Slang in America
For hundreds of years, English has been continuously changing. Words that were unacceptable 300 years ago are now commonplace. English has always had a trademark of being a comfortable language, the language of the common people (MacNeil 143). Change in the grammar and diction of a language is natural, and English is always confronted with changes. Among them are the use of slang, clipped word endings, and new dialects. Some Conservatives do not like changes because they claim that standard English is a perfect language; they do not want to corrupt it. Others simply do not like change. Neither group of Conservatives has any new arguments, and nothing to fear from change.Slang worries Conservatives the most because it affects the vocabulary of English. American English, especially, is always adding new words to its vocabulary for social, scientific, or artistic reasons. The scientific and artistic words do not bother these people; only the social, or slang, words do. Slang is usually created by children or teens who seek social status (Morrow 137). Because kids are the source of new slang, some adults look down on it with the assumption that kids are unintelligent and simply rebelling against established English grammar and dic
Conservatives have one reason to oppose language progression: fear. Conservatives have a fear that the language they speak will not be the primary one. For this reason, they will put down other dialects simply because these dialects are not standard English. Standard English is just another dialect, however, and thinking one dialect greater than another is mere bigotry. If Conservatives had their way, people would never be able to express themselves in new ways because there would never be any new words. There would be academies for English, academies that go against every principle of freedom to which speakers of English are heir. 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
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 868
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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