Colloquialisms and the effect on the English language

Slang speak seems to make up a a lot of many a person's general conversations.

Especially in Britain where many young urban youths are adopting neologisms and words from other languages into their general patter, making a new 'dialect' of English, it can often seem bizarre that the young have deviated so far from the standard 'slang' that many seem to shrug off as being normal English.

For example, words, such as 'parr/par', which is in a similar vein to 'diss', or 'butters'; similar to that of fit, and even the complete reversal of the term 'dank' to mean its actual opposite.

Could it be seen as a good, or a bad thing, that this new dialect is the primary way of communications within young people?

Should there be efforts to 're-educate' young people to speak standard English?

Who uses "butters" to mean "fit", and when did this happen? O_O'

That aside, slang is nothing new or strange. Go to a city in, say, America, and you'd probably hear a different set of unfamiliar words. Providing they have enough standard English to understand other people and find work, I don't see a problem with young people using slang.

What's a "butters"?

^ A character from South Park.

I always thought it was short for "butterface" and meant ugly...

edited 10th Feb '12 8:48:45 AM by BobbyG

I dunno about re-education, but I'm pretty sure they need shock collars that give them a painful shock whenever they say or write "irregardless", "prolly", or write in txt speak on anything that is not a text message.

I assumed this problem would arise soon.

Butters is a British slang term to mean pretty/cool/postive/etc.

It seems that anyone over the age of 17 is literally dumb about the colloquialisms of today.

edited 21st Jun '17 5:14:11 AM by ArlaGrey

This argument seems old but must be new here....

Languages are often termed to be "Alive" because like an organism, it grows as new words/concepts are added, new words like strains become mixed and mutate with usage and time.

Some words fall or rise in favor of common usage and some can become rarely used and forgotten.

The rate of change of course is best monitored least one generation will no longger be able to understand the next (this is a factor of Time) or one person will not be able to understand another living only a few kilometers away (a factor of distance)

Other factors like Jargon or slang often arise from sub cultures with small or specialized experience spheres, Doctors often employ medical terms that are incoprehensible to the average person without a Medical Degree. Pilots, military or even juvenile gang members often inhabit and operate in a world that is socio-linguistically a unique niche in of itself.

That said, NO change in a language means that no new words/concepts are being added, and that usually means the Language is DEAD.

This usually means the native speakers of the language are extinct.

We use Latin in the modern world for that very quality. Its very resistant to change because no one uses it outside of very lexiconically accurate dictates.

Thus, its probably a good thing that languages still mutate.

Its a sign that the people who speak it are still alive and kicking, and their culture flourishing.

It's not a new argument here. I seem to remember having it on IJBM before this board even existed.

But yes, agreed that languages evolve naturally, and that jargon, regionalisms and slang are not a problem.

Yep, the breeding population has to have signals to other people of breeding age that they are available for breeding. Once you no longer comfortably use the current set of slang, you can be comfortable that you are no longer in the primary breeding group. Which is way cool, even groovy, all the way up to eleven on the gnarly-ometer, man.

Missed the point, but funny enough AND probably correct anyway.

edited 10th Feb '12 9:12:02 AM by Natasel

This post was thumped by the Shillelagh of Whackingness

Colloquialisms aren't the problem. The language has to evolve constantly, or we'd be talking in Old English even now. Thou was once an informal word, and that has faded out of sight. As long as your intended audience understands you, then it really shouldn't matter if you use "butters" or "coolio" while speaking.

How do you define Standard English anyway? Every region has its own dialect and style of speaking. English is one language which is not "standard" in any way.

This post was thumped by the Merciless Hammer of Doom

Then you don't understand each other.

Most slang can be figured out by context.

Obviously you don't use slang in a situation where the other guy doesn't understand you. Don't really see how that's a problem.

Okay, okay, I'm an idiot.

It's sae able tae chynge that naebody is certaint whaur ane langage staps an anither ane stairts in somegates.

"Standard English", in the discourse of linguistic prescriptivists, ≈ BBC English, that is, the langue perpetuated by the aforementioned British parastatal and akin to the syntax and wordstock of the reigning British monarch. However, one can with little tribulation formulate a paragraph bereft of informal neologism yet deviating saliently from day-to-day communication.

While slang can be totes clear. Fo rizzle.

I'd like to finish this post by remarking on the existence of some very old, unambiguously English, but certainly non-standard English dialects, and I'd like to do so in the language of the Forest of Dean, but speakin' tha' accurate-like bist too diffcult fer I.

As a linguist, especially as I'm majoring in English, I'd like to add that the type of English that is usually considered "standard" even though it certainly isn't, is called RP, which stands for "Received Pronunciation" but includes grammar and vocabulary. It's called that because it was the vernacular of the region of the three Universities that were most prominent at a time when the language was being standardised, and thus people from other parts of the UK "received" that dialect from those Universities.

Eh, Standard French was just the dialect of Paris. That's how most language standards form (German being somewhat of an exception). As it is, it seems clear to me there is somewhat of a standard English (or two: British/Commonwealth and American), with standard grammar, pronunciation and spelling.

Which really means, since there is a standard, why can't you Anglophones start a sensible spelling reform of it?

Sensible spelling? When German has the likes of "ß" going on? I think not, sir!

<shrugs> Ever taken a look at South African English? Here: the Other Wikito the rescue — don't mind the bitter griping about original research, etc. It looks right to somebody who spoke it a kid.

Tada!

Patois, dialect, slang, pigeon - whatever... this kind of thing is such a part of the English language across the globe and time, I think it should be celebrated, rather than despaired of. Even though I morn the gradual disappearance of adverbial and adjectival endings... It's when the dynamo of change stops that you know the language is dead.

Besides which - losing the etymology of a word by standardisation... is not something I'd like. Does Dutch or German gain with the loss of some of its words' roots?

edited 10th Feb '12 11:13:44 AM by Euodiachloris