Isabelle Kerr is a 20 year old who represents the youth who are too well educated and classy to talk with such foul language displayed within this piece. She describes this slang to back up the idea that all young people are ‘ASBO wielding yobs’, which is very ironic as she has used slang to support her argument against slang. Kerr then goes on to use quotes from twitter saying things like “no wonder there is so much youth unemployment”, suggesting that the sole reason for unemployment is the slang which the youth use, which is obviously a ridiculous claim. Another quote used is “it’s over. They’ve won” so what is this thing that is being referred to as a they, has slang taken the form of a living, sentient being; no I thought not. The greatest piece of this rubbish journalism is that the source of these opinions are from “some young Twitter users” which doesn’t show any sort of reliable opinion to back up Kerr’s argument, because Kerr is a young Twitter user and for all we know, she could have multiple accounts. One thing that Kerr refers to a lot is the need to say sorry about these “linguistic calamities”, firstly there is no need to say sorry as it isn’t her fault that these words were added to the dictionary and she didn’t even know what the word twerking meant, “I actually had to Google this word yesterday”, even my mum knows this and she doesn’t go to read the online dictionary very often. So this is showing Kerr as someone who is trying to represent a generation, but has obviously come from a background where she hasn’t been exposed to this type of language, telling me this is less of an article of an apology but more of a snobby and elitist look at slang.

The greatest mistake about this article is the over-used and mistaken idea to use Shakespeare as an ideal for received pronunciation. Shakespeare is one of the greatest linguists to ever exist, but he wouldn’t of been half the playwright that he was if he didn’t incorporate slang into his language. Kerr describes the slang that “her generation” created as “unimaginative hybrids of pre-existing words, or worse, shortening of already perfectly good words”. The example she uses for Shakespeare’s literary genius is the word ’twere, which ironically is just a unimaginative hybrid of it and were, somehow Kerr managed to use the example which completely disproves her argument. Kerr clearly hasn’t done much research either, these words were added to the Oxford Dictionaries Online, a dictionary that focuses on modern language compared to the Old English Dictionary where the official English language lives. Kerr is arguing against the slang being given a “level of permanence and authority” even though they have only been added to a dictionary which acknowledges modern language, but gives it no permanence or authority. In conclusion, Isabelle Kerr has presented an argument against the inclusion of twerking, selfie and unlike into the Oxford Dictionaries Online but failed to research thoroughly and offer a water tight case, causing her argument to have very little substance which is aided by the incredible inconsistencies that really helped to argue against her own point, not for.