Do You Speaka My Slanguage?

Last year, somebody published a satirical map of New Jersey. Like almost everything Jersey (except the shore), it was lame. So I published a satirical map of Philadelphia. I hope you like it.

http://www.slanguage.com/philamap.html

Of course, I had some help compiling information for this map. I launched my first website, www. slanguage.com in 1996 and have been collecting slanguage, what the locals say in cities around the world, ever since.

Figure 3000 visitor per day, times 16 years is about 15 million visitors to my site. That's given me a huge database of slanguage. You'll see and enjoy learning about the slanguage of hundreds of cities like Philadelphia, New Orleans, Honolulu and many other cities.

Slanguage also teaches you foreign languages in a new and interesting way. Rather than bore you with lists of intransitive verbs, nouns & indirect object pronouns, slanguage substitutes English words for Spanish, French or Italian. For example, el boniato (Spanish for sweet potato) can be learned by saying 4 English words with emphasis on the allcaps word: Elbow Knee YACHT Toe. Slanguage comes with a warning that it produces Spanish or French with an Americanized accent.

Some language elitists get all wound up about my non-traditional approach, but what they've been teaching in schools is a boring failure, for the most part. We need to teach HOW to think, not what to think. Memorizing lists of verbs and nouns is no way to teach a language. It is especially frustrating to speak to a student who has taken Spanish for 7 years and can't respond to "Que hay de nuevo?"

2 kids, 4 jobs, 6 hobbies...

Since I left corporate America last year, I've been happily self employed. Slanguage, web design and handyman services are my 3 main business ventures. My last job was at a cool company called GSI commerce in King of Prussia for 11 years. I left there an expert in ecommerce, web design, online marketing, seo and affiliate marketing.

I also mc'd our company golf outing. You haven't lived till you see a hundred golfers chug 4 kegs of beer in an hour and a half...

GSI has helped me gather over a thousand friends on facebook and linkedin. We've all kept in touch helping each other out with our business ventures. 

Many of my hobbies revolve around local sports leagues where I volunteer @ kyal, pmyc, papa and the y. I love coaching kids. As flag football commissioner at pmyc, I've met thousands of people who share the same goals as I do: get involved, keep your kids busy and everything will work out fine. 

PMYC is the only sports league in the state, if not the entire country, that is free to all participants, run solely on donations, raffles, etc.

Hopefully, TeamDad of PAHS cheerleaders rounds out my list of hobbies, but it never seems to stop growing.

I am also involved as a community activist with our school board. I've enjoyed mc-ing school board meetings prior to elections. I tell people to vote. 90% don't vote in the primaries so if you don't vote, don't bother complaining.

Next week...
How can slanguage improve our schools? Specifically, how can we improve the output of our schools and what the students bring to the real work world? Is a diploma enough or shouldn't there be more? Hint: Ronald Reagen said schools should be training grounds for corporate America. 

Thanks for reading. Stay involved. I am hopeful that writing about my transition from Corporate America to happily self-employed may help others get past their fears, get out on their own and do the work that they love.

Mike Ellis
Emperor of slanguage.com since 1996