College professors try (and fail) to translate millennial slang

ByRachel Schwartz WPVI logo
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Department of Finance Professor David Myers is mystified by the term "on fleek."
Department of Finance Professor David Myers is mystified by the term "on fleek."
creativeContent-Lehigh University/YouTube

They might be experts in the subjects they teach, but when it comes to decoding millennial slang, these college professors just aren't making the grade.

Lehigh University in Pennsylvania challenged some of its instructors to step away from more familiar subjects like engineering, finance, economics, and yes, even communication, to see if they understood terms likely to be used by their students.

One professor speculated that "FOMO" could be secret code used to let others know their parents are gone -- "Father's Out, Mother's Out." In reality, the acronym stands for "Fear Of Missing Out."

"On fleek," the quality of being perfectly executed or on point, proved especially challenging to many of the instructors.

"Can't even begin to tell you, but poor Fleek, because everybody's jumping on him," Georgette Chapman Philips, dean of the College of Business and Economics, remarked.

University spokesperson Lori Friedman told ABC the video is meant as fun way to welcome freshman and returning students while highlighting an important part of the college experience.

"A big part of the college experience is interacting with people from all different backgrounds and bridging the various divides that can exist between and among us on campus -- generationally, culturally, geographically -- even in the words we speak to each other," she said.

Can you decode all the slang in the video? Let us know which terms you use in the comments below!