We’re not talking about “language evolving over time.” We’re talking about a dialect that will restrict the users of it to a working-class life if they don’t learn a more standard dialect. I’m having a really hard time getting worked up about this “ban.” No one is preventing them from using their dialect at home. I don’t see a problem with teaching children to speak a common dialect that will be easily understood by a wide range of the population of English speakers. I find most working-class English dialects to be incomprehensible, and I can’t imagine having to constantly try to parse what a colleague is trying to say in a business environment.
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You don’t seem to be reading very clearly. I never cited any “cleverness” on my own part. I’m not actually a frequent user of vernacular dialects. And yes, you are being unfair. I’m merely asking you to support your claims with some form of evidence or argument.
Do you simply need me to provide examples? Wordplay in African American “jive” from the sixties and seventies? In hip hop? The punning in cockney slang? The creation of vernacular dialects necessarily entails creativity. Now about my point – that your inference comes from nothing and there is no suggestion whatsoever that tends towards the conclusion you infer…
Uh…yeah. If abstract concepts weren’t abstracted from concrete examples then we wouldn’t call them abstractions we would call them fictions. The rest of this paragraph doesn’t do anything to support your argument.
You seem to misunderstand me. I understand that the Academie Francaise exists. But what does it actually do? Does it really “protect” the French language from “degradation”? And if so, wouldn’t this imply that modern English is already degraded since we have no such institution?
Can you simply provide a historical example of a degraded language with manifest degraded creativity as a correlate so that I can determine whether you’re talking about anything at all or just making shit up? [quote=“theograce, post:119, topic:12164”]
Seem to demand it based upon what? the inventiveness of the origin of the word has no bearing on uses thereafter. You have created some concept of use of slang requiring skill without any suggestion of what that means, could you perhaps present even a single example of skillful use of a slang term that there might be the slightest idea of what you are talking about?
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Yes I can. Try Cockney slang wherein a phrase rhyming with a word is substituted for that word and then the rhyme is dropped. This forces a listener who hasn’t heard that particular slang term to do a sort of linguistic rebus puzzle – to figure out what the rhyming phrase is and from there get back to the original word. Creating a neologism in this slang scheme is obviously a creative act.
Or check out the work of Lord Buckley. I feel a little goofy referring you to the white guy who made a stage act out of a black vernacular dialect but “The Naz” creatively casts the new testament story into a very vivid and affecting creative use of English vernacular.
Now that you’ve demanded examples of me and I’ve provided a few do you think you’re up to providing examples for your own arguments? And why project so much scorn on me for not providing examples when you haven’t bothered to yourself? Isn’t that a little hypocritical?
A “geek” is traditionally a sideshow performer who would perform disgusting and humiliating acts for money. It was used colloquially as a term of abuse for obvious reasons, but since that is a colloquial use there is not actually a “precisely defined function” for it. In fact, the word “geek” used to describe anyone other than a carnival performer is an instance of slang, i.e. a word used in contravention to its “precisely defined function.” “Nerd” was a nonsense word introduced in a Dr. Suess book – it absolutely did not have “a precisely defined function”.
“Contact”, until the late 20th century, was only a noun and not a verb. Do you ever use it as a verb? “Terrific” has the same root word as “terror” and indeed used to mean “something really scary”. How do you use the term “terrific”? “Awful” used to be a synonym for “awesome”. Do they have the same usage? If you used them as synonyms would it help you to be understood?
“Cool” used to mean “somewhat cold”. Do you object to modern usage of this word as well?
Right, what’s so special about it?
If it’s not Victorian then what is it? Where did it come from? Is it the Platonically perfect incarnation of English handed down by God himself through his prophet Winston Churchill circa 1930? Or is it possibly a haphazard Darwinian affair accreted through hundreds of years of neologism, loan words, and other linguistic accidents? Try taking a look through the OED sometime and look at how often this “current English language” departs from the etymologies of the words it uses. The phenomena you decry as “degradation” are, as far as I can tell, normal linguistic evolution of the sort that’s been happening for thousands of years.
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No-one, especially myself is denying that. It’s the way it appears to be being addressed that is being taken to task. Thing is, it’s quite possible to parse the meaning from local dialects. I can. I’ve lived in the places you mention, and never had a problem (as it goes, I’d argue they’d have no problem whatsoever with it in Edinburgh, given the proximity. And I wouldn’t talk like that to a Londoner because it would be fucking stupid and counter-productive).
