Keenan's English Journal

I have read Isabelle Kerr’s article and partially agree with her opinion,This is because she is right about most of the new ‘slang words’ being bizarre,nonsensical and pointless but while this is correct it is also their purpose to be bizarre and nonsensical to her.She constantly repeats that it was her generation that created the slang like a mantra but sadly it is not,If it was her generation that created it she should be able to understand it.

She says that it does not reflect the newer generation due to most of the new additions relating to ‘reputation,image and sex’, but what she fails to realise is that this is the case because of the fact that WE MADE THEM. this is a sign that she is not a part of our generation but a part of the one before us. My generation made slang words such as ‘moist’, which means that someone is an idiot. Another example of this is ‘wasteman’ which means “someone who does nothing with their life’ or depending on the person who is saying it it ‘someone who is idiotic and embarrassing’. All of these reflect someone’s image and reputation, but hey – I am a teenager at an English state secondary school! My life is all about reputation, image and sex!

In the final paragraph she says that ‘Shakespeare would be turning in his grave’ but what she fails to realise is that Shakespeare is a pioneer in English language and in his works some words that are still used today started off as slang in the first place like cold-blooded or uncomfortable; if she was an actual fan of Shakespeare and if she was actually in Bristol university she should know something this basic.
Isabelle Kerr states that its a battle to prove that were not all ‘ASBO-wielding yobs who cant communicate properly’ but what she fails to realize is that slang is mainly used interchangeably in a sentence, not comprising it. When I do what you call ‘not communicating properly’ I am actually just starting a sentence; the ‘slang’ that I use is aye. In a sentence from me this means “hey” or “I am speaking now” the old meaning of this word used to mean “I assent” in the 1570’s while in the 1200’s it meant ‘yes’. While this is slang where I live in London it is still commonly used in Scotland and wouldn’t be considered slang at all. I use ‘aye’ because it is often faster than trying to say ‘Listen to me” and all I have to do is raise my voice to make myself heard. This doesn’t make me lazy or an ‘ASBO-wielding yob’ it makes me efficient and coherent.

She also includes two comments that have absolutely no relevance to the subject which say : “its over, They’ve won” and “No wonder there’s so much youth unemployment” when this has no actual relevance to the subject and I had no idea there was some sort of ‘war’ going on; while she uses other people’s opinion to support her own, she is unable to provide us with any proof of it other than her own opinion. If you ask a piranha if it likes meat of course it will say yes. Similarly if you choose your audience who’s opinion is anti-slang then of course their comments will be anti-slang.

She then goes on to undo what she had been saying by using slang in a sentence without explaining it and then she says ‘Aight’ which I have never even heard or said before and even when I ask other people from my generation no-one seems to know what it is.

She says that the fact that Oxford is awarding these words a place within them is “Unrealistic and unnecessary” but what she fails to realize is that most slang fits the criteria for getting into the dictionary. All the Oxford dictionary requires is that the new term “being used in a variety of different sources (not just by one writer)”, (from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com). Only then can it becomes a candidate for inclusion in the OED.

She also states “these words unfairly represent what can only be represented as this generations feeble etymological contribution to the English language” This makes no sense due to the fact that the definition of etymology is “A chronological account of the birth and development of a particular word or element of a word, often delineating its spread from one language to another and its evolving changes in form and meaning” (http://www.dictionary.com/). What is slang but development of new language? The definition shows that slang can indeed be counted as a normal word because of the fact that all words have started somewhere,like with Shakespeare. The word twerk started in 1820 when its definition was “a twisting or jerking movement” which then evolved in 1928 to mean of a odd or negative type “a twist” and eventually to what it is now.

So finally in my opinion I disagree with her because of the fact that Shakespeare who she said would be “turning in his grave” had created slang himself.

Dear any schools that read this.

