Are you baffled by the language your children use?
A language expert claims that the English language is evolving at a faster rate now than at any other time in history because of social media and instant messaging.
Professor John Sutherland from University College London has led a study into common social media and “text speak” terms.
He found that 86 per cent of parents felt teenagers spoke an entirely different language on sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Modern terms such as “fleek” and “bae” were found to be the most commonly confused by parents, with just 10 per cent of the 2,000 questioned being able to identify the true meaning of “bae” – a term of affection.
“Fleek” – which means looking good, came top of the list of terms parents did not understand, with 43 per cent selecting it as a term they did not know.
This was ahead of FOMO (fear of missing out) and bae, both of which were selected by 40 per cent of parents.
Prof Sutherland said the rise of acronyms in text messaging such as TXT, GR8 and M8 are now effectively extinct and are seen as ‘antique text speak’.
He added that the rise of emojis could be the next phase in language and communication.
“The use of audio and visual messaging has become more commonplace with the soaring popularity of social media and instant messaging apps such as Instagram, Vine and Snapchat.
In fact we are moving to a more pictographic form of communication with the increasing popularity of emoticons.
This harks back to a caveman form of communication where a single picture can convey a full range of messages and emotions.”
Since the dawn of text messaging words have been shortened and parents often have to be corrected or updated by their children.
So if you have FOMO LMK (Let me know).
