Why slang is bad for english

Most slang still comes from spoken language, though the internet helps slang spread quickly. Because of this imbalance, it can be insulting when AAVE slang is taken into colloquial standard American English without proper attribution or even proper usage.

Slang seems to annoy people like few other things do. Slang has had the same social stigma—and prestige— for at least a century in American English. Far from being unnatural or vulgar, slang is a sign of creativity and shared meaning in language. After all, no one can make a novel usage catch on by themselves. In this way, pragmatic expressions offer the ability of rebirth and offer valuable innovation as speakers give even well-worn linguistic features new discourse homes and special abilities Roth-Gordon It can provide a way to kind of shape shift and assimilate oneself.

Positive slang may very well then become a second language or become of some essential convergence. Studies have shown that when most foreigners come to America or any other institution in which they are not familiar they would often trivialize their heritage and language to adopt positive slang for the purposes of strong affiliation to English, networking and friendships Preece, RQ1: Does effective usage of positive or negative slang correlate with what age, racial, gender or regional group people are assigned to?

Eliza Williams Author. Add to cart. Slang: Defining the positive and negative effects of slang usage Slang is a rather complex subject, similar to the complexity of Biology.

Negative Slang Slang is often thought of in categorical ways, especially among certain groups. Sign in to write a comment. Read the ebook. The Positive and Negative Effects of The influence of gender and ethnic or The Portrayal of Women in the Victori Positive and negative effects of data Official Criminal Statistics - Positi Positives and Negatives of Greek Life The National Curriculum does not encourage the correct use of the English language and this is one of the biggest barriers that a comprehensive school educated person has of getting jobs when up against a privately educated or grammar school educated person.

The importance of the proper use of the English Language is not underestimated in private and grammar school education. I never had the benefit of a private education, a grammar school education or a university education and it did take me some time to get to grips with sentence construction. Fortunately, my Primary School education included spending much time on punctuation — including the use of colons and semi colons so I had a base from which to work.

I have to agree with Emma on this one. I am appalled at the apparent lack of understanding many kids have of our beautiful language, it seems even education has been dumbed down for the little dears so they can all 'achieve'.

MrWonderfulReality wrote: The problem is, is that there are too many numbnuts who now use slang as their main language and know no different. Hmmm, I suppose I concede that slang has some value - we can hear the numbnuts approaching and walk the other way. You pick your language according to your audience. An e-mail to a prospective employer might say "I look forwards to meeting you next Monday" whereas one to a friend might say "CU L8R, M8" - both express your anticipation of a planned meeting, but in terms suitable to the recipient.

Just so with slang. It has its place and its uses; it is when it is used inappropriately that it jars, and makes the person using it sound 'stupid' or at least ignorant not the same thing! It might be but since I can't understand a word of it I am in no position to say. What would really worry me is if these pantomime teenage innits could no longer understand grammatical and correct English, which after working twelve years in a comp.

It is incredible when the rest of the world is paying billions to learn English that many of our own kids seem to be the only ones unwilling and unable to speak and write it. Most educated continental kids speak better and more grammatical English as a second language than most English kids do as a first. All these liberal free-expression linguistic evolutionistas seem to forget that logic is a function of grammar.

By the way if Emma Thompson is reading this and would like to compare notes at some intimate little restaurant For Pete's sake, we've only had standardised spelling since Dr Johnson invented the dictionary in - before then spelling was multiple choice - Shakespere had at least 3 different ways of spelling his own surname. Just as if someone from another nation comes to UK and seeks work or even if they need medical attention , but their spoken language is little understood, the issues, are SERIOUS.

For whatever reason, these people who use "bad Bruva" slang and dialects are not only economically and socially damaging themselves, but also the UK as a whole. We have more than enough interpretors in UK, we dont NEED any more to iterpret the spoken or written words of an ignorant section of society.

