What's Wrong And What's Right In America?: The Usage Of Slang

I use what some would call slang which should

not be confused with ebonics. Ebonics or "Black English” is significantly different from slang. Seymour presents Black English as the inability of those descending from Western Africa to conjugate the verb "to be” and to pronounce certain sounds. Seymour also points out that this is a language in itself and should not be confused with lazy speech. Black language should be understood and nurtured before the speaker is taught to speak Standard English (Seymour 152). Slang, on the other hand, is lazy speech. It is the picking up of interesting phrases and adapting them to your own use. Those that speak it, speak this way all of the time. They do not realize that it is improper English. Neither can they correct themselves. When I speak in slang, I know that I am doing it. I know that slang is a way of speaking to a specific group. I know that I can correct myself and that I can speak properly. This is a major misconception about the two. The first is a dialect that the speaker cannot control. The latter is an attitude. It is a way of approaching life and situations at home differently from situations at school, work, or elsewhere.

Language has always changed to fit the paradigms of society (Crystal 105). For example, in Shakespeare's time, many contractions used today were considered poor English. Rarely could a person of high social status be found using "don't" in a sentence. Today, however, people may use contractions without fear of being scorned by society. This simply illustrates the same types of people who opposed contractions in the past are opposing slang and new dialects of English. They do not realize that the way they speak differs from the way that their predecessors spoke. People opposed to language change only defend their dialect, which will die out anyway, and prove their intolerance of change.

Language will be thought of differently in the future because new mediums of communication will be used, the largest one being the Internet. Today, many people are using the Internet to "talk" to people all over the world. The Internet has its own language, which Conservatives view as computer slang. No matter what diction or dialect you speak, you still have to type out an Internet message in standard Internet. There are words used specifically for the

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