“Fuck” is not Anglo-Saxon. As swear words go, it’s a relative latecomer to the language – it doesn’t show up until very late Middle English, around 1425-ish, IIRC. (Chaucer would certainly have used it if it had been in his vocabulary, and he doesn’t.)
With regard to the original question, I agree with the other posters that “improving” a language is entirely subjective, but depending on the rhetorical context, slang can certainly do things that standard English can’t. E.g., it allows people to communicate to each other that they are members of a certain “in group” and to establish common ground with other members of that group (or shut non-members out). Often, it’s also more flavorful and expressive than standard English.
You mean “can not imagine” “Can’t” is slovenly slang contraction that is hardly improves the language.
But, no matter, I’d like to hear more of these “problems and inefficiencies” that linguists apparently see in English. Particularly those that are unique to English and not a basic facet of all languages.
The word lost its shock value years ago, and now it’s just a sloppy substitute used by the vocabulary-impaired. Certainly there are instances where it is the appropriate word, but the vast majority of writing could be improved dramatically by removing the word “fuck.” It fills the same role as “um” and “er” for many people, and with others, it’s used to add emphasis in ways which make no fucking sense whatsoever.
English has a perfectly good second-person plural: you. Slang use of the plural “you” instead of the singular “thou” caused us to need a new plural. Now that “y’all” is being used as a singular in many parts of the south, the abomination “all y’all” (or, if you’re from Pittsburgh, “you’uns”) is the new plural.
“Jazz” started as sex slang, and is now a useful term
Snafu was a great invention for my grandfather’s day, allowing swearing to be both humorous and usable in mixed company, which is something that would be useful today if it weren’t so dated.
Grammarians haven’t complained about this for over 80 years and anyone who actually knows anything about the language knows the “rule” is a mistake made by a few influential 19th Century grammarians who have long been discredited. It’s just English teachers who are not grammarians who enforce the rule.
Back to the OP: slang in the long run enriches the language. (In the long run, 99% of izzle and l33t will vanish, so there’s no point in using them as examples of anything). Some slang terms that became standard include words like bus, mob, pants, auto, plane, phone, TV, gay, kid, soccer, rock 'n roll, rock (applied to music), nerd, geek, nice (in it’s current meaning), and greek (as an adjective pertaining to fraternities).
Ultimately, slang goes out into the language and either finds a niche or dies out. There are always language luddites who bemoan how slang is debasing the language. I have no doubt you would have cringed and complained when people started using “bus” and “mob,” too. And, as is always the case, the language would have added the words despite you.
Not true. Old English had a suffix to indicate the adverb: most commonly -lic or -lice, though there are other variations. It’s related to many Germanic languages that used similar forms.
Each one has a specific nuance of obscenity/crudity/humor. They answer the need for being able to say something when the clinical words just don’t fit.
There’s a reason why slang terms are invented and remain in use for decades.
When used properly, they improve the language. When overused, they demean the language.
I’d like to think we quashed an insurrection of ignorance.
There’s a lot of pseudo-erudition that gets pushed around: rules against split infinitives, prepositions ending sentences, etc. It’s fun to put such nonsense in its place.
AS for the OP: language doesn’t improve, it changes.
I would however argue that slang in many cases has added new expressive richness to the language.
This seems to suggest that efficiency is (or should be) a goal of language. It’s not: language is extremely redundant, because redundancy (within limits) improves clarity.
I think it you give us a definition of the purpose of language as you see it, this will be easier to discuss.
I agree completely. If English didn’t have the “inefficiency” that The Controvert is complaining about, it would be very difficult for anyone with hearing problems to follow a conversation or watch a TV program. In casual conversation, you can follow along even if you miss one word in four, just by filling in contextual clues.
Even if not as a swear word, though, it had to have existed from the beginning of the language. How could it have cognates across various Germanic sister languages and yet not have popped into existence until after Chaucer’s time?
While this isn’t slang specifically, I think the commonly criticized misuse of “hopefully”, meaning “it is to be hoped that” or “I/we hope that” is an improvement because we don’t have a single word Standard English to express the same thing.
I would say that “slang” furthers and facilitates English towards utilitarian outcomes and means. It is another version of technical vocabulary, only determined slang by our own personal lingual prejudices. People can have the same attitude about Legalese or Ebonics being corrupt versions of English, it’s just your viewpoint.
Pidgin English and other creolized versions of English native to the Carribean Islands is a form of “middle speak slang” that has evolved out of economic necessity. It formed as a utilitarian trading language to facilitate communication amongst many nationalities and cultures. It is “slang” English but taken to its extreme has evolved into a new offshoot of English and for all intents and purposes is almost a seperate language in its own right.
I would say in the evolution of language “slang” is the intermediary in developing new languages. This is what happened to Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and French as they all moved away from Latin developing their own “slang” inherent to geography and culture.
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
– James Nicoll, rasseff
Someone on the sdmb had a sig file to this effect a while ago. It was my favorite.
If English were more efficient, it would be easier to learn. Most of the people here are already proficient, so perhaps we forgot about the long years needed to learn grammar and spelling. (And all of the exceptions to the rules) If we could cut the learning time by a few years, people could do other things with that time. Also, English might be adopted as a world-wide language and improve international relations and promote world peace.
Are you talking about learning English as a native language? I’d like to see some sort of a cite that children raised in an English-speaking enviroment take longer to acquire language skills than children raised with a different primary language. Do Italian babies start talking sooner than English babies?
We already have Esperanto for that, it pretty much failed miserably. People adopt whatever language is necessary, not easy. Four hundred years ago, it was French, because France was the dominate military, political, and economic power, and if you wanted to get ahead in any of those fields, you needed to talk to people in that language. Before that it was Latin, and before that, Greek. These days, it’s English. If America loses its ascendency, it’ll probably be Chinese.
Anyway, I’d say that slang almost always enriches language. Language itself is simply slang that’s grown up, cut its hair, and gotten a respectable job.
