The year is 2025. The CEO of your finance company approaches you and says “Yo homie, where my reports at?”
Whether we will have chill CEOs in the future or not, people believe that slang is corrupting our ability to speak eloquently and will ultimately lead to the destruction of English as we know it. What they don’t realize is the English language is constantly evolving, and the “slang” of now may very well become the proper English of the future.
The past change of our language is well documented. In the age of Shakespeare, writers who couldn’t find the words they needed made up their own. Shakespeare is credited with coining around 1,700 words depending on who you ask, among them “eyeball,” “puke” and “obscene.” He is also responsible for phrases such as “all that glitters is not gold,” and “breaking the ice.” No one is mad at Shakespeare for his role in changing the English language, so why pick on our modern day wordsmiths, like Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre and Lil’ Wayne?
Slang is just a natural trend in which the influences of other languages and famous figures, like Shakespearean authors or modern day rappers, cause words to be added to a language. As those words are used more and more often, they become integrated into our own language. However, not all words stand the test of time. Shakespeare also coined the word unhair. That one hasn’t been seen in any dictionaries recently.
Slang might also just be a way for kids to identify themselves as separate from their parents. Every generation uses its own means to separate itself from the “’rents,” whether it’s by music, style or speech. Teens think that adults are losers, and so they try to act like the young idols of their times, which is why “slang” words appear in every era.
So chill out dawg. Whether today’s slang is a passing trend or a major change here to stay, nothing bad will come of it. And who knows. Maybe Snoop Dogg will go down in history as the famed literary figure who coined the word “Fo’shizzle.”