When i was driving two French teens around here, my son and his friend, everything seemed to be an "ouf" something or other - a maison Ouf, etc. they were always using Ouf to describe something i gathered was bizarre or funny to them. I have heard the word Ouf in France for a long time but this was a new contect i gather is youth oriented - adults seem to exclaim "Ouf" when they make a stupid mistake, etc.
French experts - can you tell me a bit about the expression Ouf - what does it really mean and it's use.
Pardon pour la post Ouf!

I'll take a stab...it can be the equivalent of a shoulder shrug, a "so what" or an "oh well"...what, the train is not leaving (I say)...Ouf (he says), or it could be a "hey", like "ouf, un MacDonald's"

I think the way the teens are using the expression is different than what you're describing, Michel_Paris.

What they're saying, is "Verlan" - a type of French slang where you say words backwards.

So "Ouf" would mean "fou," or crazy, or "cool."

http://french.about.com/library/vocab/bl-verlan.htm

Thank goodness. I was afraid it had something to do with eggs.

Fascinating! I think marcy is right. This site on "verlan" even uses "ouf" as an example.

http://french.about.com/library/vocab/bl-verlan.htm

I'm an idiot. Didn't see that marcy already posted it...

fascinating...I go home tonite a little wiser.

Indeed; now I know what our French friend means when she says "ouf!" in messages. This will be a discussion topic for when we see her next fall!

Marcy: the Verlan now makes perfect sense to me - this was a few years ago and they were into Verlan then heavily. thanks to help me differentiate the two Oufs. Guess i could have asked my son and will next time i see him but it was just one of those things that pops into your head once in a while. Ouf!

Pal, t'es ouf ou quoi!? This is what you can hear sometimes when teenagers talk to each other (you're crazy or what?!) Try to tell him that sentence and watch his face!
c'est un truc de ouf, for something really impressive...

Ouf usually means a relief (phew!)
Ouf! j'ai eu mon train!

It's confusing, sometimes, though, isn't it?

It's hard enough to understand French spoken forewards (especially teenagers!), but when they start speaking backwards, it adds another whole dimension of difficulty!

Is there any equivalent to verlan in English?

coco, my guess is pig-latin but it certainly hasn't evolved as much as verlan Deborah

atinlay igpay, perhaps?

There's something called New York Sneak Thief, which adds syllables after consonants.

Just to mention that when you're not dealing with teens using "verlan", "ouf!" express a sigh of relief like in : "Ouf! We made it on time"

In English it's called backslang, and it dribbles into fashion from time to time.

I know a few couples who have bits of backslang as a private language, usually dating from the woman's childhood. Polari (if you don't know, google Round the Horne) has (well, really, had) a couple of words that are supposed to be backslang: eek (short for ecaf) for face, esong for nose and riah for hair.

There was a Liverpool playground version back in the 1950s (http://tinyurl.com/z396o, but beware: it triggers a Real Media application): I still remember 'indoway'. There was a version used by 19th century London crims. And references around to an Australian meat industry version called retchub klat, which sounds remarkably like some newspaper's April Fool to me.

BTW: has anyone seen 'Les Ripoux"? Unlike Polari, Verlan's actually made it to being a fim title.

Yes, pourri/ripou : isn't this a good example of verlan? They say the movie Les Ripoux made this slang word ripou popular.