Abstract
Most schools try to get their pupils to be creative with their language. But when they go in the opposite direction and start banning words, they are helping neither the students or themselves, says
Every now and then you reach a certain milestone that makes you realise you’ve grown up a bit. Like moving away from home, graduating and getting your first real job. There’s also the moment when it hits you that you don’t seem to speak the same language as younger people. This happened to me a while ago. The scene: an Index on Censorship youth event. The topic: social media. In a heated group discussion, someone mentioned the word “preing”. Cue blank stares from most people over the age of 20. It was promptly explained that it means looking up people on Facebook before meeting them. This practice is not unknown to my generation (teenagers ourselves not all that long ago), but we stopped short of giving it a word of its own. If we’re struggling to keep up with the seemingly ever-changing slang of today, I can see how others might think it easiest to ban it all.
And some have tried to do just that. The Harris Academy in Upper Norwood, London recently produced a list of words and phrases students were banned from using. It included “like”, “bare” and “innit”, as well as starting sentences with “basically” and finishing them with “yeah”. This isn’t the only example in recent times of schools taking steps against language that, for whatever reason, is deemed inappropriate. Earlier this year, Sacred Heart Primary School in Middlesbrough wrote to parents asking them to monitor their children’s use of regional phrases like “yous” and “it’s nowt”.
Both schools argued they were only trying to give their students a leg-up on the future career ladder. A Harris Academy spokesperson said the ban would help students “to develop the soft skills they will need to compete for jobs and university places”. “I don’t want the children to be disadvantaged. Using standard English in applications and job interviews is important,” explained Sacred Heart head teacher Carol Walker.
I am certain they do believe they are acting in the kids’ best interest, and this is perhaps not the most pressing issue on the freedom of expression agenda. You might be disappointed, but not surprised, to learn that Index isn’t currently planning a campaign in support of the oppressed students of Croydon and Teesside. But we do tend to subscribe to the view that banning words generally is not the solution to your problems.
First of all, if certain words are popular and prevalent enough for people to decide that a ban is needed to purge them from people’s vocabulary, I would venture to say the ban probably won’t work. Add to this the truth generally acknowledged that if you tell a kid they can’t do something, chances are they will want to do it more, and the whole idea starts to seem quite silly.
Besides, one of the most beautiful things about language is that it’s dynamic and constantly evolving. There was a time when “cool” was considered slang, and if used in a job interview might very well have prevented you getting a call-back. Then there’s “ace”, “chuffed”, “hang out”, “dig”, “made up about it”, “dis” and hundreds of other words and phrases that could have featured on lists of banned slang and/or regional phrases in years gone by. Who’s to say that in 2023 you won’t get a round of applause in the boardroom for a “bare informative presentation”?
If we’re struggling to keep up with the seemingly ever-changing slang of today, I can see how others might think it easiest to ban it all