'My bluds say the skets round here are nuff deep' - the new inner city language

[sihhi]

Yep, all languages have a certain level of capacity to do this, but English has certain characteristics (I think) which make it easier. It's a broad concoction that borrows easily. A little English goes a long way, even if it sometimes takes years to master the illogical inconsistencies. Just look at the number of English-based creoles in the Caribbean, West Africa and elsewhere. English borrows easily and is forgiving of those with only a basic vocabulary.

This is the case for virtually all languages - English isn't special. What is special is how English is so dominant (it has been called Globish by some) - meaning it has a greater opportunity to have borrowings and lendings - (so many people speak it because of historical and present-day reasons, as a lingua franca etc) meaning its borrowings and lendings are more noticed.

 

[Favelado]

Yep, all languages have a certain level of capacity to do this, but English has certain characteristics (I think) which make it easier. It's a broad concoction that borrows easily. A little English goes a long way, even if it sometimes takes years to master the illogical inconsistencies. Just look at the number of English-based creoles in the Caribbean, West Africa and elsewhere. English borrows easily and is forgiving of those with only a basic vocabulary.

I don't really agree with that. I think that if you had the same immigration you have in London replicated in a non English-speaking metropolis for an equivalent length of time you would get the same result.

 

[Favelado]

It's not meant for you and ME. (If you're going to use proper English please use it properly. )

"You and me" is fine in informal usage* and it's always worth pointing out that usage IS English and grammar ends up having to catch up with the real world eventually. "You and I" is only necessary in formal writing.

Source *Michael Swan

 

[sihhi]

"You and me" is fine in informal usage* and it's always worth pointing out that usage IS English and grammar ends up having to catch up with the real world eventually. "You and I" is only necessary in formal writing.

Source *Michael Swan

If it's after for (or any other pronoun) it's always me even when separated by a conjunction.

 

[J Ed]

I don't really agree with that. I think that if you had the same immigration you have in London replicated in a non English-speaking metropolis for an equivalent length of time you would get the same result.

You don't even need the immigration, just pick up a serious newspaper in Portugal and see how many Anglicisms they use!

 

[trabuquera]

"You and me" is fine in informal usage* and it's always worth pointing out that usage IS English and grammar ends up having to catch up with the real world eventually. "You and I" is only necessary in formal writing.

Source *Michael Swan

argh! this is exactly what I was trying to illustrate. Using "you and I" or "you and me" is a classic example of something that's simple to do right and perfectly logical - UNLIKE many aspects of English grammar. You use "I" if you're the actor, the subject in the sentence, and "me" if you are the object ... and that doesn't change whether or not there is another person with you.

I went to buy a nice hot pie. You and I went to buy a nice hot pie.

The baker was pleased to see me. The baker was pleased to see you and me.

dammit, want a pie now.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

As someone over 30, I fear and distrust change.

I propose that we counter this by reviving early victorian back-slang to confuse the youngsters

 

[Favelado]

argh! this is exactly what I was trying to illustrate. Using "you and I" or "you and me" is a classic example of something that's simple to do right and perfectly logical - UNLIKE many aspects of English grammar. You use "I" if you're the actor, the subject in the sentence, and "me" if you are the object ... and that doesn't change whether or not there is another person with you.

I went to buy a nice hot pie. You and I went to buy a nice hot pie.

The baker was pleased to see me. The baker was pleased to see you and me.

dammit, want a pie now.

I know that and I'm still saying that the frequent misuse of "me" as a subject pronoun in some sentences has reached a tipping point where usage outweighs the grammar rule.

A sentence such as "Lucy and me went to buy a pie" is now fine in informal speech and recognised as such in grammar books such as Swan, despite being traditionally incorrect and at odds with grammar pronoun rules.

If everyone gets it wrong, it's right!

 

[DotCommunist]

kiss my teeth at this wastethread

 

[Favelado]

kiss my teeth at this wastethread

Shut up fam.

 

[alsoknownas]

A lot of the slang (if not most) mentioned in the op was used in my school, when I was at school (a very, very long time ago).

 

[Kaka Tim]

I propose that we counter this by reviving early victorian back-slang to confuse the youngsters

Or polari.

The whole point of teen slang is to distance itself from the adult language, to carve out its own space - and the fact that it confuses, mystifies and infuriates the more priggish adults like gentle green makes it all the more appealing.

