Urban dictionary: youth slanguage and the redefining of definition
RACHEL E. SMITH
What’s up with meep and other words in the Urban Dictionary
Introduction: the case of meep 2. Filling in the blanks where other (curse) words would go. In November 2009, Principal Thomas Murray Ahh.. Meeping Hell! banned the word meep from Danvers High 3. The only sound Beaker from the Muppets School, located outside of Boston (Netter, 2009). makes. Parents and students received automated e-mails meep meep meep meep! and calls with a warning that saying or displaying 4. This is a word which is used when you are at the word meep would entail suspension. Students lack of what to say. had ignored requests from teachers and adminis- ....meep.... ^__^ trators to stop, leading to the school-wide ban. 5. An exclamation akin to ‘ouch’ or ‘uh oh’;a This story contains entertaining elements: an noise someone makes when you poke/prod overzealous principal who forwarded emails con- them. taining meep to the police; references to the meep- I poked Tom in the stomach, and he meeped. ing Muppet, Beaker; students sporting ‘FREE 6. The human expression of confusion just as MEEP’ t-shirts; and Facebook-coordinated meep- ‘beep’ is the computer expression of confusion. ings. Referring to meep, Danvers High School stu- Computer: CANNOT FIND SERVER (beep dent Mike Spiewak commented: ‘I think it’s unfair beep beep beep) that they banned a word that’s not even a real word’ Human: ....Meep. (Raz, 2009). According to Melanie Crane, another Danvers student, meep ‘doesn’t mean anything in particular’ (Netter, 2009). As a result, its ambiguity allows for countless definitions. The authoritative RACHEL E. SMITH is a source in defining the term throughout news linguistic anthropologist who coverage of the Danvers incident has been received her MA from Urbandictionary.com, an online and open-source New York University (2010). dictionary for slang and subculture terminology. Her previous research For those of you who have never meeped, the examined the language practices of the Jewish primary Urban Dictionary (UD) entry deems it ‘ community of Madrid and the most versatile word in the English language their Haketia dialect of [which] can mean whatever you want it to mean.’ Djudeo-Español. Her UD lists 93 other definitions for the word, the current research explores the ways in which the most popular being:1 online communicative practices of American youth challenge dominant language ideologies, focusing on instant messaging and Urban Dictionary. 1. A greeting! Email: [email protected] Meep! How are you? doi:10.1017/S0266078411000526 English Today 108, Vol. 27, No. 4 (December 2011). Printed in the United Kingdom © 2011 Cambridge University Press 43 7. Meep is a word used to describe someone who or misused word, the lexifascist pounces with a is looking adorably cute. correction. Usually this is done with an uppity AWE! you are such a meep all huddled up that i attitude. just want to hug you!! Prescriptibitch: Someone who is militant about correcting grammar mistakes. Evil. Usually has New linguistic derivations of meep proliferated in no friends. the face of the ban as meepsters called for a mass- To understand how Urban Dictionary subverts meeping to cause some meepalicious meep-ruption. traditional lexicography, we will first explore the Students expressed their disapproval of the ban, historical development of modern European ration- coining phrases like ‘may the meep inherit the alist language ideology. To do this, I want to earth,’‘meep against the machine!’‘Jesus mept’ quickly look at the social and linguistic processes and the rousing ‘WAKE UP MEEPLE!’ in modernizing Europe that naturalized the Such original linguistic forms have circulated relationship between ‘language,’‘semantics,’ and online, among the fifty Facebook groups celebrat- ‘sense.’ David Samuels traces this ideology to ing meep and hundreds of cross-linked blogs and 16th- and 17th-century Europe and the rise of tweets. Googling the term brings up 826,000 colonialism and modern nationalism. This ‘Age results and searching for it on Bing yields of Exploration’ was a time of increased contact 669,000 hits. But the story also moved beyond with new languages and peoples. It yielded inter- the online realm, meriting both national and inter- personal and interlinguistic problems of communi- national press coverage, the vast majority of which cation and gave rise to Eurocentric perspectives on has turned to Urban Dictionary as the authority on sense and nonsense, bringing them to the center of youth language. And so while some dismissed European thought about the world (Samuels, 2004: meep as not a real word, it turned out to be a 316). very real word with very real consequences for Against this backdrop of colonialism, national- Principal Murray. For the students of Danvers ism emerged in attempts to create cultural unity High School, meep meant a defiance of authority; out of diverse populations and practices. In pro- it conveyed the intention to follow rules only moting nationalism, the rationality of modernity when students felt like doing so and it was this strove to contain heterogeneity by seizing that in the end rendered a harmless Muppet language, to stabilize and normativize semantic sound just as threatening as a curse word. meaning, and to promote semantic meaning as The case of meep highlights the intersection of the keystone of what language is for (Samuels, youth language and the internet with semantics, 2004: 303). At this time, language practices came illustrating the evolving processes that lie behind under intense policy and policing, resulting in the verbal signification and its presupposed boundary creation of national standard languages. These between language and non-language, between standardizations excised heterogeneity and utter- ‘sense’ and ‘nonsense.’ How was this division his- ances that threatened the clarity or transparency torically created and how is it maintained? In recent of modern rational language (Samuels, 2004), years, the internet has provided users with a new including slang (Green, 1996). This pursuit for lin- domain in which to challenge such language hier- guistic purity found fulfillment in early lexicogra- archies. How can we understand the internet as a phy, which solidified meaning as strictly semantic social site for youth to question dominant language meaning. This was cemented in references for, as paradigms and ideologies? Exploring these ques- Samuels comments, ‘If rationalists considered tions through an analysis of Urban Dictionary “language” to be some form of social-contractual reveals the hierarchical divisions between words arrangement between speakers, then dictionaries, and words that aren’t ‘real words,’ as Spiewak grammars, and pronunciation guides put that commented in the case of meep. Further, it demon- contract in writing’ (Samuels, 2004: 302). strates how young people are using the internet to Dictionaries enshrined standard language in texts, seize the rights to lexicographic meaning-making despite the number of mistakes or omissions, rather and redefine the process of definition. than in the linguistic and communicative compe- tence of the speakers who use the language daily (Milroy & Milroy, 1991). And so, sense came to Lexifascists and prescriptibitches mean semantic sense, promoting a more rational Urban Dictionary defines these terms as follows. and less sensual ideology that language is for Lexifascist: An asshole who corrects others’ clear and transparent communication only, an language. Rather than let slip a mispronounced ideology that endures among prescriptibitches
44 ENGLISH TODAY 108 December 2011 today. And it’s from such a paradigm that emerges quick analysis of Urban Dictionary to better under- the belief that if a word does not fall within the stand how it stands as an alternative to the tra- narrow confines of such a strict interpretation of ditional lexicographic paradigm by pushing this meaning, it’s ‘not even a real word.’ boundary between sense and nonsense. The rivalry between prescriptivists and descripti- vists continues to play out in contemporary lexico- graphy as dictionaries struggle to draw the line What is the Urban Dictionary? ‘ ’ between acceptable words and those that aren t Urban Dictionary: A potentially useful website for ’ even real words. Prescriptivists decry the defining words Webster denies the existence of all-inclusiveness and democratic approach of [...] descriptivists, which they interpret as a lack of One means by which youth have historically responsibility; descriptivists see speakers them- contested their diminished communication capital selves as linguistic authorities and look down on (Thurlow, 2001 after Bourdieu, 1991) has been the narrow-mindedness and misinformed purism through nonstandard language practices such as of prescriptivists (Crystal, 2006). According to slang. Conceiving UD as ‘the anti-dictionary,’ one Urban Dictionary author, the role of a prescrip- moderator Aaron Peckham created it to emphasize ‘ tivist dictionary is to cramp the growth of a slanguage and regionalisms. UD defines slanguage ’ language and make it hard and inelastic. Other in the following way: definitions for the entry Dictionary include: Slanguage: 1. A stepstool; a flyswatter; a paperweight; a doorstop; firewood 1. Internet speak, usually very ugly in nature and 2. A thick book loaded with words an average makes every grammar nazi’s eyes bleed individual will probably never use in her/his 2. Word or phrase that is actually slang, but idiots life and that thinks its always right confuse for real words; any word found in the 3. Apparently it was an archaic form of looking dictionary that should not be there because it up words before spell check and Wikipedia. is improper English 4. A large book containing only ‘real’ words, These definitions indicate the growing connection their ‘correct’ spellings and their (far-less- between slang and the internet as youth increas- entertaining-than-urban-dictionary) definitions. ingly base their informal register on technological The Urban Dictionary stands as an alternative to practices. Further, it displays the identification of this prescriptivist tradition as an online democratic slang as nonsense, as language that ‘idiots confuse dictionary shaped by the masses. for real words.’ By publishing definitions written by the wider Since UD’s inception in December 1999, more population, regardless of how rational or intelligi- than 2.5 million authors have submitted over 5.5 ble they may be, Urban Dictionary stands as what million definitions (Peckham, 2009). Once these Samuels refers to as a ‘practice of incomprehensi- are published, visitors vote on whether the words bility.’ These are practices that ‘disrespect the are acceptable and have done so in the past decade master trope of modernity that language is a tool 88 million times. Urban Dictionary has gained for clear and transparent communication.’ such popularity that Peckham has released Throughout the development of prescriptive two books based on the website in 2005 and language rules and standard varieties, marginalized 2007. And its momentum has hardly flagged. In social and linguistic groups have contested modern the last year alone, 146 million people visited European rationalist language ideology through UrbanDictionary.com 260 million times. With such practices. These practices, such as vocables, young users visiting by the millions, it has taken skat, and puns, perform the tension between mean- its place among the internet greats such as ing and nonsense that modernity sets up. It is prac- Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Myspace, and tices like these that have been dismissed as Youtube, that have defined this generation. ‘novelties,’‘nonsense,’ or ‘jokes’ because they Urban Dictionary promotes itself as a democratic, subvert this naturalized relation between language descriptive dictionary authored by the people for and rationality. While some may see the counter- the people. The headline, splashed across the processes of Urban Dictionary as producing ‘non- homepage, states, ‘Urban Dictionary is the diction- sense’ or ‘words that aren’t real words,’ it is this ary you wrote, Define Your World’. As a collabora- that renders it a contemporary practice of incom- tive, web-based project, Urban Dictionary allows prehensibility. This discussion will now give a anyone with an internet connection to participate
URBAN DICTIONARY: YOUTH SLANGUAGE AND THE REDEFINING OF DEFINITION 45 in the authoring, compiling, editing, and publish- Example 4: New words that combine old morphemes ing processes. Cotter and Damaso (2007) have for new meanings pointed out two effects of this: Replacing the his- Sacrelicious: 1) a description of a recipe that torically singular authoritative editor with non- should not exist for religious reasons but tastes good specialist, large-scale group action has resulted in anyway the publishing of ‘popular and divergent views, 2) any cooking done with communion wafers as opposed to authorized and uniform views of Try some Matzo crackers and bacon dip – it’s meaning.’ It also creates what they call the ‘user- sacrelicious. author’, ‘a rare symbiosis between language user fi fi and lexicographer.’ This nal type of de nition is the most common In addition to process, UD challenges traditional found on Urban Dictionary as witty wordplay is dictionaries through its web technology, which so highly valued by users. Indeed, entries are allows for real-time publishing and encyclopedic often likely to be ad-hoc neologisms, invented entries. They do not provide information about just for an Urban Dictionary neologasm. parts of speech, pronunciation guides, etymolo- Neologasm: the intensely pleasurable sensations gies, or standard punctuation and spelling which fi generated by using, hearing or coining a new word UD de nes in the following way: or phrase (that doesn’t suck). Frequent neologasms have been proven to reduce the biological age of Spelling: 1) a lost art 2) something absent from the both the speaker and the listener. internet Him: Volunteers submit over 1000 new definitions to ’ ‘ ’ ‘ ’ ’ It s you, not u. IT S ONLY 2 MORE Urban dictionary every day. It ain’t fo the money; it’s CHARACTERS. all about the neologasms. Her: Oh baby! UD is also teeming with made-up entries and redundancies, duplicates, and multiple identical And some entries seem to make little sense at all: definitions for the same headword. But it is also the entries that challenge traditional lexicography, GABBLAAAHHH as one blogger put it, written by the millions of When you get explodeded into millions of gibs and people who obviously are ‘smart but do not stuff but u have time to talk and what u say is apply themselves in class’ (Feather, 2007). These GABBLAAAHHH. definitions fall into 4 categories: LameKid: *gets puched in stomach* LameKid: GABBLAAAHHH! Example 1: Standard words with standard definitions MEEP Internet: A world wide network of computers The most widely known word of the Meepers. They all linked together over the TCP/IP protocol. live among us, in us, and around us. They explode I can look up stuff on the Internet using Google. into your words at random times, not caring where you are or how random it will sound. Example 2: Standard words with non-standard Person: So as I was saying, the problem of global definitions warm-MEEP. Internet: A web of confusion, dismay, and porno- graphy kldjvladlawkvdlkawvlkdalks ‘ ’ I did a search for World History on the internet and kimchi loads dice javalin voice love addicted drugs I received 500 results: all pornography. lime aware waking korea vallium dancing long karate after we vikings lick kill dogs all life kinky Example 3: New words comprising completely new survival. morphemes Oh, did you hear? kldjvladlawkvdlkawvlkdalks Meh: This is a universal, non-committal answer to every question ever posed. As we can see, this is in contrast to most other dic- It’s the answer that doesn’t actually give any tionaries that strive for objectivity, for, as Peckham answer; the verbal equivalent of a shrug of the comments, ‘Urban Dictionary doesn’t require shoulders. definitions to be objective or factual. Lots of I’m supposed to write an example here but ...meh. definitions are extremely subjective or provably wrong! But every definition is written by a normal Another example of this third type of definition is person, and I think that’s where Urban Dictionary’s meep. The fourth category comprises portmanteaus: value comes from: the entries are funny, honest and
46 ENGLISH TODAY 108 December 2011 genuine’ (Phillips, 2008). In subverting the pro- problem of European rationalist language ideology cess, form, and content of standard dictionaries, is that meaning wins out – over ambiguity, non- UD provides an alternative to prescriptivist norms sense, and poetics – blinding us to significant and practices as well as the way in which an entire linguistic and semiotic practices that pose generation is thinking about language. ideological challenges to prescriptivist ideology (Samuels, 2004). Meep is significant not only because it defied Danvers school authorities, but Conclusions because it also defies prescriptivist lexicography Conclusion: The place where you got tired of through being defined by the online masses. But thinking most importantly, meep defies European rationalist This discussion has tried to gain a deeper under- language ideology through its myriad definitions, standing of how the internet is redefining lexico- defying semantic meaning as the true purpose of graphy and challenging Bourdieu’s notion of language. ‘legitimate language’ (Bourdieu, 1991). Urban The true value of Urban Dictionary thus arises in Dictionary connects a global youth population the ways in which it has begun to free language that has repositioned itself as lexicographers able from the all-too-binding prescriptivist language to make and review linguistic meanings. It pro- ideologies and lexicography that embrace some vides them with an ‘online, democratic scriptorium linguistic forms as meaningful while denouncing where neologisms and slang are explicated, tried others as nonsense. It is not that we should do out and rated’ (The Guardian, 2008). And while away with meaning, just that we must understand most entries fade away, some reveal themselves these language ideologies as historically situated as mots justes, moving from Urban Dictionary to and politically constructed. Urban Dictionary the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), as in the stands as just one resource that has called these case of words like bromance and chillax, which ideologies into question, allowing users to expand were added to the OED this past year. their understanding of meaning in reevaluating Though standard lexicography remains funda- how language is defined and bringing this perspec- mentally based on prescriptive ideology, it is tive to the public realm. Though not suggesting that slowly changing. Many dictionaries now accept youth will overthrow the standard and replace the neologisms for Words of the Year. They base OED with Urban Dictionary, this research indi- new entries on popular polls, internet searches for cates an expansion of perspective in assessing the current usage, and email submissions by the gen- rights to words and meaning-making that has eral public. And as traditional dictionaries digitize, spread from youth outwards through Urban unlimited space and real-time updates expedite the Dictionary. process by which words go mainstream. This shift Thus, in addition to challenging traditional lexi- in paradigm for traditional lexicography thus indi- cography and participating in a paradigm shift, cates an increasing openness to new words, moving Urban Dictionary stands as a reminder that we from a model historically based on rationality, ana- must only reassess our language valuations to logy, logic, and etymology to one based more on broaden our perspective and include the previously usage. By slowly increasing entries to reflect pop- ignored. Through tracing the historical develop- ular and current usage, prescriptivist dictionaries ment of modern rationalist language ideologies have begun to acknowledge speakers, rather than and observing the events and processes by which solely texts, as sources of authority. And much of they have come to dominate contemporary lexico- that authority is now coming from Urban graphy, we may begin to recognize the ways in Dictionary. which they continue to restrain us today. ▪ The ‘practices of incomprehensibility’ that per- vade Urban Dictionary – its nonstandard orthogra- Note phy and punctuation, lack of standard grammar, 1 Please note that all given definitions and examples fi multiple de nitions, ad-hoc neologisms, and are copied directly from UD, intentionally maintaining other nonstandard entries – are attacked by critics all grammar choices of the authors. as sabotaging the validity and efficaciousness of Urban Dictionary. However, it is these practices References that carry ‘indexical criticism of mainstream coher- ’ Bourdieu, P. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. ence in its wake, as Samuels states (Samuels, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2004: 316). It is through such practices of incom- Cotter, C. & Damaso, J. 2007. ‘Online dictionaries as prehensibility that we come to realize that the emergent archives of contemporary usage and
URBAN DICTIONARY: YOUTH SLANGUAGE AND THE REDEFINING OF DEFINITION 47 collaborative codification.’ Online at 48 ENGLISH TODAY 108 December 2011