While I generally agree with most everything stated in Dalzell's article, but one thing I think needs to be touched upon is the paradox of slang's ability to make it speaker appear 'wittier and more clever.' I'm probably going to sound like a freakish, sentient wet blanket when I say that I don't enjoy picking up the latest slang and showing it off to my friends (and don't bother pointing out that I used 'wet blanket.' I know it's a slang, but it's an old one, and pretty descriptive). I always saw being witty and clever as coming up with something humorous yourself, not repeating a glib phrase that someone else came up with and everyone passed along. The paradox is, the more people use the slang, the less witty and clever it becomes. Thus the only reason I can see to propagate the use of slang is to subscribe to the group that created/speaks it. On this point I can agree with Dalzell.
Slang use in my family is very volatile, changing often. We may adopt a slang word from a particularly amusing line from the Simpsons, or from a hilarious mispronunciation by one of the children, but it lasts for a few months at the most, then fades into obscurity before becoming overused and trite. My brother and I once came up with a slang word from a misspelling in a text message, but it didn't even last more than two days! I don't think this comes from any training on our parent's part, since they aren't strict advocates of standard English to begin with. I believe that the members of my family have a fierce desire to evade definition and express our uniqueness. We hate to think of ourselves as speaking like these people or those people. I'm not saying slang's useless or bad. It can be fun and humorous, but my point is that people who repeat popular slang in an effort to be witty and clever are fooling themselves and identifying themselves with a crowd that they may not even want to belong to.
And I was going to post a humorous picture or comic to go along with my post, but it seems my ideas have already been taken. Thanks a lot, guys.
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3 comments:
I remember seeing this documentary called something like, "inventing cool," and it basically went over the process of how advertisements take these concepts that are "cool," but as soon as they're used they become well know and popular and "uncool," and the advertisers are forced to keep on finding new cool material to exploit. I think that's what you're talking about with popular slang, that what makes it uncool is that it's popular.html
I hadn't really thought about slang until this blog or discussed it. Your point rings true. Now that I think about it, slang is like those quotes from movies or tv shows you and your friends find funny and repeat over and over until you're sick of the phrase.
Interesting exploration of slang becomes trite or cliche--makes me think that we are often chasing originality and coming up short.
Excellent connection Stephen to the documentary. I've seen it too and you are right: it seems the same process. These companies are forever searchying for "cool" but the minute it's used then it's not cool.
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