I do have a problem with this though, as it would, on the face of it, appear to be a zero-tolerance type approach. Which works precisely never. Every last child there is going to be inventing neologisms at a rate that would make an SF author feel inadequate just for shits & giggles. Yes, we teach grammar rules. In English classes (and foreign language classes, obviously). As I mentioned earlier, I have a family friend who taught at this school. The kids who are going to get grief over this are kids from West Indian families. Who have a very specific dialect and vocabulary. As do I, and, presumably, you.
Why should they be castigated for that, as opposed to engaged, shown what dialects are, and why they happen, and be encouraged to use different forms of language, in different hypothetical situations, in order to get by in the world? Surely, as the Great Hope of our (apparently, according to the wackos who instigated this bullshit) state educational system, an approach like that would have been better? Alienation, silly, authoritarian rules, and arbitrary bullshit teaches kids nothing other than to think that their teachers are wankers.
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Nothing. But that’s not what this is. Telling people not to say certain words is not teaching them formal speech. Or, indeed, teaching them how to do anything.
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Chavs? Good god. Who let hoi polloi in here? (Note that I say “hoi polloi”, not “the hoi polloi”, even though it makes me sound like an arsehole, because it shows that I understand that “hoi” is Classical Greek for “the”, and therefore I am the best.)
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WARNING: Offensive words ahead.
Yeah, I know I’m about to indulge in ad absurdum here, but I have family members who will never, ever be convinced they shouldn’t refer to black people as “nigger”. For them, it’s just the word they knew, they claim they use it to describe lower class African-Americans who have no discernible desire to improve themselves, and asking them to change words is ridiculous. I’d say it’s a comfort word for them.
I have a friend from Australia who has several friends who, well, let’s face it, you won’t convince them to stop calling each other “cunt”. Comfort word.
Back in the realm of reality, I come from the Midwest U.S., and even the public schools discourage slang and bad grammar. Some of the local slang seems to be derived from chav talk from 200 years ago, but slightly changed; instead of ‘innit’ it’s ‘idinit’, and “doesn’t it” turns into “dudinit”. “Ain’t” is very common, and instead of washing and rinsing, people used to say “warsh” and “wrench” (seriously). And never with a washcloth; it could be brand-new washcloths woven by 72 virgins in Egypt and it was still a “warshraig”.
I figured out pretty early that if I was going to be taken seriously outside of my home area, I’d have to change the way I spoke. I can tell you that, even though I went to uni close to home, honestly, idiots from the Chicago 'burbs were taken more seriously than the local kids who still drawled worse than me, because hey, those Chicago kids “spoke properly” (never mind that they speak with a heavy Great Lakes vowel-shift accent and tend to say things like “ya wanna come with?” It’s “proper”.)
And job interviews…guys, if you’re interviewing people, I don’t care how sanctimonious any of you are about defending slang, I guarantee you you’ll take someone more seriously if they speak clearly and articulately, than you would if you thought they sounded like a slackjawed yokel or a stereotypical gangbanger.
Honestly, on both sides of the pond, ‘ain’t’ is a lower-class word. It just is. It’s not fair to the people who can’t adapt, but that’s just how it is. Cory, if you wrote like this, do you fink…erm, think you’d even get your manuscript looked at?
A search on Youtube for ‘chav’ turns up loads of videos like this one. Oi m8, dey laffin at u innit?
I have a much easier time understanding this guy. He’s Swedish. It’s not proper English, but it’s a lot closer than the first video. It’s not his first language.
And that’s another reason it was handy to learn to speak proper(ish) English in uni: there’s loads of non-English speakers at a uni. They tend to speak fairly proper English but sometimes using nonstandard English leads to unintended offense, or at the very least misunderstanding. Someone who speaks, say, Arabic or Greek as their first language might get a tad confused if I point at a non-functioning piece of equipment and drawl, “That dog don’t hunt.”
I think you have to consider the issue of banning slang separately from the rest.
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I’m not saying slang should be taught in schools. I’m saying slang shouldn’t be banned, that it’s a natural part of linguistic evolution, and that due to the fact of linguistic evolution what is currently “proper” English is rather different than it was 50 years ago and different from what “proper” English will be 50 years from now.
Teaching a standard form of English (how standard is it anyway? every English-speaking country has its own distinctive dialect of “proper” English) is certainly useful in terms of allowing larger numbers of people to communicate with each other but whenever this argument comes up people take a distinctly moralistic approach to defending the purity of the English language.
