text response redraft

Dear Ms Kerr

I agree with your article ‘Twerking, selfie and unlike? Young people don’t speak like that –I should know’. Slang words are just fashionable trends which are constantly changing and adapting.  An example of this is the word ‘groovy’ a slang word that was used in the 1960s. This word has now fallen out of fashion and no longer used in conversation.

I personally think that there is nothing wrong with slang, but like you I believe that slang has no place in the Oxford Dictionary. I believe this because firstly, it is not an accurate representation of all young people. Most of the younger generation is not obsessed with their image, reputation and sex, like these slang words now included in the dictionary would suggest. Secondly, these words could fall out of fashion and would then become obsolete. I believe that the Oxford Dictionary should only include slang words which have stood the test of time, and therefore becoming part of the general idiolect. This would allow obsolete slang words like ‘groovy’ to live only in the memory of the generation who used it, thus not restricting the evolution of the English language.

Also, people do not say ‘init’, ‘JK’ or ‘LOL’ in a job interview, as they want to make a good impression to their potential employer.  However if the Oxford Dictionary includes these words before they have been accepted by society, it could make the interviewee seem illiterate. Nevertheless this person could be a valuable asset to the company, but as they cannot express themselves to all audiences they could lose the chance to work for the company and stand out from the crowd.

Additionally many young people only speak slang to their friends and not to figures of authority who they respect and trust. Slang is a form of jargon between youths and their friends when they talk, text or use social media. They are using slang words on these platforms for quickness and so older generations do not know what they are saying, lol!

It could also be argued that Shakespeare was the greatest inventor of slang as he created hundreds of new words like ‘sanctimonious’ and ‘assassination’ for his plays. At first these words were unfamiliar, causing people to condemn them. But over time these words have become accepted and have earned their place in the English language. It has taken generations of people using these words before they became acceptable.  I believe the same will eventually happen to some slang words but hopefully not any abbreviated ones. But unlike Shakespeare, my generations is not creating imaginative new words to further our understanding of the world, it is just shortening perfectly good words.

Seriously there is really no need to shorten ‘seriously’ to ‘Srsly’, if you are going to revolutionise the English language at least be original and not alter the already eloquent English language.