You might ask, where did the riveting vernacular of senior Aidan Byrne come from?

The world may truly never know the answer to this question.

Including abbreviations, made up words, and just straight “grit”, this language has impacted the way some of his closest friends now choose to talk.

I wanted to know the inside scoop, so I asked the man himself where this all came about. Aidan told me, “Sophomore year, I was just acting like a complete “goon squad” and it just came about.” Goon squad, one of his very own creations means…well, I honestly can’t tell you what it means. It’s phrases like this that catch your attention and make you wonder what he is actually saying.

I asked Byrne to share some of his favorite phrases he uses on a daily basis. He told me, “ter game”, the famous “attaboii”, “Grit”, and one of his all-time favorites “It’s for the boys” are his go to sayings. You will often find Aidan asking people “are you fine?’ and “do you love it” as you walk through the halls or are just simply having a conversation.

Nobody is really a 100% sure what he’s asking that you love, but you just go with the flow anyway. Mr. Quatman told me his opinion on the language, “I think it’s really irritating because a new word comes up every week and I have no idea what it means.” Aidan, Liam Geiser ’19, and Dave Brown ’19 can be seen every morning in Mr. Quatman’s room talking the talk and he has no clue what they are saying.

The language has been adopted by several other students including junior Zach Dugan. I asked Dugs, what makes the language so catchy? He told me, “The shortening of the words makes it real catchy, he abbreviates everything. I just love it.”

Dugs, to say the least has been the biggest user of Byrne’s vocabulary and seems to enjoy blessing everyone with his very own twist. Dugs explained to me how he started some of his own terms based off of the original language. Some of these include, “g-hound” and “this is straight hound town.” Aidan told me he’s surprised of how fast everything caught on and he didn’t think it would have affected that many people.

Not only does the talk stay close to friends, but Aidan’s family has been affected as well. I have experienced this first hand during summer baseball this past spring. Aidan often told his dad who was also the coach, “You are fine dad.” I can remember one at-bat Aidan had this summer where his dad actually yelled out, “C’mon Grit.” The whole team got a kick out of that and will be for sure be a quote to remember.

I asked his cousin Jake Byrne ’20 if he finds his cousin to be a goon. Jake told me, “Yes, he’s definitely a goon, he’s been a goon for a while this isn’t anything new.”

Sometimes you just can’t explain things, and figuring out this captivating language is certainly something you can’t fully explain. Jake Byrne told me, “I really just can’t explain it, you just gotta have a feel for it.”

Time will only tell until the next phrase comes out… stayed tuned.