Which is hilarious on its face. The purity of a language that started as a pidgin of Norse, French, German, and Latin.
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Nice…
*University
OMG!!! The school can’t do that, it’s like banning digital clocks.
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Posh schools are irrational places. They’re accompanied by posh children with rich parents. The school is the totally irrational place where they allow slang then ban it when the get tired of ‘innit’ and ‘int ya’.
Ay up, mi duck!
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Teaching a standard form of English (how standard is it anyway? every English-speaking country has its own distinctive dialect of “proper” English) is certainly useful in terms of allowing larger numbers of people to communicate with each other but whenever this argument comes up people take a distinctly moralistic approach to defending the purity of the English language.
It’s an increasingly global marketplace. (Sorry if I butcher this; I am not English.) Is anyone going to take an IT professional seriously if (s)he responds to a question about the condition of a piece of equipment with, “Well, basically I fink it’s knackered, innit?”
Honestly, I’m okay with this. Reinforce some sort of baseline modern English that’s spoken around the world.
EDIT:
To me, the slang part of it reads like a bunch of pissy high-school kids who just realized the school banned them from wering tube tops, shorts with legs cut higher than the pubis (exaggerating…a little), and Cannibal Corpse TShirts. And ye flipping gods, they have to turn their cellphones off! Super serious business.
“You haven’t worked in IT, have you?”
I actually have, though I had to work with people from other departments, so I had to keep the slang to a minimum and use plain English to get ideas across.
“Interviewing for an IT job I’d be somewhat more careful with my language than I am around the office”.
And there it is.
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You haven’t worked in IT, have you?
In an informal conversation between two engineers trying to diagnose a problem no one would blink an eye at that usage nor at the somewhat more frequent use of slang popular in IT circles such as “fubar”. leetspeak and lolspeak are pretty common in IT offices. From the software development side, one of my most frequently used utterances is “google it” – a phrase that couldn’t have been used at all prior to 2002.
Interviewing for an IT job I’d be somewhat more careful with my language than I am around the office but I still wouldn’t hesitate to use the phrase “google it” and if I had the sense that my interviewer was an old-school nerd open to a certain amount of jocularity I might use the term “fubar” as well.
A coworker responded to an email from one of our executives the other day with a somewhat snide comment followed by “LOL”. You might be surprised at what sort of language is acceptable in IT as long as the employee demonstrates general competence in the skills demanded by his or her position.
I already agreed there’s a pragmatic basis for standardizing education in the English language, though I also noted there’s no such thing as a “baseline modern English”. Some dude who’d lived in various former British colonies said something like “Po” to me when I asked his name. Took two more asks before I realized he was saying “Paul”.
Edit: I couldn’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard experienced and respected engineers refer to a ruined system as being “hosed”.
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I’d really like to see people taught to use language well, to express themselves clearly.
I was working with someone recently, he could not, to save his life, condense anything. Vomiting emails at me, every one tl;dr. Eventually I had to cut him out of the loop - I tried mercy but my patience ran thin and my blood thick.
It means focusing on what they want to express, sensing the context in all respects, and being concise and accurate.
Yes, excellent standard English is an aid to that - but I watch clear-minded people with little grasp of foreign language get exactly what they want, with everyone happy, quickly.
Linguistic dexterity is almost a red herring.
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New language. Get used to it. Use correct language in exams, interviews and meetings yeah. On the street you’d be picked on like you was chicken.
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The hypocrisy of your opening statement astounds, try reading it properly, the cleverness was never said to be yours rather it is your perception that is referred to. You perceive it I do not, it is what you perceive I am addressing. However your answers throughout seem to support my initial estimate and show that i was not being unfair.
So no actual examples in the common usage, solely in artistic performance or in the initial creators, the day to day use being exactly as I say, or are there actual examples of what you claim? You suggest that the use in general is creative and then you provide examples only in the extreme, I want examples of how the common use in modern times is creative, a phrase or application of the term that shows creativity in the way that you suggested was the norm for the use of this slang.
Well this about sums up your argument.
adjective
Pronunciation: /ˈabstrakt/
1existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence:
abstract concepts such as love or beauty
dealing with ideas rather than events:
the novel was too abstract and esoteric to sustain much attention
not based on a particular instance; theoretical:
we have been discussing the problem in a very abstract manner
(of a noun) denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object.
2relating to or denoting art that does not attempt to represent external reality, but rather seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, colours, and textures:
abstract pictures
So how exactly does your claim for abstract work?
