Today, we all use the slang language in our daily lives. But have you ever wondered how it affects your perception?
When I returned from Germany the second time at age 18, I was running around the streets of Portland Oregon. On the way back from the skate park one day, I crossed paths with a young man my own age who asked, “Where ‘da bomb at?”. I immediately ducked for cover! As it turns out, he was just looking for some weed. I had no clue that the slang language had changed so much in the two years I had been gone, so it took me months to catch up.
This was my introduction to the perils of slang language and the communication issues it creates. It only got worse from there.
Talking to my friends was fraught with issues in communication. Often, I found myself correcting my peers during conversations when their terminology didn’t match with the tone and intention of the discourse. This was a little abrasive at first but ultimately essential in my eyes.
To quote Alan Moore, “Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.”
Prolonged exposure to these reverse ideas is sure to impair our ability to form accurate thoughts and communicate effectively.
My Grandmother often encouraged me to think before I spoke, going as far to impart a philosophy to me I often muse on: “It is better to hold your tongue and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt“. Wise words certainly, I wish I was better at following them.
The fact that words are thoughts and the paths to meaning and subsequent communication is as obvious as the oversized nose on my face. When I hear someone qualify an experience as ‘wicked’ or judge something ‘sick’, my knee-jerk response is, “Oh, that’s too bad“. Wrong again.
In this day and age, it seems the world has turned on its head. Terms like sick, wicked, and hell are now indicative of positives.
It is my assertion that calling good= bad and bad= good is a short-cut to insanity. How can one truly judge when one is so confused?
I don’t want to represent the slang language or jargon (shop talk) as completely unusual. In many ways, the ability to communicate with a select audience has its value.
Many times in my life, a pretender to military service has revealed themselves by their lack of appropriate terminology. At the same time, a qualified expert in a specific field is easily distinguished by their easy use of technical terms.
In these ways, communication is facilitated by the slang language and not the opposite. Distinguishing between the two variances can be a challenge, however.
To best make the distinction between the helpful slang language and confusing nonsense, we must ask ourselves a simple question: are we communicating effectively with our audience? As a writer, this concept is ever on my mind, and in daily life, it can be much harder to be mindful of this in the moment.
One of the best examples that many of us can relate to is how we communicate with our children. Some examples include refraining from profanity, using terms they understand and even baby talk. Carefully choosing the words we use may seem arduous, but to me, the effort is well worth it.
George Carlin said “We think in language. The quality of our thoughts and ideas can only be as good as the quality of our language”
I whole-heartedly agree. An even more severe indictment of language-bending is expressed in the book 1984 by George Orwell: Slavery=Freedom, Weakness=Strength, etc.
If we are to arrest this disturbing trend, we, as a society, need to be more responsible about the words we choose, the ideas we teach our children, and the euphemisms we accept in our lives.
How the slang language distorts the truth
When I was in the army, it wasn’t an ambush – it was a “pre-emptive counter-strike!” Euphemisms abound, from calling the handicapped the ‘differently abled‘, to ‘buying the farm‘ instead of dying.
Soldiers have gone from shell-shock, to combat fatigue, to now having PTSD! As if any of this reconfiguration of terms changes the nature of these things. A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.
When we accept this rearranging of terms, we forfeit truth for lies and voluntarily subject our minds to insidious insanity. A “Bad Mother-F*cker” is not someone I want on my team, I don’t want a ‘sick‘ tattoo (sounds like it’s infected), and ‘Hell‘ is something I want to follow with NO, not YES.
I highly encourage everyone, regardless of their age or class, to reject this misuse of language and never acquiesce the truth for social acceptance or ‘trendiness’. Let’s all stand at the banks of the river of truth and never give an inch no matter how large or loud the opposition.
So true !!!
Actually buddy, we don’t all use slang language in our every day lives, so you might want to think about sweeping statements of that nature in an article about misusing language, but the article is interesting for all that.
Lolz mr grahhhammer’s ‘buddy’ is slang.
Gr8 read I can’t stand descriptive vs prescriptive either brah