Bare Vexed

Dear Isabella Kerr,

I have read your opinion on modern day speaking within social media and agree with you on some aspects. However, before all the current words in the dictionary were created, people possibly saw them as ‘slang’ or not formal, so to treat new words in the dictionary as useless is to underestimate the words themselves. Moreover, to say there is no meaning behind these words is ignorant, as for the words to be used so often in the current generation they must have some sort of reason of use. You show this attitude by stating,”..the Oxford dictionaries are awarding these dismal words a degree of permanence that is both unrealistic and unnecessary”. I feel it’s unfair to judge the words just because a younger generation has created them. Moreover, you mention that the words have been given permanence and you seem to disagree; however, you lack a strong argument as to why these words should not exist.

Another statement you made was, “..things that are no longer ‘wicked’, they’re ‘sick’ and if someone does not appeal to you they’re not ‘fugly’, they’re ‘butters’.I believe you were digging yourself in a deeper hole here. As you are also, promoting slang by saying ‘wicked’ and ‘fugly’ should be used instead of other terms; these words themselves are slang dating back to the 1980’s. So, by saying this you are diging yourself into a deeper hole as within the 1980′ there may have been someone like you also, dis-agreeing on the types of slang being used. Moreover, in years to come new versions of slang are more than likely to come along that some may be against and give examples of ‘original’ slang which is used in the present day. You need to agree to dis-agree in this situation as your not going to win this non backed up argument.

The 21st century is clearly changing the world and you need to notice this. You yourself admit that your out of touch with youth culture, but slang and new words have been vital within works of literature dating back through the centuries. You claim that Shakespeare would be ‘turning in his grave’.However, in his plays he included a creation of 1700 words which were self made such as gnarled, rant, swagger, dwindle etc. These were new words made by Shakespeare if you was present would you have included these in the dictionary? You also say ‘if the only words we can create are unimaginative hybrids of pre-existing words, or worse, shortening of already perfectly good words, then what hope is there?’ Not only did Shakespeare make up words he also played with them in imaginative ways, shortening them, connecting ones that haven’t been used together before, and turning nouns into verbs and verbs into adjectives. You claim you ‘hate’ the shortening of words however, miss interpret that by using the word dismal.