Well, here are your list of sources then (note these are a key and while I am familiar with most some I have merely scanned)
Ager, Dennis. Ideology and Image: Britain and Language. Clevedon UK: Multilingual Matters, 2003
Thomas, George. Linguistic Purism. London: Longman, 1991
Watts, Richard J. “Mythical strands in the ideology of prescriptivism.” The Development of Standard English, 1300-1800. Ed. Laura Wright. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. 29-48
Ross, Nigel J. “Academies and Attitudes.” English Today 79, 20.3 (2004)
The Linguistic Creation of Man 1848 August Schleicher
Horizon Journal, George Orwell,1946
Clive James in the Times Literary Supplement, 2002
Cockney rhyming slang, where a basic rhyme is first created and then grows and then slowly over time and familiarity the complexity grows once it is no longer necessary to keep it. Creation in the first place is a minority act and does not require any creativity on mass or in day to day use.
An artist and not an example of common use, but at least some example, however the point was to show that in normal use it is creative, that is what you claimed.
You asked for examples and provided scorn while providing none yourself, I merely followed suit. Now you provide examples that in no way support the extent of the claim you have made. You claimed that when I said the common use was lacking in creativity and simply overgeneralised words or applied them as a blanket answer to all things was wrong and that you had witnessed great creativity in the normal use of this slang, now you provide a single artist and the claim that the people who created it must be creative and the claim that it must be creative to understand words you’ve never heard before because you struggle with it. I still see no real evidence from you.
Actually geek derived from a circus phrase for one with a very specific but culturally abnormal ‘habit’ normally used for glass eaters. This is the exact use it had where it was then applied outside of this circumstance. It was not necessarily humiliating or disgusting. Nerd has nothing to do with the doctor Seuss book which used it as a nonsense word. It dates back to newsnight which used it to mean a social bore who indulges in the intelectual.
Ah I see you are getting carried away with straw man arguments. well have fun, you can argue all you want about it because I never said language should not be fluid. Simply that it’s intended use should be taught properly to prevent the loss of meaning for words. Provided they preserve their meaning it in no way goes against my argument, but as you have nothing to defend your point I can see why you have to make up things to attack.
What’s so special about your meaningless language with no definitions, no ability to communicate between people from different classes, regions or social groups? Mine helps equality and gives children a greater employability, it also eases communication aids understanding and makes learning significantly easier. Can you find a single significant reason for defending the use of language devoid of stricture, organisation or set definition?
By that logic it is Darwinian as apparently a maintained object has no current status. Seriously, what are you claiming? It is the maintained and official form of the language, it allows for evolution but holds common meaning, it has systems to incorporate growth and is a highly functional and well built system. Why on earth would it be considered Victorian? Georgian perhaps, modern would make sense, but Victorian? Are you arbitrarily picking a term to apply to it that you think makes it sound silly or do you have some reason to actually suggest it may be Victorian?
Again, straw men everywhere. I never once claimed it can’t change meaning, but having two words that mean the same thing and encompass such a wide range of topics that they require context to have any meaning are two words that may as well not exist, they are lost to the English language.
Bingo. I don’t think I was arguing that people speak exactingly proper English, just that they should know how to express themselves in something that’s recognized around the world as passably good English. Again, if you do that search on Youtube for “chav”, some of that…whew, so you’re sure that was English rather than Welsh?
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Offtopic: I heard this in my head in Stephen Fry’s voice.
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I do apologise, I misunderstood. The manner, I fell, is wrong. I believe proper English should be upheld when talking to staff, guests or in class, but shy of language that is unbecoming or unfit for use (because it is insulting or hateful or similar such reasons) that they should be free to talk as they wish outside of these circumstances.
Perhaps Edinburgh was a poor choice of example, but your response for the Londoners is exactly my pint, what if that was the limit of your speech? That you had only the local dialects and slang. A child should have the local and the formal English.
The next two paragraphs I agree with in their entirety, except for the me part. I have almost no specific dialect, my speech is pretty close to the least formal form of proper English, with only a few exceptions and a slight northern to my pronunciation. The few exceptions are all clear words with common meaning in the UK (the result of a hybrid upbringing of many forms diverging mildly from the proper English in opposing ways).
(Hmm, it wont let me post this, it seems there are booleans limiting speech on this website and two similar responses (actually exceedingly different both with similar words) to two different comments, are not permitted)
