Party Vocab with Municipal Waste

Intro

When most people think of a party, they picture dancing and dance music. But there’s a level of partying beyond dancing, where the music is so loud and fast that it makes you dizzy and there’s no time to sip a drink so you pound beers as fast as you can. Sound dangerous? It is.

At that level of intense partying is American thrash band Municipal Waste. Their music is somewhere between punk and metal and their fans are somewhere between really drunk and passed out. Watch as Jason goes backstage at a Municipal Waste show to get some lessons in party vocab.

Dialog

Jason

Tony

Matt

Jason:  Welcome to English, baby! I’m Jason and I’m here with…

Tony:  Tony.

Jason:  Tony’s band, Municipal Waste, has an album out called The Art of Partying. So Tony is here to help us learn some partying vocabulary. When you’re on stage, Tony, I’ve noticed you do a particular move that’s common at parties, called headbanging.

Tony:  Yes, I’ve headbanged before.

Jason:  Does it take its toll on your neck?

Tony:  Yeah. Headbanging in general just hurts. You get banger’s neck.

Jason:  He’s gettin’ a massage to help out his banger’s neck. Now, you guys have probably crashed a few parties in your day. Can you tell me a party crashing story?

Tony:  At a house party, we ended up, like, lighting a couch on fire and throwing it over a balcony.

Jason:  Wow.

Tony:  And then carrying it back up and throwing it off again.

Jason:  Right on, man. I’ll let you enjoy your massage. If you wanna give me a high five and say “English, baby!”

Tony:  Yeah. English, baby!

Jason:  Tony and Municipal Waste demonstrated one of the quickest ways to drink a beer, shotgunning. You poke a hole in the side of the beer and open it into your mouth, so that the whole beer goes down your throat in just a few seconds.

Jason:  Now you just drank the entire beer. That’s it.

Jason:  I’m here with Matt, a Municipal Waste fan who’s gonna demonstrate a couple of different drinking styles.

Matt:  The first one is gonna be a swig, alternately known as a sip. What qualifies a certain drink as a sip or a swig? Well, generally when you say, “swig,” it’s an alcoholic beverage. You don’t generally take a swig of water. You might, but it’s a swig of beer maybe or a swig of liquor.

Jason:  OK.

Matt:  And a sip could be of any beverage.

Jason:  And it’s a short, quick drink. It’s the duration that defines it.

Matt:  Indeed.

Jason:  Alright. And what’s the second kind of drinking you’re gonna show us?

Matt:  It is a chug.

Jason:  OK.

Matt:  And a chug is drinking for a longer period of time, swallowing many times as I will demonstrate.

Jason:  Alright. Note the throat action. That’s a mighty chug. English, baby!

Grammar Point

Plural vs. Possessive “S”
It’s easy to confuse the plural and possessive “s.” When you add an s to the end of a noun, that makes it plural. For example, when one headbanger meets another headbanger, you get two headbangers. But when one headbanger bangs his head too hard, he gets banger’s neck. When you add an apostrophe + s to the end of the noun, it signifies that the noun owns something.

To form a plural possessive, or show that a plural noun owns something, you add s + apostrophe. For example, all of the headbangers’ necks were sore after the show.

Discussion

Discussion - Join the discussion to learn more and make friends.

Most people headbang at Municipal Waste shows, but the band has to do that every night! So Tony gets a massage to help the pain in his neck and tells Jason about crashing a party.

Then they learn about shotgunning. Have you ever seen anyone drink a beer that fast?

Next Jason finds a Municipal Waste fan who demonstrates different ways to drink. Which do you prefer, a chug or sip? Or would you rather skip the drinking and go straight to the massage?

Comprehension Quiz