A Beginner's Guide to Bro-Speak

Bro-speak is a foreign language.  It might sound similar to English, but isn't quite the same. It consists of mostly English words, and English phrases, but these phrases have underlying definitions wholly different than those that are given by traditional English dictionaries. In order to help the public better understand the elusive "Bro", an individual common to both city and suburb, I have put together a basic guide to understanding "Bro-speak", or "Bro-talk". It is not an exhaustive guide, nor does it elucidate minor grammatical variations or regional dialects, such as the difference between "Bro" and "Brah", but should help you to understand this majestic, pink-polo-wearing semi-human creature.

Lesson 1:  Bronouns

In normal English, pronouns are used to hold the place of a noun.  For example, "Mark went to the Walmart to buy alcoholic beverages for later consumption" begins with the noun 'Mark'. The sentence could just as easily have started with 'he', if Mark was introduced in a preceding sentence, or in the context of a larger conversation. In either case, it's meant to be clear who the individual going to the store is, so that others can understand the sentence completely.

In bro-speak, pronouns are replaced by alternate, less specific forms.  The same sentence above in Bro-speak would not use either 'Mark' nor 'he', but would attempt to replace all unnecessary specifics about an individual with various Bro-nouns, such as 'dude' and 'the place'.  

Rewritten in bro-speak, the sentence now reads, "The dude went to the Walmart to buy alcoholic beverages for later consumption."

To try another example start with the following sentence: "Heidi was talking to Dana at work about her weekend plans with my good friend, Dave." In bro-speak, the same sentence now becomes,  "One chick was talking to another chick at work about the first chick's weekend plans with this dude who's my bro."

Notice the bro-nouns.  All individuals are now relegated to bro-status and are identified as dude, or bro, while the women lose all identity as well, and are subjected to the identification as 'chicks'.  This is common in bro-speak, though not all bros treat women in conversation so distantly and possibly sexist.  However, it is important when studying Bro-speak not to become bogged down in insinuations about meaning.  Remember, Bro-speak isn't english.  It's Bro. Many common etiquette rules do not apply to bro-speak, and this is important to remember when moving forward in a bro-speak conversation.

Lesson 2:  Vague=good.

In bro-speak, identifying specifics in a story is considered time consuming and unhelpful.  Often, bros choose to identify specifics in a story using more vague terms. Locations becomes amorphous and indistinct, people often become unclear, and most importantly, if clarification is needed, it is given in the form of a description, instead of a title.  A bro does not say they went to 'the mall' when asked for a specific location, they say they went to 'the place with that awesome pizza joint, and all the lights and stuff.'  That's because in bro-speak, vague answers are considered good.

To explain more clearly, consider the first example of a sentence we translated into bro-speak above, "Mark went to the Walmart to buy alcoholic beverages for later consumption."  We know from bro-speak rule 1, that "Mark" becomes "The dude".  Carrying on to lesson 2, we see even further changes in the sentence structure. The sentence above now becomes, "The dude went out to buy alcoholic beverages for later consumption."Notice that Walmart has been replaced with simply, "went out". If the bro speaking this sentence were asked where he went when he went out, he would only be able to explain in vague and unhelpful descriptions such as 'the place where all the bros working there looks super sad' or 'the booze-palace behind the trailer-trash aisles at that store with lots of other stores.'

To use our second example to show how vagueness can be applied to other sentences, we can start with our bro-speak phrasing already. We start with, "One chick was talking to another chick at work about the first chick's weekend plans with this dude who's my bro."

We apply the second lesson, and arrive at the following:
"Some chicks were talking at this place about plans for some time with this dude."

Note now that the entire meaning of the sentence may seem to change as a result of bro-speak.  Instead of a conversation between two individuals about one person's plans with another specific third party, the conversation is now entirely unclear.  We now only know that multiple women engaged in conversation at an indistinct locale about a man, and unknown plans to be had with this man.  This is a perfect example of how Bro-speak requires its conversations to be vague, and thus to imply more meaning than is actually given in the context of a statement.  Here, the people, location, and topic of discussion are vague, and we're almost ready to consider this a proper bro-speak sentence. However, we're not done quite yet. There remains one more key rule to bro-speak that must be clarified for any outsider to understand the language, and be accepted as a bro themselves.

