These days, you need a translator to understand half of what kids are saying.
Thanks to the popularity of social media sites like TikTok, every week children and teens are finding new phrases and memes to share and say to each other – much to the befuddlement of their parents.
From the latest baffling trend of saying “and a Black Santa napkin!” to the rise of “six-seven” and the bizarre world of brainrot characters like Ballerina Cappuccina, it can be exhausting work for parents and teachers trying to keep up with what it all means.
One of the other expressions kids are coming out with currently is “gurt”.
But what does ‘gurt’ mean?
In some parts of England, gurt means very large or great. But this isn’t what kids mean when they’re saying it.
In his weekly videos on the words kids are using in class, school teacher and TikTok creator Philip Lindsay said the meaning of gurt is “confusing”, as people seem to use it in two different ways.
The first way refers to a joke where someone says “Yoghurt” and a character called Gurt replies: “Yo”.
According to Know Your Meme (KYM), this actually dates back to 2012, but only recently took off thanks to videos on TikTok.
Mr Lindsay explained in his TikTok explainer that “in this scenario, the proper response to someone saying ‘gurt’ is ‘yo’ and vice versa, if somebody says ‘yo’ you say ‘gurt’”.
So, kind of like a greeting. Makes sense.
But that’s not where this all ends. The teacher explained that the term seems to have evolved, however, and now has “more meaning to it”.
There’s a series of videos known as “What They’re Doing Is Very Smart But Also Very Dangerous” which show cute animals “doing something very smart but also very dangerous”, as per KYM.
For example, penguins jumping from high off a massive iceberg into the sea.
So now, according to Mr Lindsay, “the meaning of gurt or gurting is to do something smart yet dangerous”.
Ultimately though, there’s no agreed meaning.
The teacher continued: “There are a bunch of definitions flying around right now on the internet about what gurt actually means, so we’ll see how this unfolds in the coming months.”
