Love Island could be a great resource for picking up slang. That is, if you can put up with the antics of telegenic, attention-seeking wanna-be celebrities.
Put your grafting boost on!" is a slang expression that gained popularity through its use on the reality TV show Love Island UK. “Grafting” in this context refers to making an effort or putting in hard work to pursue a romantic interest. The phrase implies that someone should be ready to invest time, energy, and effort into impressing someone they are interested in.
On Love Island UK, contestants often use the phrase to encourage other participants to pursue a romantic connection with someone else in the villa. They mean that someone needs to step up their game and be more proactive in their efforts to attract the person they are interested in. By putting on their “grafting boots”, they are essentially encouraged to try harder.
The word “grafting” may have gained popularity through Love Island UK, but it is not new and has other meanings. In a medical context, “grafting” refers to a surgical procedure where tissue or an organ is transplanted from one part of the body to another.
In the Yorkshire dialect, “grafting” means working hard or putting in effort, similar to the sense used on Love Island. Since many participants on Love Island UK come from the north, a wider audience outside the north of the UK gets exposed to the use of the phrase. And not only in the UK; apparently, the UK edition of the show is trendy in the US. As reported by The Times, British Love Island contributes to the trend of Americans adopting British slang and pronunciation.