Do you know what we mean?
Parents are tearing out their hair, but teens find that newly coined words help them communicate faster and better with peers.
Students (clockwise from left) Michael Lee, 16, Bealson Tan, 19, Aishah Al-Rashid, 19, and Shayne Tan, 16, share their teen lingo. -- ST PHOTO: LIM CHIN PING, PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: QUEK HONG SHIN
It may be that quality service director Serene Foo is a noob, but she is not at all enthu and even gets a little bit emo at the behaviour of her children sometimes.
The 46-year-old, who has two daughters and a son, aged 15 to 20, finds their lingo irritating.
'It is just nonsense,' she says. 'It just doesn't sound like English to me. But they seem to understand one another.'
She eventually learnt from her children that 'emo' stands for emotional. And it will not be long before she finds out 'noob' is short for newbie or newcomer and 'enthu' means enthusiastic.
Still, she reminds them to speak proper English whenever they lapse into their teen jargon.
For other parents similarly baffled by the way their teenagers speak, there is no need to drag them to English tuition classes just yet. Their truncating of words has a name.
In the field of linguistics, this practice is known as 'clipping' , which coins new and innovative terms based on multisyllabic words from the English language.
Teenagers often trim long words to make them their own. Hence, 'unglam' from unglamorous and 'ex' from expensive.
People have always used clipped words, says assistant professor Ng Bee Chin from Nanyang Technological University's division of linguistics and multilingual studies.
Words widely used now, such as fridge, fax and loony, came from refrigerator, facsimile and lunatic and they were used at the start as informal banter, she says.
Starting typically among the younger generation, the practice of clipping words or innovating new words is a way for teenagers to assert their group identity. As Dr Ng says: 'No teen wants to speak like a 60-year-old.'
Besides separating the youngsters from the oldies, clipped words help teens communicate faster.
Student Michael Lee, 16, says such words help get their point across to one another quickly and concisely.
Nearly 90 per cent of his peers use the lingo or pick it up easily, so the meaning is nearly always understood by everyone, he says.
The Raffles Institution student adds that using shortened words helps when he and his friends are playing real-time online action games such as World Of Warcraft and Maple Story.
These games require players to type quickly in a chat window to discuss their team strategy.
'You die less if you get your meaning or instructions across faster. Maybe gaming led to lingo talk,' he speculates.
Ngee Ann Polytechnic student Bealson Tan, 19, offers another reason for teens talking the way they do. He says it helps to break the ice when meeting new friends.
'If a person sounds prim and proper, it's such a turn-off. You might be impresed but you wouldn't want to hang out with him,' he says.
As with many trends, the new word of the moment usually starts from a popular group in school.
Republic Polytechnic student Aishah Al-Rashid, 19, says new words are created by people who want to be noticed.
Terms that catch on widely are usually those that sound unique or have a better feel and more punch compared to the original words, she says.
But another RI student Shayne Tan, 16, observes that students from different schools speak different lingos based on their unique inside jokes and experiences. He says: 'I can't catch it when my friends in church who are from other schools talk to their schoolmates.'
Mr Goh Eck Kheng, chairman of the Speak Good English Movement, acknowledges that 'English is a living language' and that 'teen slang and other varieties of English exist'.
But he cautions: 'Slang is not acceptable in formal settings, especially in written English.'
He need not worry. Teens know where to draw the line, if Ngee Ann Polytechnic's Bealson Tan is any indication.
He says: 'It's all about finding a balance. If I need to impress, I will use proper English.'
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