It started with a number. Two, actually. Six and seven. My nieces said it like a chant, a reflex, a call and response that I could not decode. “Six seven,” they’d say, palms up, moving their hands in a small rhythmic gesture that looked part prayer, part shrug. And everyone around them laughed.

When I asked what it meant, they said it didn’t mean anything. Which, of course, meant everything.

From Foreign Words to Teen Slang

On my podcast, Fifty Words for Snow , my co-host Emily and I usually explore words from other languages— Japanese, Icelandic, Yiddish—words that open a window into how other cultures think. But in one episode , we decided to turn our microphones toward the next generation. We invited my nieces, Addie and Ava, along with Emily’s teenage son, Ollie, to teach us the

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