Cool beans, rents! Mothers and fathers are finally being given a chance to understand ‘Teenglish’. They can study a new glossary of baffling vocabulary to prevent them looking like a ‘fudge’ ∈ front of their offspring.
The guide, Pimp Your Vocab, aims to demystify the jargon used by teenagers and young people. It translates words they regularly use including ‘cool beans’ which means something is great.
‘Rents’ means parents, combining the last half of the word with the fact they often provide rent-free accommodation. A ‘fudge’ is an idiot.
Author Lucy Tobin said she got the idea during her English degree course when a tutor was confused by a student declaring: ‘I was IM-ing ...’ She added: ‘After we students explained IM-ing - when you talk to friends online via instant messaging – I wrote a guide to the language kids use’. Miss Tobin believes that the guide could help improve staff-student communication
She said: ‘In communicating with a Teenglish-speaking randomer (an outsider to your social group) their words can seem like a new language’. Teachers and academics have already complained that Teenglish and ‘text message speak’ are creeping into exam answers.
But last year, John Wells, president of the Spelling Society, claimed that the informal language of texts, chat rooms and emails were the ’way forward’.
He said that people should stop worrying about ‘text message speak’ creeping into general usage and called for the apostrophe to be abolished.
Professor Wells said: ‘Let’s stop worrying if people sometimes spell ‘you’ as ‘u’, ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ both as ‘ur’; and ‘whose’ and ‘who’s’ both as ‘whos’.
‘Nowadays we often see ‘light’ written as ‘lite’ and ‘through’ as ‘thru’.’
(Adaptado de: HARRIS, S. Teenglish: From Frape to Neek - the words used by teenagers that baffle adults. Disponível em: . Acesso em: 13 jul. 2011.)
Sobre o Teenglish, considere as afirmativas a seguir.
I. Pode parecer uma língua estranha a quem não pertence ao grupo de jovens e adolescentes que a utiliza.
II. Facilita a comunicação entre jovens e adolescentes falantes de diferentes línguas que se relacionam no ambiente escolar norte-americano.
III. É uma linguagem que deve desaparecer à medida que os jovens e adolescentes forem se habituando a utilizar o inglês padrão.
IV. Tem sido motivo de preocupação de professores e acadêmicos, que já veem sinais dessa linguagem em provas e trabalhos escolares.
Assinale a alternativa CORRETA.
