WORD PLAY
Teen Talk
April 10, 2008
Trish Crawford
LIVING REPORTER
Aaron Peckham was chillin' at the computer nine years ago, when he dreamed up Urban Dictionary – a ridonkulous slang online dictionary co-created by fellow technogeeks.
Back in the day, there were only paper dictionaries, which weren't hip, cool or fundalicious and didn't make you lol.
Peckham, 27, graduated from computer science at Cal Poly and went to work for the Google machine, keeping his hobby on the down low.
Many were twitterpated with this dude's word play. More than 3 million words have been submitted so far. It's used mostly by noobs, 51 per cent under age 34.
Peckham's second book culled from the site, Mo' Urban Dictionary – a cleaned-up version, fo' shizzel – will be hittin' HMV on April 15, packaged with the new DVD Juno, the precocious, fast-talking, knocked-up teen fantasy movie that won 29-year-old home skillet Diablo Cody an Oscar for best original screenplay.
It's a phat bundle that sells for less than $30. Oh my blog! Such obvi marketing ploy.
Peckham calls Juno "cool, awesome," adding he had to see it twice, because "I missed so much the first time, everyone was laughing so hard. Dialogue was the main character."
What Juno did was give audiences over age 35 a window into the secret language of young people.
Those who study language for a living say creating new words has long been the purview of the young – it helps set them apart from the rest of society and gives them a sense of identity.
"The young are the ones who innovate and spread change," says Ian Smith, a linguistics expert at York University, who teaches the history of English. "It is identity formation, to show they are a distinct group."
A "language infusion" occurs during rapid social change, he says, citing industrialization and feminism as examples. Technology also contributes. "I still play records, even if they are really CDs," he says, as an example.
Young people are quick to pick up new words and spin new meaning into old ones, he says, citing the example of "sick," which currently means good.
"No one knows when new words will catch fire," says Smith.
Jack Chambers, professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto, found that during a recent undergraduate lecture about how the French version of a word is often more sophisticated than the English one – such as "petticoat" and "slip" – he stared at a sea of blank faces.
"I don't think those kids knew either of those words."
When his colleague said "brassiere," a student had to explain to her classmates, "That's another word for bra."
Chambers laughs at the way short forms end up being better understood than the core word itself, such as DJ for disc jockey.
Meanwhile, buzz words from previous generations are as much an indicator of style and fashion as hair is. "Groovy has pretty much had its day," sighs Chambers, 60.
"The purpose of all this is to exclude people. As soon as your uncle wears a ponytail, you gotta stop."
New words are entering the language at such a rate, thanks in part to rapid technological change, that even the experts are having trouble keeping up.
A printed dictionary "by definition is behind the curve," says David Heap, director of the graduate program in linguistics at the University of Western Ontario.
The online dictionaries and magazines have been able to pick up on language change faster because the technology is quicker and their audiences are younger, he says.
"This is a generational changeover; they are marking their identity."
But he laughs at the way young people think they've popularized words that have been around forever – like "cool," "lame" and the f-word.
"Taboo slang is very, very old. Bodily functions, they're not new. They just weren't part of the formal language."
Still, to give Juno credit, it has captured the spirit of making up words "just for the fun of it. Young people like to be clever," says Heap.
This holla to a young generation has got people talking – not about teen pregnancy – but about words.
Online movie reviewers Reel Geezers, Marcia and Lorenzo, lauded the movie "for its pure hipness" and "hundreds of cultural references."
Warns Lorenzo, "This is a movie to see with an interpreter, a young interpreter."
Or real geezers can turn to the newly published Mo' Urban Dictionary (there is an earlier edition) to find out what's going on in Juno and in the cafeterias, pubs and dorms where young people hang.
"We can use whatever words we want as long as other people know the intent," says Peckham. "It's awesome."
Toronto Star