Day: January 15, 2015

Dear Ms Kerr

I am writing to you to express my opinions on your article (Twerking, selfie and unlike? Young people don’t speak like that – I should know) which involves your beliefs towards modern day slang. I have a strong connection with the topic and I have felt the need to share my judgement on the topic you are presenting.

I do agree with you that the slang used in the modern world can produce a bad reputation for the young – that the use of certain slang such as twerk or food baby can cause society to describe the younger generation to be unintelligent. ‘Words simply promulgate an unhealthy culture obsessed with being seen in the right places and knowing who’s doing what’ which further strengthens your argument; that the slang words never have a deeper purpose or carry any poetic ‘skin’. Your last paragraphs had the word ‘unhealthy’  and ‘culture’  which is the most suitable terms to describe our current society with slang because it embodies our current situation.

Your presentation of your article I strongly disagree with due to you tending to only have one opinion on slang and not two. Yes, you are expressing an opinion, however without a second view on the matter – this article is more or less a rant than a sophisticated argument. My opinion on slang is quite different to yours that I feel it poses no threat to our ‘beloved’ English language – I was brought up in a society where slang was as frequent as rainy days therefore almost impossible to get away from. Slang has been ‘alive’ since Shakespeare, which reflects poorly on the people who seem to be quite negative on slang since it’s been going on for centuries, making the ‘so-called slang’ of this generation not any different. Slang is fashion – they are trends that disappear.

Your article revolves around that Oxford have added slang words in their Official Oxford ONLINE Dictionary, it being online suggests that it can be deleted and erased with a single click.  It being online means that it is not the true form of the English language but almost a mimic. If we would talk that online dictionary seriously then we should also take another source such as the urban dictionary where users can add words and definitions to words that don’t exist, thus making these words as insignificant as ‘twerk’ or ‘selfie’

After reading through your ‘well-thought’ rant about slang being an ‘unhealthy culture’, you do however use a form of slang without realising it. You had used Google (a popular ‘search’ engine known to many) as a verb, you had ‘to google some of these slang terms’ thus being quite ironic since you are using an internet slang. With this word you have gone against your motives of disliking the use of slang yet you use it. The correct term is to ‘search’ not ‘google’. There are several indications of the use of ‘Right’ which in an appropriate sentence would be fine, however you had used it by itself, therefore lowering the formality of your article – your selection of words such as google or the use of right are inappropriate and I believe they were unintentional.

Overall, I believe you had a valid point and as the old Chinese saying goes ‘strong start, weak finish’. And much like that phrase your article is speaking the truth, but is completely wrong, a paradox. You were strong with your initial objective, revealing how foolish slang were but could not deal a lethal blow. You begin to trail from a sophisticated argument to a informal rant as you tend to shy away from your point and instead use unnecessary quotations/examples. The use of this disrupts the flow and causes your ‘rant’ to become less enjoyable and more irritating.

I hope you take these into consideration.

Teo Bagtas

The smell of iron lingers through the hallways like a stray lingering through alleys, floating in the white abyss.

The hallway had many doors, it had many green doors, professionally painted and professionally sustained.

Door A-24 hosted a man who seem to be glued to his bed in an upright position. His face was unrecognizable, abstract almost – next to him was a cup of orange juice and several white capsules. His eyes and mouth much like him to the bed were glued shut. His face looked like roadkill, his jaw bent the other way whilst his eyes started to twitch – he could not open them. Yet, he insisted to look around. Invisible paintings of people frozen hanging like suspended mannequins, the flickering of lights, the crack in the white walls and the sound of beeping bounced around the room. The room was clean, fixed, white but broken – the room had seemed to be used daily, he was not the first host. The only breaths he could take were short and outlived and the thoughts he had were drowned in the sharp searing pain in his left knee. After several moments of him attempting to think, he begins to hear a slight faint voice coming from outside the room, he begins to breathe more heavily, palms sweating, the bed shaking and impending spill of the cup. Who could it be?

Walk. Walk. Stop. Walk. Walk. Stop.

Heavy footsteps are heard, becoming louder and louder as they approach. The broken man attempted to mumble words but instead were processed to be thoughts;

‘H-hello?, don’t hurt me.’

The footsteps increased and by the time it stopped, IT was right next to him. It became a woman, blonde hair, haggard face, heavy eyes; this ‘It’ was not a threat and had not slept in days. She places her hand onto his cracked face, he begins to scream; her hands were cold and stiff. He winces as she grabs him tighter, the unimaginable pain that he is feeling is engulfed by the situation. In his black eyes the room began to change in to a more bleak environment, the walls darkened, the cup that was there vanished and the inescapable feeling of end was felt. More footsteps are heard, this time they accumulate like packs of wolves.

‘Ma’am, get off him. He’s been through alot’

The crippled and crumbled man laid there and began to speak (after several attempts of trying to communicate).

‘I d-don’t k-know her!’

He began to rock back and forth to shake her off him, he screams in pain, his tears hurt and so did the girl. The man who had entered the room carried 4-inch needles, ready to subdue any animal bigger than a bear or an average man. The needles in his heavy eyes were spears, the men hunters and he became the hunted.

They pierce him. For a few minutes it was nothing but silence, regret and dead. The woman was gone, so we’re the men; the broken and crumbled man laid there as he had always did –  still, silent and frozen like a mannequin. His arms no longer suspended, his face plastic and blank and pale and clear and  smooth, his face no longer bent, his eyes no longer twitching. The room no longer white, but jet black, in front of him was not a door but a glass window.

He was being observed.