I think that standardized testing (gcse) is bad for all teenagers because it causes too much stress for them to cope with and to do the test, evidence of this is in the news as it has been reported on the BBC news website that teenagers who get stressed over gcse results get lower marks.  This affects coursework as well because students feel pressured to spend time and energy completing it,and they are unable to do any leisure activities that reduce the amount of stress they have. While it could be argued that they need to spend time revising, as a student that is soon taking GCSEs,that this stress of doing this coursework is also making me too tired to do the revision at the same time.

GCSEs do not actually help you to remember any relevant information for the future. Schools should be teaching us about how to do taxes, manage mortgages, fix cars, general life skills and things that can actually be used in the future, unlike algebra.Today it is more just copy and pasting information out of your mind. This is proved by the fact that once you leave secondary school or go on holiday most of that information is gone.

Tests are mostly for financial and political reasons. This is because four or five testing companies suchs as AQA, Pearson, City & Guild and EdExcel are constantly competing for schools to use them as exam boards. Most schools that are popular are usually able to get higher results in test scores because of teachers basically teaching their students the answers to the tests.

Parents often feel responsible for how their children do in their tests,when it is usually the school’s not understanding of how some students learn. For example, I get really low grades in maths:  I have to have something explained to me in simple steps or else I get confused. Usually every student is taught in one way, when it has been proven time and time again that this is simply not the case.

If I was able to change GCSEs, I would change them so that students would be tested on more relevant subjects helping them with whatever job they will do in the future. GCSEs have extremely strict rules such as turning around or looking at your friends will get you disqualified from the exam room. This is simply not feasible for teenagers because we are constantly looking for something to do.

While it can be said that it shows how much memories you can retain I find this unfair. memory and revision should not determine someone’s future, my opinion is that you should be able to do a sort of ‘essay’ on what you want to do and it could work as a sort of ‘CV’ for you in the future.

The school is dirty, the floor covered in the dirt of so many people’s shoes and the walls filled with a hidden army of bacteria that spread across it in a desperate bid for the poorly cooked food that hasn’t been eaten yet. In the basement the rats are gathering. They are going to feed on crumbs that have fallen through the cracks of the poorly made floor. Above them, in a lesson, talking fills the air; abandoned books linger unused on their shelves since 1915.

Outside trucks and lorries drive past depositing a toxic miasma of fumes onto the nearby crowd of students as they hurry to get through the door before 8.45 am so they are not held against their will underground for 50 minutes to “teach them a lesson” for something they probably were not able to control. This basement has an atmosphere of hate and disgust; not even a rat would run in to disrupt any work that could be done.

The playground is constantly being blanketed with litter, and what appears to be concrete is actually compacted dust falling from the roof. To the left of the gate the “mobile building” is literally made from paper or wood; near the stairs to the second “mobile” building there is a hole near the floor which foxes make their homes inside of, letting them lead a “mobile life” I suppose.

At 3:30 pm the loud siren which oppresses the students finally rings for the last time today.In a torrent kids stream from the school as if they thought were finally free from the hellish slavery that bound them to the school.As the sun moves the lower part of the building is plunged into darkness – the medical room which sits disused is now a home for the many pigeons that inhabit the school.

-nighttime-

Due to the lack of students and food, most smells have gone and the halls are easily traversed through:in the hall: it is nearly silent and the ovens in the kitchen stop humming as no food needs to be prepared. All of the lights in the building are out.

The library is actually quiet for once. The books rest comfortably – maybe the rats are learning to read now, as the sound of a page turning is accompanied by squeaking. The pigeons are grouped in a ball on the roof of the school, the foxes are looking in the playground for food and fighting with over it with snarls.

The classrooms rest empty, like what a book of what the students have learned for the day would look like. In the basement some kids could still be in detention – but no one knows. In the art room it’s become colder then is thought possible – even WOOD AND CONCRETE have frozen somehow; inside the mobile classrooms termites have started to make their homes to avoid the deathly frost.

In the office, the roof waits patiently for an unsuspecting child to walk in; the poor thing won’t know what hit him – then again, most people wouldn’t survive the roof falling on them. But this is part of a larger organism which desires the children’s next return; it sits patiently in the night, motionless, like a preying mantis, waiting.