Hey tweeps,
Have you seen the new words in the 2012 Oxford Dictionary? Totes ridic! (Totally ridiculous!)
As teachers we think we are pretty hip (hip means cool, in old-people English). We work with all you young, fun people from all over the world; we love to learn about your countries and cultures as we share ours with you.
Sometimes, even when surrounded by all you fashionable people, it can be hard to keep up with the times. With pop-culture and social media trends today, something that is in (fashion) one day is out the next. Language is always changing and English is no exception.
Words, phrases and even some grammar which wasn’t acceptable twenty years ago is now widely used and therefore accepted.
Advances in technology and of course our saturation in social networking has seen the introduction of new words into our vocabulary. Words like apps and blog were not around 10 years ago, now we hear and use them every day.
Then there is txt slang, which has now become common in actual speech as well.
BFF = Best Friends Forever
LOL = Laugh Out Loud (funny)
LMAO = Laughing My Ass Off (really funny)
ROFLUTS = Rolling On Floor Laughing Unable To Speak (funniest of all)
Even native speakers have trouble keeping up. We, teachers, just learnt on Friday that ‘inbox’ is a verb!
inbox [Vn] transitive verb
‘just inbox me your details’ means send me a private message.
Phrases like ‘Who should I give this to?’ Would have been frowned upon 50 years ago for two reasons 1) use whom instead of who for object questions and 2) the floating preposition at the end, but ask a teenager today what is wrong with this sentence and they will say absolutely nothing! Ask them ‘To whom should I give this?’ and they will think you’re strange!
I guess what you should take away from this is that language is changing, and always will. Don’t feel disheartened; we can all learn these crazy new words together.
CUL8r (See you later)
(This blog is written by Joanne Hewson-Williams – Director Of Studies, Gold Coast campus)