Slang-It's Use & It's Message

Slang- It's Use and Message

For hundreds of years, English has been continuously changing. Words that were unacceptable 300 years ago are now commonplace. English has always had a trademark of being a comfortable language, the language of the common people (MacNeil 143). Change in the grammar and diction of a language is natural, and English is always confronted with changes. Among them are the use of slang, clipped word endings, and new dialects. Some Conservatives do not like changes because they claim that Standard English is a perfect language; they do not want to corrupt it. Others simply do not like change. Neither group of Conservatives has any new arguments, and nothing to fear from change. Slang worries Conservatives the most because it affects the vocabulary of English. American English, especially, is always adding new words to its vocabulary for social, scientific, or artistic reasons. The scientific and artistic words do not bother these people; only the social, or slang, words do. Generally, slang is usually created by children or teens that seek social status (Morrow 137). Because kids are the source of new slang, some adults look down on it with the assumption that kids are unintelligent and simply rebelling against established English grammar and diction. However, most of the adults did the same thing when they were children. Adults have been frowning on slang for generations (Crystal 104). Conservatives also look down upon slang because people of high status do not use slang. If they hear someone speaking in Jive, they will be angry because Jive is not the way that high-class people speak. People who do not like slang are usually prejudiced as well. They do not want to hear other ways of talking because it deviates from the way they talk. Also, much slang comes from other languages, of which Conservatives might also be prejudiced. The dialect that a person uses may make him comfortable, but this is not considered. If a language were not comfortable, why would you want to speak it? Language has always changed to fit the paradigms of society (Crystal 105). For example, in Shakespeare's time, many contractions used today were considered poor English. Rarely could a person of high social status be found using "don't" in a sentence. Today, however, people may use contractions without fear of being scorned by society. This simply illustrates the same types of people who opposed contractions in the past are opposing slang and new dialects of English. They do not realize that the way they speak differs from the way that their predecessors spoke. People opposed to language change only defend their dialect, which will die out anyway, and prove their intolerance of change. Language will be thought of differently in the future because new mediums of communication will be used, the largest one being the Internet. Today, many people are using the Internet to "talk" to people all over the world. The Internet has its own language, which Conservatives view as computer slang. No matter what diction or dialect you speak, you still have to type out an Internet message in standard Internet. There are words used specifically for the Internet, usually acronyms that are universally understood, that will probably appear in dictionaries in the future. Conservatives have no reason

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