Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Girlfriend

So, I was reading a magazine the other day (I won't mention the name of the magazine, so that I don't directly upset anyone. But I'm hoping you will be clever enough to figure it out.... cough... the title.... cough....)
I must begin my saying that I wouldn't normally, voluntarily, read the aforementioned magazine. It was thrust upon me, as I was strolling down the street to the train station, and so it felt a waste to let this $5.70 worth of literary material go unread. Even when I was in my early years of teenager-hood I never read this particular magazine.... or really any magazine for that matter (I did, however, read the Disney magazine from time to time.) At first I was suspicious and searched the magazine for any hidden drugs or cameras, but I soon discovered that (on page 29) that there is an advertisement featuring a girl who goes to my school. She must have asked a friend of hers to give away these magazine, so that her new life as a model could be promoted and discussed around the school.
I read the entire thing on the train ride home. Of course, I skipped over the boring parts.... so, maybe it would be more accurate to say: I read a couple of pages of the entire thing. One page I did glance over was about my favourite actress, Isabel Lucas, who recently went to Japan and tried to intercept a Japanese whaling ship. One of the sentences in this article went as follows:

"It's that kinda determination and desire to fight for what she believes in that makes Isabel one of our fave it-girls"

I wasn't aware that the world had resorted to using "kinda" and "fave" in proper magazine articles. I suppose that's just me, you're probably all wondering what the big deal is. The big deal is this (page 45):

Lesson 4: perfecting the art of teen speak
plenty of shows demonstrate how to speak, therefore you can improve your English skills just by watching. Gossip Girl is the best show to learn the latest, coolest and all important acronyms that you can use in real life (except at school, coz teachers will think you're nuts.) A+ goes to those who can spend and entire day speaking in acronyms, it's an awesome skill to have, but can be slightly OTT.

This is pretty much saying that the correct way to speak should be mirroring that of TV shows like Gossip Girl (which I have never seen) or speaking completely in acronyms. "Teen speak?" sounds a bit too much like 1984's New-Speak.

No comments: