Oh hai - I can has cats in my blog. Read plz!

Lawyers have it, doctors have it, “gangstas” have it, and yep, so do Creative Communications staff and students.

I’m talking about jargon, slang, speak, or any special words or expressions used by a certain group of people that makes sense to them, but is difficult for others outside the group to understand.

If you get accepted into the wonderful world of Creative Communications, or CreComm, you’ll soon pick up on a slew of terms and phrases known only to those special enough to be a part of the “CreComm mafia” – like “streeter”, “auto fail”, “live hit derby”, and “IPP”.

But probably the biggest group of people with their own language are those who text or use the Internet. Both can be convenient, time-savers, and entertaining, especially when used tongue in cheek.

LOLCATS thrives on combining Internet speak with user-submitted cat photos.

But the problem comes when people ignore the usual confines of a particular jargon or “speak” and use it where is it neither appropriate, nor a place where everyone can decipher the code.

In my last post, I mentioned that some people think this less-than-proper use of English is a sign that the language is “evolving”, not “dumbing down”. I beg to differ: when you take jargon and grammatical habits from one environment and use them across the board, it’s just plain inconsiderate.

Over the past few years, for instance, there have been reports from educators of students using text speak and other short hand in formal papers. How about this for an example?:

"My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :- kids FTF. ILNY, it's a gr8 plc." Translation here.

Sound extreme? In some schools, it’s becoming so pervasive that New Zealand had to explicitly remind students not to do it, while in the Scotland, other teachers are bowing down to the pressure.

But enough picking on the students. Here’s a news release I used in an assignment for my editing course where we re-wrote bad headlines. (Click to enlarge photo.)

After some serious searching on Google, I think the normal person’s translation should read something like this: “Nortel makes fastest cell phone call with new high speed tech”.

In CreComm (Creative Communications for you other people!) we’re constantly told to think of our audience and the context in which the message will be received, then communicate appropriately. After all, what’s more important than your audience? Whether it’s a professor, a customer, the media, etc., they’re the ones you’re trying to please, so why not speak properly.