It’s no wonder that in today’s globalized society, everyone uses words that aren’t part of their mother tongue. It could be because our own language can’t express a very specific concept. Maybe it’s an Italian food, or maybe a seventeen syllable German word that expresses the deeper feeling of wanting to eat grilled cheese in the middle of the night. 
Using foreign words can inspire us to learn a new language, travel more and meet new cultures. It’s no surprise that young people are drawn to use them.

However, not everything that glitters is gold. When you don’t know the language you can’t understand the true meaning of a word. A simple translation doesn’t hold all of the weight or history of how people came to use a phrase. You might not understand how offensive a word could be. What for you sounds silly and funny, may deeply hurt someone. 

Sometimes a simple word is recycled, changed and misused so many times that it loses its original meaning. It can also happen with a subculture, a phenomenon, or a movement. It’s no wonder that a simple word that started in a very innocent way, can be transformed into an offensive slang, or a completely different term. 

When being online, people tend to speak in a different “tone”, use different grammar (if they even use any), or use what is called: “slang”; it can be defined as an informal speech, used between specific groups of people and can occasionally be offensive. 

Internet slang is funny and contagious, and every young person has used it at least a couple of times. However, when moving certain words from our online to our real life, it can cause problems. Your audience might not know what you mean, be confused or call you “cringe” – another internet slang. Best case scenario, you get embarrassed, learn from this experience and move on. And yet, what if you seriously offend someone? What happens when you say profanity or serious insults in someone else’s language? 

If your audience doesn’t take things too seriously, they’ll explain to you the mistake you just made. Although, there’s always the chance that people will feel off about it. Maybe they already tried expressing why that word shouldn’t be used, maybe they got frustrated at the misuse of the term. 

So, what should we do in the case of using an inappropriate word? Our first reaction might be defensiveness: we didn’t know the word was offensive, it’s just something we read online. Why is everyone so sensitive nowadays? If we take a step back, and reflect on what is actually happening, we can realise it’s not an attack against us. Not understanding something doesn’t make us dumb, just ignorant. Is what we do after we learn that matters. 

Can we say that all slang is offensive and shouldn’t be used? Of course not. Languages influence each other all the time. It’s the reason why in English we have words such as deja vù, robot, lasagne and much more. It’s also important to keep up with the way young generations are speaking and interacting with each other. That can help us understand them better, and maybe figure out a way to build a bridge between people (online and in real life).

However, we still need to be aware and consider that words don’t come from nothing. When encountering a new word, we can ask ourselves: do I know where this word comes from? why are people around me using it? how can I find out more about its meaning?

We live in a world where every question has an answer at the tip of our fingers, we just need to type it. Thus, why don’t we use our tools?