When I was a teen, me and few mates all read clockwork orange and for a while we adopted the slang - 'nadsat' - to deliberately confuse the teachers.

The 'sick' meaning 'great' thing is the latest in a long line of adjectives for something bad having their meaning reversed.

'bad' 'wicked' 'the shit!' when i was at school in the late 70s/early 80s, cool stuff was 'evil', in a related way someone might play football 'like a bastard' or 'like a fucker'. In clockwork orange the teens use 'horrorshow' as a positive intensifier - ( for crusty catholic traditionalist, burgess had an astonishing insight into teen slang and mores).

Has anyone posited why this is? Is it that negative adjectives are more powerful then their positive counterparts - so their greater intensity gets borrowed? Its interesting that the reverse process doesn't seem to happen - good meaning bad and so on.

 

[DotCommunist]

Or polari.

The whole point of teen slang is to distance itself from the adult language, to carve out its own space - and the fact that it confuses, mystifies and infuriates the more priggish adults like gentle green makes it all the more appealing.

When I was a teen, me and few mates all read clockwork orange and for a while we adopted the slang - 'nadsat' - to deliberately confuse the teachers.

The 'sick' meaning 'great' thing is the latest in a long line of adjectives for something bad having their meaning reversed.

'bad' 'wicked' 'the shit!' when i was at school in the late 70s/early 80s, cool stuff was 'evil', in a related way someone might play football 'like a bastard' or 'like a fucker'. In clockwork orange the teens use 'horrorshow' as a positive intensifier - ( for crusty catholic traditionalist, burgess had an astonishing insight into teen slang and mores).

Has anyone posited why this is? Is it that negative adjectives are more powerful then their positive counterparts - so their greater intensity gets borrowed? Its interesting that the reverse process doesn't seem to happen - good meaning bad and so on.

observe if you will, the middle class teenagers trying to do a naturally occurring linguistic drift by aping a fucking book. You cunts.

 

[wiskey]

One of the things I miss most now I don't live in London full time is hearing the slanguage on the buses.

A few years ago Benjamin Zephaniah did an interesting R4 programme on it but I can't find it to listen to so here's the article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8388545.stm

 

[ska invita]

If everyone gets it wrong, it's right!

i heard a linguist on the radio and she said someting a bit like that "and I" is in fact almost always wrong and based on latin grammar, where as anglosaxon grammar has it as "and me". she probably said something completely different as i cant remember it right, but basically saying "and me" is bestest

 

[Favelado]

One of the things I miss most now I don't live in London full time is hearing the slanguage on the buses.

A few years ago Benjamin Zephaniah did an interesting R4 programme on it but I can't find it to listen to so here's the article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8388545.stm

I've been on this bus LOOOONG fam.

 

[ymu]

That reported conversation is a bit suspect. Most of it makes sense, but the local lad wouldn't have complimented him like that. He might have dropped a compliment to reassure the other bloke that not being from his ends was not going to start a fight, but I don't think he would have told him that he looked buff with his trousers hanging down his arse. A girl might have said that to him, but a bloke would have told him he was wearing the right sort of trainers.

Then again, buff might have evolved as much as deep has. This is an interesting one, IMO. I'm trying to work out the evolution:

That's deep man as used by hippies, to sarcastic use meaning you're a pseud, to meaning just plain bad.

It's a fucking terrible article, of course. As if this has only just started happening. How does he think we evolved from Chaucerian language to now?

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

Deep has meant disturbing or harsh for at least 15years.
I've asked before' but I'll as again: what happened to rago? I remember when people would declare their rago intent but I haven't heard that for AGES, did it die?

 

[Firky]

Good thread

 

[ymu]

i heard a linguist on the radio and she said someting a bit like that "and I" is in fact almost always wrong and based on latin grammar, where as anglosaxon grammar has it as "and me". she probably said something completely different as i cant remember it right, but basically saying "and me" is bestest

It solely depends on whether I am the subject or the object:

[ska and] I went to the shop.
She went to the shop for [ska and] me.


She is right about dialects though. Received English is not the only language spoken round these parts. If it is consistently wrong (ie wrong in a grammatical way) it is an example of language evolving rather than an error.

