Tuesday 30 April 2013

full-stop or conjunction-junction what’s your function?

An English professor is soliciting from her students new slang terms and the daily contributions are showing language’s innovation rather than its corruption or languor. They’re mostly pet-words but immediately intelligible and some even gaining currency.

The professor was also introduced to something more novel, perhaps driven by the short-hand of the keyboard (or by languages that have such established moods), of a new type of punctuation—a conjunction in addition to if, and, or, then, not, xor but slash, either spelled out or rendered as a virgule. Interestingly, it was revealed that slash in the traditional sense has become something spelt out, as in “my lover slash best friend.” This new usage does not represent/suggest two inclusive properties, rather can show intention verses outcome: “I was at the library all after researching my thesis slash trolling classmates’ summer vacation photos.” In order words, admitting what one should have been doing versus what was actually accomplished. There are even examples expressing “following on” and “in summary,” which should not be dismissed as a lazy way to organize one’s thoughts, but rather a development to study.