“Isn’t Waitrose so peng? Doesn’t it just look so peng today?”
I slowly, bit by bit, died inside as an acquaintance uttered the above line. “No!”, I wanted to scream. Waitrose is not peng. Never has been and certainly while I’m around never will be.
An overreaction perhaps?
Not one bit.
I have recently found myself becoming peevish. The usage of the word peevish may illustrate to you my old woman qualities. Yes, I do enjoy fine wines, staying in and in my not too distant future will probably own a cat. However, it takes quite a lot for me to feel peevish about something.
The cause of said peevishness? London slang.
Amongst my confrères I have begun to notice a use of London slang which is bizarre when put into ratio of those from London, and those not. This is not something I have a problem with. Yes, it can be a little bit bemusing to hear to a group of predominantly middle class kids using street slang. But no harm no foul right?
I will even admit that upon occasion I will drop some into my day to day lexicon. While I might pretend they have ironic origins, in truth they really are just incredibly catchy words.
Therein lies my problem. These words are just too catchy. This ends up at the point where they begin to dominate your entire vocabulary. And that, that makes me peevish.
Take for instance the word peng. Peng is a potentially derogatory term for a ‘hot female’. For instance- “isn’t she so peng?” is a perfect example of how to use it. It should also be an example of the only way to use it.
It should not be used to describe food or places or even an experience. There are many other words to describe these, many wonderful words to choose from. I will not pretend to have a full and complete grasp of the English language; this is my game plan upon graduation. However, I do try to use words within their proper use. And whether or not you count slang as acceptable English, the words do all have a meaning and consequentially a correct usage.
Our generation seems to be in a sorry state in regards to linguistics, a problem that is not entirely our fault. Yet, it is certainly not helped by using the same few repetitive words to describe everything. It appears there is a maximum of five words that fulfils our entire descriptive faculty. Why are we so willing to be lazy on something by which we will be judged by future generations? At least previous generations had some variety; funky, top hole, ripping, the bees knees or even cool were expressions that could be used, for the most part, to describe anything to positive effect.
Could you imagine rewriting history so that 1930’s gangsters described everything as ‘moll’? It sounds faintly ludicrous and bordering on the absurd. Yet isn’t that what we do with peng? Don’t we lose the meaning of the word when we use it to describe so many things? Why not branch out and elaborate? Let me be clear, I’m not asking for Shakespeare but some variety would be nice!
So as summer approaches and with the weather still making the internet your constant companion, go forth and invest in a thesaurus and explore the full potential of the English language. In doing so you might end up actually attracting that peng girl.
It’s the beauty of life, you can have an English literature degree and still say ‘peng’.
You can have a degree AND live on a council estate. You can be the daughter of millionaires AND be broke on campus due to their stingyness. There is no ‘either/or’ – there is only ‘AND’.
you clearly have no understanding of London slang or even the word ‘peng’ which in fact can be used to describe things other than women, in the same way that ‘buff’ or ‘choong’ etc can be applied to inanimate objects.
this article is essentially based on the information you’ve garnered from urban dictionary.
I’m a little miffed by this comment. The beauty of any language is that it evolves along with the people that speak it. I don’t see it a lazy approach to language at all by using ‘peng’ and ‘moll’ and all the others you allude to; I see it as evolution of the English language.
This comment is also narrow-minded in looking at language through a historical perspective. How do you know what 1930’s citizens thought of their own language at the time? They no doubt thought that some words were peculiar, probably because they were new for them!
For you to decide how I use ‘peng’ (even though I don’t use it in my everyday working vocabulary) is out of the question. I will use any word however I like.
We all know how to write essays and argue a point using the Queen’s English. There is nothing wrong with having a bit of fun with slang words when with our peers. It would be insulting to say that students can’t distinguish when it’s appropriate to use slang and when it’s appropriate to use standard English.
Not insulting the article….
But the comment ‘Our generation seems to be in a sorry state in regards to linguistics’ is slightly bizarre given that a big part of linguistics is looking at how different languages/dialects develop due to contact and the way that London slang is diffusing out over the population would actually be of interest to many people who are studying linguistics.
As someone who isn’t from London and struggled to understand some of the slang when I arrived at uni. surely the diversification of a vocabulary even with slang words is always a good thing, even if simply due to it allowing people to feel like part of a group and more comfortable in a social situation.