slang. good or bad?

[jellispoon]

No offense to you, Deebo, but the current trend of using "like" as a synonym for an action verb is one of my personal bugaboos. I know I'm coming from the perspective of an old cranky person ("Hey you kids, get off of my lawn!"), but listening to these types of conversations (the excess use of "like" makes everything seem so tentative) just grinds my gears:

"So he's like 'I'm taking Tiffany to the dance,' and I'm all like 'No way, she's a skank.'"
"Oh, wow, I'd be so like Hello?? Courtney is like so into you, and she is like so much cuter than Tiffany."

or


"I was like five minutes late for work and my boss was all like 'one more tardy and I'll have to fire you.' And I was just like 'whatever.'"

I think that the word "like" is an interesting one. I use it A LOT when I speak, but when typing, of course I dont. I would describe it as a "filler" like "Umm" or "Err". When you were younger I am sure there were certain ways to speak with friends, and this is just the one nowadays. What is interesting, is that I don't even notice the amount of times "like" is said in a coloquial conversation! It's like I can just censor out that word and extract the bits I need

[Charlie Bernstein]

What do you think about the Slang phenomenon? Generally, do you think it's indicates something good happening in the language or the opposite? Should we teach slang the EFL students? Or we should avoid this phenomena like we doing today in class?

Slang is a naturally occurring part of every language. From early childhood, people know the difference between proper and improper speech and apply each intentionally according to their internal rules.

I once interviewed a pair of American linguists who specialize in sign language for the deaf. The Nicaraguan government contacted them shortly after the revolution there to ask them to come give advice on a school for the deaf the new government has established.

The school was for very young deaf children and had no teachers. The social workers running the school noticed that the smaller children, in the absence of language, were inventing their own.

The linguists rushed to Nicaragua and intervened to make sure no attempt was made to teach the children another sign language, and instead learned the children's. It created a huge sensation in the world of linguistics, because no one had ever (or has ever) seen a new language being born.

But we all have the innate drive to make language. Children learn to talk not because their parents teach them to, but because at a certain stage, they're ready to.

And one thing the linguists learned was that, as part of it, the kids invented slang. They had proper names and nicknames for people, they had scandalous words, silly words, and formal words, and they knew which was which and when to use them.

Slang is hard-wired into our language-making ability. It's not new, it's not strange, and it's not going away.

And who would want it to?

[Charlie Bernstein]

PS - I'm 57, and "like" has been popular since I was a little kid.

[konungursvia]

Nice answers, I agree with Charlie... every language register or level has its place. Without the lower registers, or the slang, the formal language has less of its special character. Each type of usage has its appropriate time and place, and I actually prefer literature that recognizes this -- Geoffrey Chaucer, Henry Fielding, Mark Twain.

[toddrich]

i've seen similar sites that are bad, but this one -- especially this thread -- this site is sick! (an example of slang that i'm young enough to know but too old to use.)
----

the question on this thread: "is slang good or bad for language?"
taking the answers on this thread as a whole, the answer is: "um, good. yeah. good."

c'mon, homies! once more with feeling! let Slang hear you!

sorry to spaz. slagging off slang, though? c'mon.

unlike punctuation and grammar rules, which don't change, slang breathes life into language; slang can be ephermeral or can span generations; occasionally, slang's useage becomes so common that it is "standardized."
slang can set tone and define chracters.

and don't forget what you get without slang:
language without slang is math.

[Crazypic]

What do you think about the Slang phenomenon? Generally, do you think it's indicates something good happening in the language or the opposite? Should we teach slang the EFL students? Or we should avoid this phenomena like we doing today in class?

This is crazypic and i have a question i am doing a project and i need some help i have to make a argument on whether or not slang is good or bad and i really don't know what to say can you please help me