Language, Innit
I don’t know what it is about today’s youth culture, but it would seem that anyone under the age of about 18 wants to sound like they’re black and live in the ghettoes and its middle class kids who are the worst offenders of this alleged crime. My friend lamented that language is changing for the worse and that today’s teenagers don’t know how to speak or write properly thanks to text speak.
I thought back to my teenage mobile smartphone and computer free years. No, we didn’t have text speak, it really wasn’t invented then. We didn’t spell things like, “CUL8R”but we certainly didn’t speak “properly”. Instead we invented a language that we were fluent in, but which no grown up could understand. And that was the whole point of it.
Language is an organic thing. Dialects change, words come in and out of fashion all the time. Pick up any Shakespeare book and you’ll find it almost impossible to read. I struggle through English Literature, loving his stories but hating the way it was written yet that was the street language of its day.
Our language at school was designed to keep adults out, they definitely weren’t a part of our gang and neither did we want them to be. Our language excluded anyone above the age of sixteen but it kept us bonded together.
I don’t think it’s any different today, the words themselves might have changed, but the intentions haven’t and y’know, kids grow out of this stuff. They are still being taught English and they can read and write properly - the majority at any rate - so I don’t think there’s any need to despair over slipping standards. You get me?