| Twitter spreads regional slang, claims an academic. He's probably just a 'nizer' Brookside and Gavin & Stacey may do more to spread local slang than social networking sitesIn one school in estuary Essex in the 1980s, when you had a good time you had a "grindle", and if you had a jolly good time you had a "right ol' grindle". Yet stray outside the catchment area of the school – my old school – and no one was grindling. Some years later in the offices of a monthly magazine, anyone who was proving irritating was a "nizer". Despite nize-derived terms accounting for every fourth word uttered, it was an expression never heard beyond a work leaving do.But last week we learned that local argot isn't staying put any more. Dialect words are spreading across the nation thanks to social networking. Dr Eric Schleef, lecturer in English Sociolinguistics at the University of Manchester, said: "Twitter, Facebook and texting all encourage speed and immediacy of understanding, meaning users type as they speak. We are all becoming exposed to words we may not have otherwise encountered."He said that Welsh terms like "tidy" and "lush" have spread nationwide thanks to social networking, yet surely Gavin & Stacey might have helped via old-fashioned television.In the 90s Brookside introduced the nation to Scouse and resulted in folk in Sussex paying their "leccy" bills and getting arrested by the "bizzies". Would Cockneys have described their new Nike Air Max as "mint" before Shameless? We tend only to social network with people we already know, who probably speak a bit like us. It takes television, film and literature to introduce us to new language.Not that Dr Schleef denies the influence of television. He cites the use of "bootiful", a word not heard outside East Anglia until Bernard Matthews' turkey adverts. But I've not heard anyone say that outside a TV set, let alone East Anglia. Despite all the airtime, "bootiful", like "nize" and "grindle", didn't catch on, not because Twitter didn't exist but because they were just a bit "whack".LanguageGavin and StaceyTelevisionIan Tuckerguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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