Lesson 3:  Subject?  More like PUBject!

In any complete sentence, there must be a subject.  Who you're talking about may be the subject, or a specific occurrence, but in any conversation, a subject MUST be given for a sentence to be complete.  Because of the vagueness of bro-speak, the subject can be unclear, which is why all bro-speak sentences share a common subject:  Partying.  

Partying can refer to a number of different things, from social gatherings to sexual intimacy, but in any case, partying must always remain the subject in bro-speak.  As well, partying does not use the same words as other subjects, so you must find ways to make the sentence partying-related by altering the words within. To this end, let's see how our earlier examples can be fine tuned from their original forms to bro-speak, and what these changes mean for the sentence and subjects therein. 

We already managed to take away specific pronouns and specificity itself from example 1 where Mark went to Walmart, and we are currently left with "The dude went out to buy alcoholic beverages for later consumption." Properly completely translating this sentence to bro-speak means that the alcoholic beverages must now relate to the party, and the sentence itself must in some way relate to partying, and sound more party-themed, by using more colloquial and nonspecific terms.  The sentence now becomes, "The dude snagged some booze for partying."

The sentence has not broken the first two rules, and keeps the individual in question vague and referred to with a bronoun.  However, the individual no longer goes out to purchase alcohol, but rather 'snags' some 'booze', and relates to the party by specifically intending his purchase to contribute to some form of partying. So, the sentence is party-themed, partying focused, vague, and employs bronouns.

Our second example does not include alcohol, so it is naturally harder to relate to partying.  Thus, it focuses on the women in the sentence, and the earlier mentioned weekend plans.  We know already that the sentence has become "Some chicks were talking someplace about plans for some time with this dude." However, the sentence is so vague as to be nearly meaningless, and doesn't relate to a party, and must therefore become both slightly less vague, and more party related. The sentence now becomes, "Some chicks talked at the party about partying with this cool dude."

Many interesting things come from this sentence. First, note that the dude is now a 'cool' dude, so that there is an assumption about what the women will be doing when they 'party' with the dude.  If he is labeled merely a dude, the 'partying' is unclear, but once the male individual (the dude) is called 'cool' bros will assume that the females in question are specifically intending to spend time at a party focused on the dude. As well, if he's a 'cool dude' then the sentence seems more party-appropriate, and becomes party themed. Second, the earlier mentioned location at which the women talked is now a party, and the activity they engage in is now 'partying'.  Thus, the sentence is now related to partying, implies that the women involved will lavish attention on the 'dude' and yet the sentence is vague  about who is being referenced, while only referring to individuals by bronouns. So, the sentence is in proper bro-speak, and can be considered fully translated.

Bro-speak Conclusions

Whenever bro-speak is employed, it is important to remember the rules above, as well as specific variations that may be influenced by your age, gender, race, and location. These factors change many details of bro-speak, and may alter a sentence from "My bro was partying with this hot chick" to "A buddy of mine was rocking out this smoking bueno ladyfriend", an obviously important distinction. However,  due to the laid back nature of bros, minor infractions in bro-speak are tolerated, so long as the 3 rules given above are not violated.

So, with this basic beginner's guide to Bro-speak, you're ready to go out and party it up as if you were a bro yourself.  Just be warned, partying with a bro CAN be addictive, and may accidentally cause symptoms of the debilitating disease 'bro-citis' to develop, which may remove your ability to speak non-bro languages altogether.  

For now, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, and recommend you find yourself a good location at which to enjoy yourself, meet someone wonderful, and enjoy yourself.  Or, as we'd say in bro speak, I wish you, "Good parties, good people, good times."

Thanks,
Brian.


If you enjoyed this post, let me know in the comments below!  If you're looking for similarly satirical posts, or on similar subjects, check out "Stu, my Brobama" or "How to Win a Facebook Political Argument: Pt. 1: Republicans"

Thanks for reading!