How old is slang?

Image from: http://englishslangsesl.blogspot.co.uk

I am truly fascinated by the way a language evolves and adapts to the needs of its users over the years. Slang certainly contributes to such evolution, whether it appears as a brand new word or a new meaning for an existing word. It is a complex and creative process.

“One of the things about a slang is that it reinvigorates the language and whether it is an acronym or a new word, it helps move the language forward,” said John Selwyn Gilbert, a writer, film maker and tutor with whom I have recently had an interesting conversation about English slang and its usage among teenagers and older people.

According to the writer, who is now semi-retired and teaches English to youngsters, there is a lot going on with teenage slang nowadays but young people are often unaware they speak jargon, as they do not know the difference between conventional written language and new words.

He mentioned about some of his students using slang expressions in front of him: “The worst thing about it, is when they use ‘like’ or ‘don’t you know’ in every other sentence, which is not unusual. That is slang used badly,” Mr. Gilbert added.

Slang words go out of use and get replaced by new ones at all times, as well as words change their meaning. The possibilities of transformation of colloquial language go well beyond that, though.

“Language is a little like a roundabout sometimes, things go out of fashion and then come back into fashion and one of these words is ‘cool’. When I was twenty, in 1963,  ‘cool’ was exclusively for American jazz musicians, a 40s word that nobody would have used then and suddenly came back with the kids and now it is everywhere. I can use ‘cool’ as a 70 year-old and it is fine; nobody would think it is particularly peculiar or pretentious now. I think it is a very useful word because it means good in a laid-back, gentle, relaxed sort of way,” John Selwyn Gilbert explained.

‘Wicked’ is another term which means ‘good’ and that young people have adapted.

“Even if an old person like me says ‘wicked’, that means ‘good’. However, it used to be a word that meant something naughty, bad or even evil. Now it has got more energy than cool; if you say something is cool, you have been relaxed about it, you think it is nice, while if you say it is wicked, you mean something really, really exciting,”  Mr. Gilbert emphasised.

Also ‘awesome’ seems to be worth talking about, as it belongs to the same context meaning.

“Youngsters have overused it to the point where I could never use that word now, not in its proper sense. It originally means something which inspires awes; it is a disagreeable, nasty sensation, meaning that somebody is frightened , that something is terrifying. Awesome has become devalued by the young people using it in place of ‘really good’,” he added.

As slang is no longer just spoken, it is in fact written in text messages and on the internet, mature people tend to have a good understanding of new phrases, abbreviations and new meanings for existing words.

Going into more details about the fairly recent crossover of slang, John Selwyn Gilbert said:

“I use abbreviations like LOL, probably meaning something different than young people and I use ‘C U L8R’ as a joke in text I send. However, I tend to be very careful about using slang, as when an old person does it quite energetically, something happens which is quite funny: s/he looks like an elephant pirouetting in a circus in a ballet skirt!

“So, I would use slang words in an ironic sense, making a joke against myself rather than using them regularly,”  he clarified. 

Could we say that slang is a modern phenomenon? Probably not, and Mr. Gilbert, who loves analysing his own language because it is inexhaustible and changes all the time, explained why:

“If we look at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, the very first scene is absolutely crammed with slang words. Somebody like Shakespeare introduced more than two thousand words into the English language, but more importantly, those terms had been printed for the first time in his plays. Not that the words did not exist before. He probably invented very few of them as he was taking terms used by ordinary people he spoke to, he liked the sound of them and he made use of them”.

More importantly, Shakespeare was adapting slang terms and putting them down in paper for the first time.  And it was the 16^th century.