 

[DotCommunist]

I often refer to extended time periods as 'longing me out'


thats right. I say them words. Low it fam

 

[ymu]

We tease each other about talking 'street' and 'middle-class' respectively (not that he's claim to be up to date with the kids!), but I love the logic of street talk, and where the terms come from. It's a lot like the way internet terminology has evolved but with completely different (although now overlapping) cultural influences. You can nearly always work out what a word means if you try.

It's very expressive too. If we accept that the incident in the article is broadly true, for example, there's a huge amount being said in very few words. It's poetry.

 

[ymu]

Sick is another nice example. In my youth, it had evolved from the 'sick joke' meaning to a word you might use to describe someone's, eg football skills. Meaning that they outplayed someone so well it's a joke, and a sick one at that. It's a very short step from that to sick meaning good.

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

Well, you may well like the logic of it but its not a melodious and soothing way of speaking is it? It's volatile and discordant when you consider the phonetics. Almost monosyllabic and usually spoken in a semi-nasal voice tone of voice which also grates. I'm not saying it's Bad but those are the things I dislike about slang and it's in no way beautiful to my ear because of them.

 

[ymu]

i just got that.

After my birthday this year (25) I will officially be "approaching 30"

When we first met, my partner refused to tell me how old he was because he still hadn't come to terms with turning 30.

I accidentally highlighted how close 40 now is the other day. Yep, still touchy!

 

[ymu]

I don't see much evidence of "melting-pot" it's 'street talk' British West Indian dominance - same as it's been for the past 20 years - cotch, yard, blud, safe, butters ... these have been around a long, long time - some are newer.

Other non-English languages Hindi/Urdu, Bengali, Albanian, Arabic, Turkish, Polish, Vietnamese etc aren't really part of it only within those backgrounds are there new words formed by code-switching, but these slang words don't catch on beyond.





Also sket is slut, with all the problems of the latter.

There is a disproportionate West Indian influence because West Indians are often the coolest kids (see Gus in the OP) because, you know, they're only any good at being cool, so a disproportionate number of black kids try to be cool:



But I don't think your examples are all Jamaican in origin (the rest of the Caribbean doesn't get much of a look in, to some resentment from others). Yard is derived from an Americanism (backyard) which has it's uses in the UK (nimby, for eg). Blud and safe have nothing to do with patois as far as I know, I think blud is from the US gang and blurs in meaning with bruv. I always thought butters derived from butt ugly, and again, I see no connection with patois.

Sket is a combination of skank and slut. Young men who are insecure in their masculinity and sexuality find ways to denigrate women with the tacit approval of wider society shock!

 

[Stoat Boy]

My immediate instinct is to start moaning but if I am honest, whilst not having any black influences, the south london street slang that I grew up with included a lot of Yiddish and Romany influence (for example the word chav was always used in reference to very young children) so I guess language does change dependent on all sorts of cultural influences.

However I would urge a note of caution on this. When I grew up it was in a working class culture in which people who spoke and understood the slang I used actually were able to provide jobs and opportunities for real social mobility. Some black lad from a council estate in S.E London lacks that support net work and so I would argue that its probably even more important for him to be able to communicate in the more socially acceptable forms of English than ever.

Slang is all very wonderful and jolly interesting on an intellectual level but given the low levels of social mobility for working class kids across the board now, well it becomes a little bit more worrying.

 

[wiskey]

As an aside this idea that kids who speak slang won't be able to communicate with the 'real' world isn't borne out when it comes to calling ambulances ime, the call is generally polite and coherent... Once the initial questioning is over you might get a bit more lax use of English but they get their point across.

But then if your fams just been shanked you'd be a little freaked.

 

[ymu]

In my partner's experience, gang members are scary as fuck on the street but as soon as they need to confront some element of 'officialdom' they go to pieces. Opening a bank account, applying for benefits, that kind of thing. As a broad generalisation, of course.

But I don't think that that barrier extends to every kid that picks up the teenage slang of their time. Ability to communicate clearly comes naturally to kids who go to school and listen to teachers who require them to speak clearly. Only those whose home and school circumstances allow them to avoid substantial contact with more formal language have this sort of problem, and it goes a lot deeper than the words they use to communicate with.

 

[gentlegreen]

Even our political class seems to suffer from inverted snobbery when it comes to speaking English - so what hope is there for the yoof ?

Some of the callers to LBC are really scary.