‘Just another morning at around 8.20…’

“We are so like going to be chillaxing ‘cos the guy he’s so like wow!” I looked encouragingly at the speaker as we sat in the Dean’s ‘Open Office’ round the table under the stairs on level 3 before first period, for a chat; smilingly, bemused, as one does when faced with the unknown content of a sentence in a foreign language, especially if, like me, you are English. Jemima waited coolly in controposto for approving admiration, expertly flicking one huge earphone in matt black plastic and brushed aluminium backwards off her left ear for a second. “And I am so like totally not going with that…” And I am so totally not going there either as it is eliminating adjectives and lumping words into verb phrases that become adjectival when the ubiquitous, emphatic adverb ‘so’ is placed in front proceeded perhaps by the negative which is stressed as in ‘I am so not going to go there.’ Then you have the apparently random but actually quite deliberate ‘like’ to place in the new sentence and it’s its deliberation that distinguishes it from the non semantic discourse markers such as ‘er’ or ‘um’.

But communication is obviously carried in the new syntax; it is semantically valid and obviously culturally very, very cool. In this way today’s teenage speakbites mimic the explosive spread of ‘ok’ a generation or two back, and then the suffixed tag ‘you know’. Plus ca change plus c’est still very irritating as it tempts us, the oldies, to imitate (Do not go there, into that good night…) or scoff and both ways lead to exclusion and derisive laughter from the teens.

In my open ‘office’ under the open stairs on level 3 some days at 08.20, a sharp chill draught sweeps a few shredded umber leaves along the spotted grey stone floor as the double glass doors squeeze in some bundled students. A few of these students, in grade 9, boys and girls both, managed to convince me that smsing in mnemonics actually saves time whilst communicating accurately. Well, until Jemima in hysterics informed me that LOL in my sms did not mean ‘lots of love’ as I had fondly thought with a warm glow. Omg gets a bit of the way round offending when mildly swearing. And rofl, cya and imho are no more offensive than asap or ok, after all. So at the white round table beneath the open stairs I get my unique opportunity to learn and even try out these unfamiliar idioms that must for my own credibility remain uncomfortable.

But what a fascinating conversation it was and so many more students dropped by to add a view or disagree. And if you are going to have a conversation at 08.20 then why not about the meaning of the words that code this meaning? Metalinguistics was never so fun at university and I am so like not stopping this now…