Most people above the age of 45 would agree that teenagers' slang is ruining the English language, but how much water does that argument hold?
Teenage slang in today's society is spreading like wildfire because of the high focus on social media. Platforms such as Twitter and Vine allow for slang to be broadcasted and standardized over a large area, whereas in the age before social media, certain neighborhoods would have their “language” and it would differ depending on where you were. Author of The Atlantic's article “Teens Aren’t Ruining Language,” Adrienne Lafrance points out that when she was growing up in her Philadelphia-area town in 1999, there were words and phrases such as “Don't grill, dude,” and “budge” that have totally different intended meanings than what the dictionary might say. Lawrence reports that after a few years, she left her area of the country and no one had ever heard of these expressions that she used in her adolescent years. Today, if these sayings were broadcasted on Twitter or said in a Vine clip, a lot more people would be familiar with these sayings. However, even if teens' slang words are making their way across the US and sometimes into other countries, fads die out, whether they are bell-bottom jeans, Silly Bandz bracelets, or the word "bae."
According to Salon’s article, “2015 in Language: ‘We can getup in each other’s faces so easily’” written by Scott Timberg, this broadening of term usage beyond neighborhood borders has been evolving in a cycle: first it was 24-hour news cycles, then broadband cable, now social media. Now that social media can reach any corner of the world that has wifi, people are “up in each other’s faces so easily,” as Timberg puts it, because all they have to do to initiate an argument is post a simple 120 character tweet on social media that not everyone may agree with. This title in itself is an example of slang. Years ago, people would call it fighting, but now there is a cultural saying for it: “up in each other’s faces.”
Teens get some tough blame from other generations for “ruining the language” with words and sayings such as "bae," "basic," and "on fleek,” but studies have found that someone’s change in their vernacular does not necessarily have to do with age. In fact, according to Kansas State University professor, Mary Kahn’s research in The Atlantic, it may have to do with someone’s personality, social standings, or environments. She believes that the blame placed on teens for “ruining the English language” is grossly overrated. Another researcher that wrote for The Guardian explained that teens can sometimes alter the meaning of a word they hear on TV, such as the word "zid" that author Michael Rosen explained in his article. Teens start to say this newly invented word in school, on social media, to family, and before they know it, it has taken the same effect on society that "on fleek" has (idiotic term that should only be seen on social media, IF that).
