Parody week!

As many already know, a parody is an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect. There are many parodies in our world, and most pertain to over-exposed media like Rebecca Black's "Friday" music video and Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga.

I have attached a link to Youtube star Nigahiga's "Dude vs. Wild - The Desert", which is a very humorous re-make of popular wilderness survival show Man vs. Wild. The star of the show is Edward Michael "Bear" Grylls, a British adventurer, writer and television presenter.

This video in particular is just an imitation for a decent laugh. However, some comedy shows such as Family Guy and South Park use parody in order to inform the audience on world issues and even as a way to reform them. This difference in the positive and negative intention intrigues me. Of course, in both situations the fact still stands that the media is being made fun of, which altogether isn't positive. In satirical television shows, if an object is criticized because it falls short of some standard which the critic desires that it should reach, it is merely used as fodder for the scripts. The overall purpose is to shame society into improvement by attacking its own shortcomings and "ridiculousness".

In my opinion, it seems like parody, and satire for that matter, is almost a stale way of trying to improve an issue. Yes, it allows certain individuals (especially in politics..) to hear of how they are being received. Nevertheless, the overall essence of satire is harsh criticism and aggression. From what I've seen and heard, humans do not sit well with "constructive criticism" and feelings are easily damaged. I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to try to reform something, but then again you do have to applaud writers for the attempt.


Strange how no one likes to be lied to, but never seem to want to hear the truth either.

Wotcher, first post!

More often than not, people use slang in everyday language.

Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's dialect or language, according to the online definition. There are countless debates on whether or not slang is beneficial communication-wise. Most of the time it is a way for people, especially adolescents, to connect on a certain level. Some adults look their noses down on it, but it's quite clearly the way they get along, the way that they signal they belong in a group, the way that they fit in. Most slang tends to originate in subcultures within a society, by way of the mouth. Technological slang boomed in the late 20th century. Most people are familiar with text slang, such as replacing the word "you" with "u" or dotting their messages with artificial laughter ("LOL"= laughing out loud).

As I was re-reading the Harry Potter series for the eleventh time, I came across a few unfamiliar phrases and subsequently felt the need to put my trusty friend Google to the test. One term, such as "git", really means an idiot. There are also a few scenes where Harry gets a new broomstick and his best friend Ron says "Can I have a go on it?” which basically means to "have a try". (At least in US terms.) Here is a list of some other words that I found moderately interesting:

• Geroff - Colloquial form of "Get off", which in turn means "leave me alone" or "let go."
• Knickerbockers - Short pants. 
• Cuppa - A cup of tea.
• Wotcher - A greeting, shortened form of "what cheer!" Also spelled "Wotcha".

 

Slang is something that will always exist in language. These colorful metaphors add liveliness and variety to everyday speech. If everyone spoke like stiff textbooks, it would make feigning interest as people speak that much harder. Slang is something that allows more comfortable, albeit informal conversation. And of course, it's always fun when you're ahead of the game and know what things like "YOLO" meant before everyone else did. I enjoy British lit like Harry Potter in the way that it exposes us Americans to different phrases and acronyms and all that rot. Reading books from other countries can help expand our minds to different cultures and their slang terms. Yo.