Caveat: nuclear honey jam

"Nuclear honey jam" means "extremely fun," according to my HS1T cohort.

My students taught me this expression, which follows a trend I've noticed among my middle-schoolers of developing new slang by very literally translating Korean slang terms into English – i.e. just looking up each syllable in the dictionary separately. Thus, this expression derives from the Korean slang phrase "핵꿀잼" [haek.kkul.jaem]. The last syllable I was already familiar with - 잼 [jaem] is a slang abbreviation for 재미있다 [jae.mi.it.da = to be fun, to be interesting], and a pun with the homonymous Korean borrowing from English 잼 [jaem = jam]. The kids use this a lot. They then also use 노잼 [no.jaem = not fun], using the English negative "no." I've heard this for years. However, I'd never learned 꿀잼, where 꿀 [kkul = honey] seems to mean something like English speakers use "sweet" in a slang way to mean "cool" or "nice" or "awesome." So, "sweet fun."  Then 핵 [haek = nuclear] is short for 핵무기 [haek.mu.gi = nuclear weapon], which is deployed something like "the bomb" in English, and seems to be an intensifier. 

[daily log: walking, 7km]

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