April 1998

Slang

Is it good or bad?

By Carol Ko

Suzie Wong comes to a tailor shop and asks Mr. Leung to make her a dress. He says, “Well, show me your vital statistics first.”

Vital statistics is slang used in colloquial English. and hips.

Miss Jennifer Wipp, 20, a freshman in science from Nova Scotia, Canada, thinks slang started with people’s laziness, as they shortened everything so to say them faster.

Mr. Edward Vickers, 27, a Year 1 graduate student in education at Hong Kong University, and Miss Denise Long, 19, currently studying applied mathematics and statistics in environmetrics in Canada, both think it is fun to use it.

Cartoon by Carol Ko

Said Mr. Vickers: “Slang usually starts off as incorrect usage. But eventually, it becomes accepted and you’ll find it in dictionaries. In English, slang enters into the language easily.”

“Slang won’t harm at all if it is learned for fun, since the world is going that way. Still I believe proper English is the most important, education-wise,” said Miss Long.

Miss Elsie Fung, 22, a Year 3 philosophy student from England, said slang can help people to mix into a teenage group better.

Mr. Vickers thinks people use slang to spice up the conversation, as they feel dull using proper words all the time.

“It can make people integrate more easily into the mainstream of the community,” said Mr. Matthew Cheung, 19, a business student at Santa Rosa Junior College in Santa Rosa, California. He thinks some slang can help in expressing feelings and emotions, like when someone shouts, “Crap!”

Cartoon by Carol Ko

Miss Yvonne Long, 25, a part-time student in commerce in Canada, thinks slang is easier to understand.

She thought some slang should be taught as a means of cultural understanding; other kinds of slang should be taught with guidance.

“Slang is educational overall, since it teaches me how North American culture has evolved,” said Miss Long.

However, Mr. Danguy Ngo, 19, a freshman in business administration at California State University-Fullerton, disagreed.

Said he: “Slang is a habit that we as a society picked up many years ago. It is not proper English and should not be taught at all.”

Mr. Douglas C. Fleming, 20, a Year 3 student from Chicago now studying economics and government at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, has the same idea.

However, he uses slang. “In the Chicago area, we would say things like ‘Watchadoin’ today?’ Which means ‘What are you doing today?’” said Mr. Fleming. “And if you’re in the southern U.S., y’all would mean ‘you all’.

“People in Chicago use cab for ‘taxi’. ‘Taxi’ is used in writing, and cab in speaking,” added he.

A lot of slang started from songs. Cool, which means ‘good’, is one of them. It came from rap music in the ’90s.

In the United States, residents of some states have bizarre or interesting slang that people from other states might not understand.

Mr. Fleming illustrated this with some examples. “In the state of Maine, people call candy swisha sweets.

“In the Western states, milk is moo juice. Persnickity means you got out of the wrong side of the bed today, you’re crabby, or you’re irritable.”

Slang in different countries is unique. British people may not understand slang used in America.

Some people form stereotypes based on the slang of others. “People who speak slang in the South (of the United States) are considered poor and uneducated. But in the city of Boston, you’re considered educated,” said Mr. Fleming.

Ms Jovita Corrigan, 44, who has taught for 21 years and currently teaches English at the Chinese University, said, “Slang is informal, casual language. Many people think it is impolite to use because they associate it with profane language like damn it, shit, or obscene language. For example, the word fuck has sexual undertones.

“Slang does cause communication breakdowns if listeners do not fully understand its underlying meaning.

“If the listener believes in using only a polite and formal tone of a language in conversations, then he may consider slang unacceptable.”

Ms Corrigan thinks slang should be taught in school.

She thinks that because the English learnt at school is mostly academic, it may not be appropriate or sufficient in a very ordinary, natural native setting like that in the U.S.

She added, “It is not rude to use slang in the classroom or even in interviews if the interviewer chooses to maintain a relaxed and informal atmosphere.

“As an English teacher, I believe, for students to be fully proficient in English, they need to know the language used in both the academic and outside worlds.”

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