Slang check: scuba

What it means: “That stinks.” If something’s scuba, it smells bad. It comes with a dance: hold your nose with one hand, fan the air with the other.

How your teen uses it: “Your car is scuba.” Translation: your car stinks.

The backstory: It’s Gen Alpha’s word (kids born after about 2010, so middle schoolers and young teens), and it’s one of the slang words adults Googled most this year. The dance is the delivery system: the gesture does half the talking, which is why it jumped from TikTok to school hallways.

Heads up: The dance is the star of the “Flip the Camera” trend. A kid asks someone to film them doing it, then secretly flips the phone to the selfie camera and posts the person filming instead, usually to laugh at them. Critics call it bullying.