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The Langenscheidt-Verlag has deleted the word "Alpha-Kevin" from the selection for the Youth Word 2015
The word Alpha-Kevin can no longer be named Youth Word 2015 . The reason makes it clear how hard Kevins are in our society.
Since 2008, Langenscheidt-Verlag has been searching for the "Youth Word of the Year" every year. The publisher (in cooperation with numerous cooperation partners such as the BRAVO or the ProSieben program taff) calls every year for young people to submit their favorite words on jugendwort.de. 30 words will then come in a voting. The young people choose their favorite words and among the top 10 from this voting, a jury decides which word will be the youth word of the year .
Langenscheidt-Verlag has just announced the top 30 words for the Youth Word 2015. Among them was the word "Alpha-Kevin" , which means "the dumbest of all".
That gave an outcry: Do not people named Kevin already have enough?
Due to the popularity of the movie "Kevin - Alone To Home" or the actor Kevin Costner, the name Kevin was briefly quite popular in the nineties. Later, when Britney Spears got together with Kevin Federline, the name Kevin made a comeback. (Whether this is due to the very reasons, you do not know, but it is suspected.)
However, it seems, at least, rather with parents from the lower social strata.
Although it could never be clearly proven that especially parents from the lower class give their children English or at least foreign-sounding names (in addition to "Kevin" names such as "Chantal" or "Jaqueline" are so disreputable), but the rumor persists,
According to a master's thesis written at the University of Oldenburg, many teachers are in fact biased towards students with certain first names. The name "Kevin" also gives teachers the impression that the student is not as good as other students and is more likely to behave and comes from the lower class (The scientific work, however, could not conclusively prove whether these students are ultimately treated worse),
And now the word "Alpha-Kevin", which is an expression for particularly stupid people, will also be Jugendwort 2015?
In fact, the word has meanwhile been in the vanguard of the vote. But the Langenscheidt publishing house finally deleted the word from the list: "We have heard a lot from you and feel the personal concern about the selection of 'Alpha-Kevin' We were far from discriminating against specific persons, " the organizers wrote Jugendwort.de.
The extent to which the election of the Youth Word of the Year is somehow representative is controversial anyway. A serious social research is definitely not this choice. Most words and expressions used in this selection use only individual groups of adolescents - they are mostly only regional phenomena or are used by adolescents who belong to a specific interest group. If any.
The people who vote for the Youth Word of the Year (which, by the way, anyone (no matter what age) can do here) are more likely to choose how witty they are. The jury, consisting of young people and "people who deal with language", then decides on linguistic creativity, originality, dissemination and timeliness, which word wins.
