SLANG

[Coopersville]

For the last few months, my whole first period class has had a semester long project that had to relate to human culture. I chose slang. Part of the assignment is to use a form of reseach method to collect the opinions of others on the subject at hand. For the last few weeks, I've been surveying friends, family, well-wishers and complete strangers, but now I've decided to get the input of internet users also (since the subject includes internet slang too).


My key question would be if others felt that slang, acronyms, AOLese, 1337, and smilies are all overused in today's society, and is dulling the English language. Some see it as the bastardization of language, others think of it as a quicker, constructive way of communication, what do you think?

[DooMBoy]

I think all this Internet 1337-speak stuff is ruining the English language.
What really pisses me off is when someone types u instead of you, or ur instead of your. Like, how long would it take to type the full word? Geez.
I admit I do use Internetisms such as omg or brb or bbl, but then I don't think I've found that many people who don't.

[sargebaldy]

TEH POLE ASKZ
Do you find that slang is overused in today's society?

W3RD

[Sharessa]

No, but I viddied some devotchkas going 'mur mur mur' about their Pee and Ems or whatever horrorshow nonsense. So I went down to the milk bar and ordered me some moloko plus then went out for a bit of the old ultra-violence. Kicked some drunk in the yarbles then right in the gutti-wuts. Then some milocents showed up and I had to take off with my droogs. Went to bed listening to some good old Ludwig von.

[Fletcher`]

I don't notice it too much because I'm too used to it. Heh.

[Ichor]

Slang has been known to kill brain cells.

[Sporku]

Well, considering the majority of my school can't speak PROPER ENGLISH, I'll have to say "Yes".

[Fletcher`]

Ichor said:

Slang has been known to kill brain cells.

Yo dawg, howza bout sparin' some brain cells, man? Gotta get me da hookup!


That was pitiful. You can tell I'm white.

[Sharessa]

ravage said:

Yo dawg, howza bout sparin' some brain cells, man? Gotta get me da hookup!


That was pitiful. You can tell I'm white.

Didn't stop Esco.

[Kid Airbag]

There's a difference between common slang, like "ain't," and then full-blown ebonics. I tend to think people who use grammatically incorrect are less intelliegent. It's the worst on the internet. Kids are being taught to be lazy by those godawful AOL-speak abbreviations.

[Ultraviolet]

Kid Airbag said:

people who use grammatically incorrect are less intelliegent

You present a great case!

[Epyo]

I DON HAS BAD GRAMMAR

[Kid Airbag]

Ultraviolet said:

You present a great case!

Heh, whoops, there's supposed to be "slang" in there. Give me a break, I'm tired, and Pitt just got its ass kicked by WVU. I'm in no mood to be worrying about missing words.

[Goat]

the_Danarchist said:

a lot of slang

i dont understand ANY of that

[Lord FlatHead]

Goat said:

i dont understand ANY of that

Maybe you should watch Clockwork Orange once.

I live in the northern part of Belgium, so everyone here speaks Dutch. In ninety percent of cases, when someone uses ebonics in their English here, it's meant to be ironic or sarcastic so it doesn't bother me that much.

[Enjay]

Slang has been around for thousands of years. It evolves and changes just as mainstream language does. And indeed, one often depends on the other. Just delve into the etymology of many "non-slang" words and you will find they have "slang" or "common" roots. Some words are being lost, yet others are being gained. Is this bad? We don't all still speak Shakespearian English, yet few, if any, people regard this as a problem.

That being said, using text message contractions in normal writing (u instead of you, 2 instead of to, m8 instead of mate and so on) does piss me off. However, being a teacher, I can always penalise my students for doing it. :-)

Smilies I think are quite important. They are not really a slang IMO. We are increasingly communicating in an almost conversational way via text, yet it is very difficult via this medium to make clear the subtleties that a facial expression or tone of voice (used in face to face or even telephone conversations) can manage. Would you rather use a smily, or have to write out in full at the end of every joke or non serious sentence "Just to be clear, that last comment was intended to be humorous"? They are an augmentation to a medium, not a slang - IMO of course.

Heh, and here I am using IMO in this reply. O_O

[Fredrik]

If "u" is so awful, then why don't we say "thou"?

[spank]

Slang and vulgarity are okay (sic). They actually make part of a language.

[Sharessa]

Goat said:

i dont understand ANY of that

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/1974/nadsat.html

NOTE: I found that website AFTER I made the post, so if the stuff I wrote is off, blame it on my bad memory.

[Captain Red]

You haven’t heard bad slang until you’ve heard Australian slang!

Aww, fuck, What do yous reckons about dat fella, Darl?

It’s like a mix of cockney, aboriginal, and retarded. And it annoys the hell outta me...

In fact, every time I here it I get "struck by inspiration"... >:)

[LorD BaZTArD]

Australian slang isn't that bad. Then again, I don't know anyone who actually talks like that, Me and freinds do use the term "dude" and "Maaaate" alot though, and say OMG and crap like that, but only when making a smart-ass comment. What does piss me off is walking down the street and hearing some punk trying to look and sound american, when he's clearly not, We aren't the 51st state of america for fuck sake >.<

[pritch]

I dunno. I don't like seeing it in academic debate or written work but I'm not that fussed about internet or conversation usage, as long as I know that the person using it knows the correct language that should take it's place when necessary.

[Enjay]

LorD BaZTArD said:

We aren't the 51st state of america for fuck sake >.<

Damn right you're not. We in the UK have that position well and truly sewn up.

[DooMBoy]

Fredrik said:

If "u" is so awful, then why don't we say "thou"?

Because we can say "you".

[Sharessa]

"Speak English ya limey morons!"

[LorD BaZTArD]

Hahahah, a GTA3 quote for every occasion.

Enjay, well, yeah both countries have it bad, but I don't think you'll see as many british "gangstas" as you might see here, of course, I could be wrong. It just seems more prevalent to me since I'm in australia.

[Fredrik]

DooMBoy said:

Because we can say "you".

And we can equally well say "u".

[Sharessa]

LorD BaZTArD said:

Hahahah, a GTA3 quote for every occasion.

Enjay, well, yeah both countries have it bad, but I don't think you'll see as many british "gangstas" as you might see here, of course, I could be wrong. It just seems more prevalent to me since I'm in australia.

British gangstas = hooligans.

[mewse]

dats wack, homie

[LorD BaZTArD]

oh yes, those fuckwits who riot at sporting games when a team loses, or even worse, riot for the sake of rioting. I can't beleive I forgot about those. Thankfully that's something that only seems to happen in europe, although I have seen small scale incidents here. It's bound to happen, especially when the public image is to be seen at a sports game getting drunk, It's ridiculous.