It's an annual tradition here at HuffPost Canada to round up the hottest slang terms making waves on the internet.

This year, after some in-office discussion about where so many of these terms come from, we're doing things a bit differently and sharing some context about origin and usage. There's a reason there was a backlash when the Monterey Bay Aquarium recently called one of its sea otters "thicc," and it wasn't because Twitter was angry about the animal being fat-shamed.

Many of the words and phrases that blew up on social media this year come from Black Twitter , American black culture and African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). So, is it appropriate to use these words if you're not black?

The issue of co-opting black slang words taps into the bigger problem of cultural appropriation.

What is AAVE?

AAVE is a dialect of English spoken by many African Americans and some black Canadians. It has its own grammatical structures, vocabulary, and accents, which makes it just as valid a variant of English as British English.

Black people are still the targets of systemic racism in North America and around the world. Simply being identified as black can negatively affect access to employment , housing , health care , education , and fair treatment by law enforcement .

Watch: "The Daily Show" correspondent, Dulce Sloan on cultural appropriation and being black in America. Story continues below.

When black people use AAVE or another dialect like Jamaican or Trinidadian patois, they can be penalized for it in many situations, and seen as uneducated or illiterate.

The continued systemic oppression of black people is why the blending of black slang into mainstream language is seen as appropriation and exploitation, rather than appreciation and shared cultural mixing. Where it's risky for black people to use their own dialect, non-black people can pick and choose terms and use them to sound "cool."

"Appropriation occurs when there's a power difference, and the source of the lexical item is stigmatized, persecuted, or otherwise 'lower' class," social scientist Taylor Jones explained on his blog. It's different from linguistic borrowing, which is when "one language [or dialect] acquires a word or phrases from another."

Before words like 'bae' and 'on fleek' go viral on social media and are adopted by the non-black masses, they're considered improper, and the black people who coined the terms and use them in everyday ways lose out on opportunities because of how they're perceived.

Yet, companies constantly profit off of black slang after these words hit the mainstream, and black people rarely ever get credit for it. Take the case of Peaches Monroee, aka Kayla Lewis, who coined 'on fleek' in a Vine video when she was 16.

She's now hoping to trademark the term, but this all comes after companies have used the expression to sell tacos and t-shirts.

"Back in 2014 I came up with the phrase/word 'Eyebrows on Fleek' on a 6 sec video on a app called VINE ... Everyone has used the phrase/word but I haven't received any money behind it or recognition," she wrote in the description of a 2017 GoFundMe she'd started for her upcoming cosmetics line.

What's code-switching?

The mainstream's dismissal of the validity of AAVE and black dialects can have serious consequences.

Black people who don't want to appear "uneducated" may have to resort to code-switching a practice where they switch back and forth from AAVE to "standard English," depending on the situation they're in, as seen in the 2018 movie "Sorry To Bother You ."

Watch: "Sorry To Bother You" trailer. Story continues below.

A 2001 study found that landlords were more likely to call back white people inquiring about apartments. Black people were also less likely to be told a unit was available, and more likely to be asked for credit checks, according to Business Insider. But, black people who code-switched had better response rates than ones who didn't.

The mainstream group gets to control the word

Once the mainstream has seized a "trendy" term, people use it for as long as they think it's interesting, and then dictate when it's "over." People who continue to use it mainly those same black people who have always used it are still punished for using their own dialect.

"Language appropriation is further problematic because it gives dominant groups control over the language. Dominant groups get to decide, for example, when and if certain words are worth appropriation, when and how the words should be used, and then when the word becomes clich, overused and therefore pass," communications professor Robin Boylorn also explained in an opinion piece for the Guardian .

"Every year new slang from Black culture is beat into the ground by people who just catch wind of it, without any knowledge or care of its origin. RIP Turnt and Bye Felicia," writer and comedian Luna Malbroux shared in a blog.

Dominant groups get to decide, for example, when and if certain words are worth appropriation, when and how the words should be used, and then when the word becomes clich, overused and therefore pass.Robin Boylorn, communications professor

But some words are so ubiquitous in current North American English, that it's hard to remember they were ever AAVE at all. Terms like "cool," "my bad," "hater," "24/7," "back in the day," "high-five," "lame" and "rip off" are only a few that started out in black communities but are now used everywhere and by everyone, according to Vox .

Everyone, including Black people, is erroneously taught that Black genius is more or less, public property with no clear 'ownership.'Chadria LaBouvier

This is linked to the history of slavery in the U.S. The most accepted theory is that slaves combined their native languages with English, or invented new words entirely. White people would then hear slaves use the terms, and would start to use them too, which led to these words becoming popularized. Even after slavery ended, this pattern continued, according to Margaret Lee, a linguist and author who spoke to Vox.

Questions to ask yourself

Why do people feel so entitled to black culture in particular, and more so than any other culture that also exists in the greater fabric of North America at large? The most prevalent theory is that black culture is so integral to pop culture in general that it has become synonymous with it.

"Everyone, including Black people, is erroneously taught that Black genius is more or less, public property with no clear 'ownership.' They're taught that it's morally acceptable for pretty much everyone to consume Black culture, with little regard or examination of one's own anti-Blackness," Chadria LaBouvier wrote in an opinion piece for Vice's Motherboard.

Malbroux has four questions she suggests non-black people ask themselves before using words that have their origins in black culture:

1. Is it being commercialized for financial gain?

2. Is the usage performative or tokenizing?

3. Are you in proximity to the culture that originated the terms?

4. Are you using the language to "level up" or earn yourself "street cred"?

When in doubt, give it a pass. There are no hard and fast rules, as she says, but it's important to reflect on your usage and authenticity, to acknowledge where language comes from, and to be aware of the current vocabulary. So, we've included a list of popular terms from this year and their usage.

And if you decide you'd rather not toe the line on the latest terms, a helpful Facebook group compiled a document of non-appropriative substitutes for many of the words on this list (just switch the Google Doc from "suggesting" mode to "viewing" mode in the upper right hand corner to see the document properly).

2018's slang words:

Gucci