This nation already spends MORE than enough taxpayers money on attempting to improve peoples lives. This "bad bruva" slang just proliferates an already huge social problem of deprivation and low quality life, which is an essential reality, of the MAJORITY of those who share this verbal slang language as their main and ONLY form of communication.

There's a big difference between the evolution of a living language and simply not knowing or bothering to use words properly. One particularly lazy phrase is '.. Language is how we communicate, and as humans we're lousy a that given violence, abuse, war etc so it's something we should pride ourselves on and encourage proficiency in above almost anything, a civilised society absolutely cannot 'get by' on a word vocabulary. You cannot stop slang but those young adults who think that they can advance their career whilst still talking the language of the street had better wise up sic.

Those in authority eg teachers and the Beeb should continue to use currently accepted norms of English because their communications are better understood. What I cannot stand as a professed pedant is the corruption and misuse of perfectly good and useful words. For example, "gay" has been highjacked and is difficult to use in its previously accepted meaning, whilst "decimate" is constantly misused to mean to destroy nearly all rather than just one tenth.

Of course language evolves, but at any one time it must have rules and structure and people who can teach and uphold them. Part of the problem is the lack of role models.

Many years ago the BBC could be relied upon to set standards of correct speech, but now so many of its presenters and newsreaders use sloppy speech and bad grammar. Some of them, and the 'celebrities' we see on TV, seem deliberately to use street slang in an attempt to sound 'cool' and streetwise.

Actually it makes them sound uneducated and rather silly. Who will lead us back to a sense of pride in our language? I agree. The ability to write and speak properly is an essential quality in communication and when forming any kind of relationship.

Spelling and literacy standards generally have declined since my childhood day, when mistakes were often met with a rap across the knuckles and an order to spell the word correctly times. Now, many in the teaching profession are unable to spell or speak properly, often mumbling with pointless add-ons such as "yer know wa ar mean? Indeed, I notice that many contributors to Have Your Say are equally illiterate and either don't refer to a dictionary, or rely on a spellcheck program to correct what to many are obvious mistakes.

All those with grammatical errors, and where the contributor can't even be bothered to use the Caps key, should be rejected as failing to meet even basic standards. I think the French would step in long before then and declare the French language as the official languiage of the EC. Gets you thinking though That floats on high, o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils.

People - yes, even teenagers - are adept at what linguists term "register switching"; we use different styles of speech in different contexts, usually without being aware that we are doing so. People use slang as a choice, not because they have no other speech-forms available to them. Spoken language has always been a "fluid mess", as one contributor described it. If you read commentary on changes in language, you will discern a recurring theme that "people spoke better in my parents' day" - and people have been saying this for centuries.

If language had truly been "deteriorating" over such a period, we would not have the vibrant, expressive English that we have today, and that we always have had. The linguistic sky isn't falling, so relax - or should I say "chill"?

Miss Thompson like many of her age lament the passing of a language which is evolving all the time which is why it is the most spoken laqnguage in the world. The English language can adapt to all new words people use considered slang by Miss Thompson.

The best examples of all the changes are there for all to see in the Oxford Dictionary. No doubt she would have us all speaking old English from years ago! At am on 28 Sep , corum-populo wrote: "Is slang sabotaging language"? I thought a previous poster was difficult to understand, but your syntax is atrocious. From where did all the question marks spring, when you're not asking questions?

Perhaps you meant to use exclamation marks - they are usually found alongside the numeral "1" on your keyboard! In your last sentence, as well, you seem to be missing the comparison that allows you to then apply "than", such as "more than" or "less than". I don't want to be overly critical, but while small spelling mistakes can appear on such fora one expects a certain level of competence.

At am on 28 Sep , geezershoong wrote: As the overall intelligence of the nation diminishes, so does the quality of the language. The UK must be populated by amoebae. Just in case any of the numbnuts that MrWonderfulReality refers to are reading this: amoebae - plural of amoeba - are tiny, slimy critters with no brain. At am on 28 Sep , Kadazan wrote: We all experience slang in everyday life. On the wider front, it demonstrates to me that our education system is not doing it's job properly, what happened to a rap on the knuckles for lapsing into slang in school, what happened to detention, what happened to being made to write lines I agree that the education system is not doing its not 'it's' job properly.

