"only the smarties no the answer to that"
Interesting article in the Guardian about lowering standards in education, written by an exam marker:
The most interesting thing to read was the detail about the working environment (most exams being marked by recent graduates who arse about and listen to their ipods all day), and the pressure to give "positive" marks. Because the exam board wants good results: they're in the business of selling their curriculum to schools. And the schools want good results: league tables. In other words, nobody has a vested interest in seeing fairness and justice applied, and there's no point, kids, in being anything more than adequate at school. Because adequate or average responses are awarded the same marks as good and excellent responses.
Yesterday afternoon I left work early so I listened to a bit of Simon Mayo on 5Live, and he was talking to people about yoof slang. They interviewed some kids in Milton Keynes, and they had some yoof poet from Leeds in a/the studio, being interviewed about her use of slang.
The item was introduced by a clip of Jamie Lee Curtis, like talking like about like how she like learned to like speak like a like teenager. Exactly like that.
And then Mayo asked the yoof poet a question and she answered, without irony, in exactly the manner that Jamie Lee Curtis had satirised. Completely incoherent.
Here's what I think about yoof slang. As we all know, it originates, often, in music subcultures, which are frequently African-American. This was true of Beatnik talk which morphed into Hippie talk, which morphed into post-ironic every day talk. You know, like, middle-aged college professors describing things as "cool."
Anyway, my point is this. Often slang words are just words that are being used by people who don't know what they mean. And then they get adopted by young people who don't know what they mean, or what the original context of the mis-use was. And then they evolve into expressions which distort even the original non-meaning. And we're told, "They talk like that to exclude others, blah blah, it's a youth thing, blah blah." Except. I was young once, and I was very alienated and disrespectful of my elders. I've got a mouth on me that still manages to shock and surprise even the younger people I work with sometimes. And I never adopted anybody else's slang, and I have always known how to spell, construct a sentence, communicate an idea, and use an apostrophe.
So for me, there's no excuse. No matter how "yoof" you think you are, there's no excuse for speaking like an imbecile. These people aren't speaking a certain way in order to exclude their parents. They don't even know they're saying "like" every other word. They have no idea what they sound like or why they sound like it. They're just weak-willed, easily-led, herd animals who copy each other and try to hide behind their uniformity.
They celebrate ignorance and decry individuality: just as my peers did when I was at school. I no this, because I am a smartie and I no the answer to that.
"Inarticulate or just inappropriate answers (eg 'I don't no [sic], I don't no, I don't know', 'only the smarties no the answer to that', 'the planet would have blown up a long time ago if it hadn't been for conversation [sic] groups') caused much hilarity amongst the exam markers, albeit not out of any malice, but rather in the case that if you didn't laugh it would have been far too depressing."
The most interesting thing to read was the detail about the working environment (most exams being marked by recent graduates who arse about and listen to their ipods all day), and the pressure to give "positive" marks. Because the exam board wants good results: they're in the business of selling their curriculum to schools. And the schools want good results: league tables. In other words, nobody has a vested interest in seeing fairness and justice applied, and there's no point, kids, in being anything more than adequate at school. Because adequate or average responses are awarded the same marks as good and excellent responses.
Yesterday afternoon I left work early so I listened to a bit of Simon Mayo on 5Live, and he was talking to people about yoof slang. They interviewed some kids in Milton Keynes, and they had some yoof poet from Leeds in a/the studio, being interviewed about her use of slang.
The item was introduced by a clip of Jamie Lee Curtis, like talking like about like how she like learned to like speak like a like teenager. Exactly like that.
And then Mayo asked the yoof poet a question and she answered, without irony, in exactly the manner that Jamie Lee Curtis had satirised. Completely incoherent.
Here's what I think about yoof slang. As we all know, it originates, often, in music subcultures, which are frequently African-American. This was true of Beatnik talk which morphed into Hippie talk, which morphed into post-ironic every day talk. You know, like, middle-aged college professors describing things as "cool."
Anyway, my point is this. Often slang words are just words that are being used by people who don't know what they mean. And then they get adopted by young people who don't know what they mean, or what the original context of the mis-use was. And then they evolve into expressions which distort even the original non-meaning. And we're told, "They talk like that to exclude others, blah blah, it's a youth thing, blah blah." Except. I was young once, and I was very alienated and disrespectful of my elders. I've got a mouth on me that still manages to shock and surprise even the younger people I work with sometimes. And I never adopted anybody else's slang, and I have always known how to spell, construct a sentence, communicate an idea, and use an apostrophe.
So for me, there's no excuse. No matter how "yoof" you think you are, there's no excuse for speaking like an imbecile. These people aren't speaking a certain way in order to exclude their parents. They don't even know they're saying "like" every other word. They have no idea what they sound like or why they sound like it. They're just weak-willed, easily-led, herd animals who copy each other and try to hide behind their uniformity.
They celebrate ignorance and decry individuality: just as my peers did when I was at school. I no this, because I am a smartie and I no the answer to that.
posted by Anonymous at
Thursday, August 25, 2005
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