The Definition of Ratchet Essay - 987 Words

Raymond Santos Lawson English 100 14 October 2012 I Do It for the Ratchets â€Å"Ugh, she so ratchet,† a common phrase when hitting the club or scrolling through any social media site. No, they’re not referring to the mechanical tool or the beloved Transformers character, their inferring to the new slang term that has established itself within a generation’s vocabulary. But how exactly does an everyday term such as ratchet become so twisted to the point where it’s new meaning no longer resembles it’s old one? As it once was mainly known as a mechanical tool used to repair clocks and roller coasters, it now has a entirely different definition. Although words may have an established meaning, as time goes by, that meaning may change,†¦show more content†¦Ratchet Culture The definition from Urban Dictionary does not allow one to fully grasp what a ratchet is. It takes real life experience to fully understand. For those who would rather stray away from sweaty clubs filled with o bnoxious people ‘twerkin’ to the latest Travis Porter tracks, simply take a stroll through the many social media websites. The most common sites infested with ratchets are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Your typical Facebook ratchet is busy posting ‘thirsty’, as in wants to hook up with someone, statuses that fill up other’s feeds. Usually asking around for ‘likes’ or in other words, an ‘lms’ (like my status), ratchets tend to become unfriended by others. Switch over to Twitter, where more annoying updates occur. The timelines of ratchets on Twitter consist of stories of their late night escapades at the club along with the usual ‘Twitter beef’ with other ratchets that all deny that they are ratchets...but we all know that they ratchet. On the photo sharing site, Instagram, ratchets tend to post daily mirror shots of themselves that are bombarded with hashtags in effort for more ‘likes’. Hashtags such as #nomakeup, #nofilter, #justgotoutoftheshower, and #dontneednoman compliment pictures of their new jeggings or freshly done weave perfectly. The appearance of a ratchet is very distinguishable when seen in public. They can be spotted inShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of White Kids 1427 Words   |  6 Pagesidentifying marker the students use is slang. Linguists define slang as a youth-dominated, rapidly changing lexicon associated with casual social contexts, but a nonlinguistic view frames slang as an illegitimate linguistic variety. The latter definition is inaccurate because these varieties have strict grammatical rules and are only â€Å"illegitimate† to the uneducated eye. 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