A Modest Proposal Or How I Came To Stop Worrying and Love Slang

Day 621, 11:06 • Published in Romania Romania • by Vercety

Despite the title, the article has nothing to do with Jonathan Swift or Stanley Kubric even if I'm fond of both.

Slang is the use of highly informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's dialect or language. At least the all known Wikipedia asserts it and as a member of the Internet Generation, if Wikipedia says it, then it has to be correct.
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Real life (RL) wars have a special dimension related to secrecy of internal commands, plans and operations. It is not only my point of view that according to which the capacity of not letting the enemy know your plans is "at least in some occasions" (as my Power Politics professor used to say) a "potentially interesting asset". Now I know for many of you my point is still very unclear so I'm gonna refer to imaginary instances and possible scenarios I am sure most of you are familiar with.

For instance:

Let's say the Romanians attack Podolia. In order to distract and dislocate some of the damage done by Romanian troops, the Hungarian government attacks some other Romanian province it can so that inexperienced users fight there and waste their damage without contributing where it really counts. As a countermeasure, the Romanian officials send an official message via the media channels (newspapers) to soldiers which could sound like this:

"Ordine ziua +++ Toata lumea sa atace Podolia. Ignorati atacurile unguresti in Banat."

Using GOOGLE TRANSLATE, the Hungarian officials can see that what the message translates:

"Order on XXX Everybody attack Podolia. Ignore Hungarian attacks in Banat."

Therefore the Hungarians are able to detect the countermeasures of the Romanian government and prepare accordingly. However, if the Romanians would have ordered the troops using slang:

"Lasati-i dracu pe bozgori sa dea aiurea in Banat, voi bagati mare pe Podolia" - which is in fact the same thing in Romanian slang

is translated by GOOGLE TRANSLATE as:

"Let's Screw bozgori give sucked in Banat, I bagati high Podolia"

Which you have to admit is quite difficult to understand even for native English speakers. Compare that to "Everybody attack Podolia. Ignore Hungarian attacks in Banat."


I know this is not universally useful and that American slang is still pretty much known by everybody (thanks to Hollywood & Co.) but I still believe a little slang goes a long way. Even as far as setting up entire operations and debating them with your whole mass of citizens without the enemy knowing what the hell you are sayng.