Yo, yo wassup y’all? OK, many of you may be wondering if
this is how I usually communicate. Not because the words themselves
are funny, but because they sound funny coming out of my mouth.
I have accepted this. I’m not allowed to talk that way,
and it’s got nothing to do with my race, socioeconomic
standing or where I grew up. I can’t pull off that kind of
speech for one reason: I buy clothes at Target.
The ability to use the slang of a subculture hinges upon an
individual’s allegiance to that subculture’s style of
dress. Most people who shop at Target are not viable members of the
hip hop nation. So it just doesn’t make sense when they say
things like, “Break me off a piece of that.”
Here’s why. As anyone who has taken Communication Studies
10 knows, a large part of the way people communicate is non-verbal.
As anyone who has seen the movie “Clueless” knows, a
large part of non-verbal communication lies in what people
wear.
So it follows that the way a person speaks should match the way
they dress. If a saggy-panted Karl Kani model were to say
“this -ish is whack,” this is acceptable. If a J.Crew
model said it while sporting an ecru V-neck, it becomes horrible.
Switch their clothes around, and the speech becomes OK again.
This goes beyond race and age. It is perfectly normal for Bryant
Gumbel to utter “My goodness, that’s lovely”
while wearing his Brooks Brothers suit. Now imagine Kid Rock saying
the same thing, but out from under some huge hat and fur coat. The
result is a confusing mess.
Now, it may appear that I am shallowly advocating stereotypes
here. Considering what I’ve previously written against
stereotypes, that would make me a total hypocrite. To clarify,
I’m not saying that the way a person dresses defines the
whole of their being. I’m just saying that it makes me giggle
when I see the Olsen twins say “phat.”
While I am certainly being shallow, I am definitely not
advocating any stereotypes. A stereotype is a snap judgment about
an individual based on some characteristic beyond that
person’s control like age, gender or race. The way a person
chooses to dress is exactly that ““ a choice. Most people
dress in a way that they feel expresses some part of their
personality. So it’s feasible to draw some small conclusions
about someone’s personality based on the way they are
dressed.
For instance, some people wear board shorts, not just to the
beach but to class and in the mall. So we can safely assume that
even if these people don’t surf, they at least admire surf
culture. Maybe they say words like “dude” and
“awesome” or even “rad” if they’re in
a “Bill and Ted” sort of mood. The way they speak is in
harmony with the way they dress, and the universe is at peace.
You could argue that a person could put on beachwear, and still
not be in harmony with surf culture. They could be faking the whole
thing. That is true. But at least those people are trying. They
certainly have more access to surfer speak than does someone who
walks around in Gucci threads.
Consider this example: Katie Couric, the morning news anchor
with the huge smile, looks like a walking Nine West catalog. She
appeared on the Rosie O’Donnell show and told a story about
her 3-year-old daughter. Her kid did something cute and Katie
punctuated the end of her story with an excited “You go,
girl!”
Let us now pause for a moment to acknowledge the extreme shame
Couric has brought upon herself by trying so painfully to be
something she’s not.
Logically, there’s no way that she could pull off that
phrase. Maybe Katie’s sentence wouldn’t have sounded
any better if she were wearing FUBU at the time, but at least
she’d get points for trying.
The point here is that she shouldn’t be trying so
hard.
People all over the nation are doing this. Media people and
regular people have tried to reach out to wider audiences by
broadening their language to make it more youth-oriented. This is
not only a transparent marketing ploy, but it’s also
excruciating to listen to.
K-Mart clad school teachers have started using the phrase
“kicking back” in a lame attempt to relate to their
students. Parents are trying to convince their kids that
they’re still cool by infusing their everyday speech with the
occasional “what’s up” and “dope.”
This is unnatural and it must be stopped.
Certainly, parents and teachers aren’t wrong to want to
reach out to the younger generation. They’re just doing it in
the wrong way.
Language helps us all communicate, but the meanings of our
messages will always have precedence over the words we choose to
convey them.
The language of a people is a beautiful, complex, intimately
created thing. And it should be shared, with the hope that someday
it will merit a place in the mainstream. To quote
“Clueless” again, “Street slang is an
increasingly accepted form of expression.”
This is true and I’m glad. And maybe someday, slang will
be so universally accepted that the sight of Sean Connery saying
“shagadelic” won’t make me fall off the couch
laughing.