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Many of you may have seen the popular internet video about LMFAO the hacker - in short, it's a comedy skit about a Secret Service agent trying to decipher text messages and mistakenly assuming that Lmfao, and his siblings Lmao and Lmbao are hackers working for a foreign government.

Given that Gen Z slang continues to become more and more undecipherable, and that text messages have been used as evidence in court, what happens when one party presents evidence that the other party disputes the meaning of, and none of the words are in the dictionary? Would some kind of expert witness be called for situations like this?

ohwilleke
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stickynotememo
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A person with the relevant knowledge could testify about what was meant. The way that this evidence becomes admissible isn't entirely consistent across all U.S. courts.

For example, in the state courts of Colorado, anyone having knowledge not shared by many members of the general public that would assist the court in understanding the evidence is sufficient to be certified as an expert witness.

But in the federal courts of Colorado, a higher legal standard applies to expert witnesses. So, in federal court one might need a PhD linguist, or the court might allow non-expert testimony on the matter, or the court might construe the situation as one where an interpreter (who is neither an expert witness nor, exactly, a lay witness) could be used (under the standards for providing credentials to an interpreter).

Most of the relevant case law involves interpretation of gang terminology and African-American Vernacular English (AAVE).

ohwilleke
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