Neither is the BBC, which should as a public broadcaster be maintaining standards of proper speech. Neither is the government, which should be doing something to restore pride in our language which has enormous power when not debased by fools. At am on 28 Sep , LeftieAgitator wrote: If I am reviewing job applications, those mispelt, ungrammatical and written in biro go straight to the slush pile.

While it's clear that language naturally evolves over time, the 'dumbing down' of the language in recent years is appalling. I, for one, find it not a little sad that even the Oxford English Dictionary seems to be following the trend. Personally I find the language used by management, business and government far more annoying than slang or colloquialisms, especially the use of phrases such as blue-sky thinking, going forward, holistic and incentivise.

The one use of language that annoys me more than any other would have to be "it's only a theory" which is predominantly used by people with no scientific training when they wish to discredit a field of science that, more often than not, disproves aspects of their religious beliefs. The misuse of the word theory is a tragedy not just for language but for our whole society as we have large sections of our population growing up believing that some of the fundamental scientific facts that underpin our understanding of the universe are little more than untested assumptions when in fact they are some of the most tested scientific theories in existence.

At am on 28 Sep , Nemesis wrote: I think language evolution is a poor excuse for failing to correct poor speech. This is a very astute obervation with which I agreem fully Translation: Yo Bro! I swear down man enit, i dunno whut ya is talkin bout hu cum ya dunt speek proper inglish like i duz man. Translation, I can not believe this, i find it incredulous that you are discussing this issue.

Perhaps one should enunciate the English language in the correct manner. The "dumbonics" as I like to call it is part of the Ghetto slang culture that permeates every so called class in society in this country it appears around the same time that the young begin in high school or sooner dependant entirely on the area that you are in. Fortunately the workplace filters this and slowly but surely by the time the Young reach the age of 25 they begin to use English correctly. Unless your name is Westwood then you continue to speak like a 13 year old wanna-be gangsta enit bruv massive geeza until your employer incists that you use the english language.

A teenage boy spoke to me on the bus recently. He was speaking English as his first words were "Me is" but after that I only got one or two words of it. After the third attempt to understand him, I had to say I couldn't help him and walk away.

Similarly, when I joined a previous employer, I had to interject in my first meeting because someone was talking about lining ducks up to grab low hanging fruit whilst watching an elephant in the corner.

I asked three different people in the room to tell me what had just been said and they all said completely different things. The purpose of language is to communicate. Excessive use of slang certainly hinders the person using it as they often struggle to make themselves understood outside their own peer group. I agree with Language is for communication. English is a rich, dynamic, rapidly evolving language, but clarity and precision of meaning is being lost through use of a mispronounced, restricted vocabulary that reflects decades of poor education in grammar and literature, and the persistent use of 'Estuary English' in the TV 'soaps'.

The poor correlation between what children read in books and how they hear language spoken by parents, teachers, peers and on TV, must inhibit learning.

If 'free' and 'three', 'think' and 'fink' are pronounced the same, what hope is there that other words containing 'th' are understood? Grey Animal wrote: People - yes, even teenagers - are adept at what linguists term "register switching"; we use different styles of speech in different contexts, usually without being aware that we are doing so. Again, I majke the poibnt that this is fine IF you are taught different styles but it marginalises children who a brought up in environments where slang is the norm - these children lose out on social mobility.

I speak slang, but I couldn't get away with it when giving client presentations, whether they are native English speakers or not. Being able to speak English as it is taught in school is imperative. If all you speak is slang, you're a moron. Language is a living evolving thing.

You just have to listen to kids talking on the streets of Hackney to hear how English, Bengali, African patois, has all been annexed to make a kind of "street tongue" much like in the film Blade Runner.

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