned her Val-Speak at the Galleria, where she got to know a lot of Vals. Moon Zappa satirized the culture with lyrics that emphasized the air-headedness of Valley Girls, but in a recent interview, she said she only wrote the song so she could spend more time with her father. In those days, Frank Zappa was touring with his band nine months of the year, and Moon, then 14, simply missed her dad."

http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/snd/valleygirl.html

[Click that link for Valley Girl; Song and lyrics by Frank Zappa, performed by Zappa's 14-year old daughter Moon Unit, recorded on the album "Ship Arriving Too Late To Save a Drowning Witch" released May 1982]