I strongly disagree with this argument and I think that Isabelle Kerr’s attitude towards new words and slang is appalling. It genuinely surprises me that someone who writes professionally for a national newspaper can be this arrogant towards new language and advances in words and culture. She refers to herself ‘as a member of the younger generation, partly responsible for these linguistic calamities, I can only apologise’. I do not believe she has a right to apologise because there is no reason to. Slang is a form of language that Our current generation and generations before us have been adding to for years. She says she apologises for the linguistic calamities that we have created like she has the right to, like we have created a monstrosity that she completely and utterly despises. She makes it sound like we have committed a deadly sin to the rest of humanity that can never ever be fixed.

Slang is a language that every generation has used at some point in their lives. It’s nothing new to the world of language and also not something new to young people. Ms Kerr writes ‘ It’s already a constant battle for young people to prove that we’re not all ASBO- wielding yobs who can’t communicate properly’. on her rather expensive laptop in the Porsche that her Daddy bought her for her 18th birthday. Kerr explains to her readers that all youngsters that use slang go around robbing shops, mugging pregnant women and tormenting the old people on the local estate. This is quite obviously not true and hurts me personally because I am a strong user of slang.

‘Regardless, the future of the English language looks bleak’. This statement is like totally not true ya get me bruv. Slang isn’t anything new to the English language like Isabelle may think. We Brits have been using slang words since before Shakespeare. People create words that mean something to them personally that they can use for their own uses. Kerr, in her box of arrogance, believes that because some kids who created a couple of words on the internet (like selfie or twerk) the world, by law, will be doomed to a new generation of idiotic ASBO- wielding yobs in track suits and hoodies. This image must really frighten Isabelle. Ms Kerr goes on to write ‘Shakespeare would be turning in his grave’. At this point, she has totally lost me. Either she was trying to be ironic or my suspicions of her being really stupid are true. Shakespeare was a pioneer of Slang language. He made up new words to make his rhymes flow and his scripts glow. She has literally dug herself a hole of brainless babble and then filled it with idiotic, not very funny, jokes. Who even hired her?

The words that she is disapproving of are only being added to the Oxford ONLINE dictionary as a joke to a bad week of bad dancing and selfies. ‘By including them online, the oxford dictionaries are awarding these dismal words a degree of permanence that is both unrealistic and unnecessary’. The whole point is that they’re only being added to the online version. It’s like  a photograph of a good holiday. It’s not there for a practical use. It’s to remind you that you had a good time a while ago. These words are just going to blow over in the wind in a couple of months just like the word ‘wicked’, ‘groovy’ and ‘sick’. Nobody says those words anymore and thats the whole point. They’re a trend at one point and then never ever used again. Isabelle does say they are just a ‘fashion trend’ but that kind of undermines her whole argument. If they’re just a fashion trend why get into such a big fuss over them?

The title for her argument says everything about her. ‘Twerking, selfie and unlike? Young people don’t speak like that – I should know’. She thinks that just because her and her posh little stuck up friends at the tea party don’t say selfie, unlike and twerk, that everybody under twenty don’t use them. Well she’s wrong because I’ve seen a hell of a lot of people doing #ThrowbackThursdays and #Selfies. The point is people do use these words and she really needs to get a grip of her life and report on something that actually matters in the world like the Crisis in Ukraine or Gay rights in Russia. She really needs to stop prancing around on her high horse and look out at the world and see what matters.

To conclude, I do not believe that Slang is a bad thing. In fact I think we should embrace it and accept it into modern society because most of the people in the UK are speaking some form of slang. Ms Kerr really doesn’t have a say on whether or not slang is good or not because she obviously has not been around long enough to see it being put into good use. I would like to finish on a quote about slang by the famous american poet Carl Sandburg. ‘Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on it’s hands and goes to work’.