slang

1. A kind of language occurring chiefly in casual and playful speech, made up typically of short-lived coinages and figures of speech that are deliberately used in place of standard terms for added raciness, humor, irreverence, or other effect.
2. Language peculiar to a group; argot or jargon: thieves' slang.

1. To use slang.
2. To use angry and abusive language: persuaded the parties to quit slanging and come to the bargaining table.

To attack with abusive language; vituperate.

[Origin unknown.]

Definition: casual dialect
Antonyms: formal language, standard

For more information on slang, visit Britannica.com.

Slang, the carbonation that often puts fizz into everyday language, usually does not last. "Twenty-three skiddoo" of the 1920s, "Daddy-O" of the 1950s, and "far out" of the 1960s are gone, but other slang terms such as "cool" continue to live. Some even lose the label "slang" in the new dictionaries, as did "peter out" (from miners' argot) and "jazz" (originally a slang expression for "sexual intercourse" in juke joints in the South). The shelf life of slang may depend on the environment that produces it. Connie Eble found that four words had endured in college slang at the University of North Carolina from 1972 to 1989: "bad" (good); "bummer" (an unpleasant experience); "slide" (an easy course); and "wheels" (car).

Slang should be distinguished from dialect, speech peculiar to a region. "I got screwed by that used car salesman," is slang. "I reckon so," is Southern dialect. The essence of slang, according to the iconoclast H. L. Mencken, in his classic The American Language (1918), is its "outsiderness." Slang works to prove that the speaker is "hip" or "with it" or "in the know." Can you dig it? Along with being "outside" comes the quality of being "disreputable." After all, an "outsider" has to be outside of something and that something is (in 1960s slang) the Establishment.

Outsiders whose slang has found acceptance by the Establishment include circus folk (guys, geeks), hoboes (handout), criminals (cop, the third degree), actors (makeup, star), aviators (to bail out, tail spin), and deep-sea sailors (aboveboard, shipshape, to keel over). Eric Partridge, whose Slang Today and Yesterday (1970) remains a valuable (if stylistically dated) study, refers to this process of acceptance as "ennobling."

Such language is usually referred to as argot while used within the group itself. Picked up by others, these terms become slang. As noted in Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, "There is no completely satisfactory objective test for slang, especially in application to a word out of context. No word is invariably slang, and many standard words can be given slang connotations or used so inappropriately as to become slang." The word "screw," for example, which in a hardware store has a specific standard English denotation, was often used as vulgar term for sexual intercourse, but during the late twentieth century it came into widespread use meaning "to take advantage of; cheat" according to The American Heritage College Dictionary (1997)—which, however, still labels it as slang.

While some slang is borrowed from a group, it is often created by shortening a word, as "mike" for "microphone." This kind of slang becomes more surprising when the stressed instead of the unstressed syllable is dropped: "ig" for ignore, "za" for pizza. This form seems startlingly modern until we recall wig (now standard English), a shortening of "periwig."

Sources of slang at the turn of the twenty-first century have included advertising, cyberspace, and media. "Where's the beef?" evolved from a hamburger slogan to a political slogan. Online conversations have elicited their own shorthand: TTYTT (to tell you the truth), IRL (in real life) and BTW (by the way). This extreme form of shortening is seen in college acronyms: TAN for an aggressive male (tough as nails); MLA for passionate kissing (major lip action). Movies often make a slang expression popular (as with "bodacious ta-tas" for large female breasts, from An Officer and a Gentleman), but like bell-bottom trousers, these fads quickly passed.

Many scholars see slang, because it is powerfully metaphoric, as "the poetry of everyday language" or "the plain man's poetry." Others, especially those of Victorian vintage, were much more negative. George H. McKnight (1923) finds it "akin to profanity." There is a certain in-your-face quality about slang, since it often, as Mencken notes, "embodies a kind of social criticism." As the late twentieth century American public grew more comfortable with satire and sexual innuendo, slang became more acceptable, though The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (1987) comments, "Because slang expressions are characterized by a sort of general irreverence, raciness, or figurative zest, their use is often avoided in the presence of social or hierarchical superiors."

NTC's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions (2000) is an accessible and up-to-date resource for tracking down the meaning of contemporary slang terms, but many can be found in standard dictionaries. Currentness is the key. For example, the 1986 edition of Webster's Third International Dictionary provides only the standard English meaning for "geek": a circus performer who performs bizarre acts such as biting off the heads of chickens. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000) includes the new slang association with technology (as in computer geek).

In addition to general dictionaries of slang, there are specialized ones for cowboy slang, sexual slang, British and American slang, even Vietnam War slang. The Dictionary of Sexual Slang claims that "no other language can rival the variety, color, or sheer number of sexual terms to be found in English."

Bibliography

Clark, Gregory R. Words of the Vietnam War: The Slang, Jargon, Abbreviations, Acronyms, Nomenclature, Nicknames, Pseudonyms, Slogans, Specs, Euphemisms, Double-Talk, Chants, and Names and Places of the Era of United States Involvement in Vietnam. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1990.

Eble, Connie. College Slang 101. Georgetown, Conn.: Spectacle Lane Press, 1989.

Hayakawa, S. I. Language in Thought and Action. 4th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.

Lewin, Albert, and Esther Lewin, eds. The Thesaurus of Slang: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Facts on File, 1994.

Mencken, H. L. The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States. One-volume abridged edition. Edited by Raven I. McDavid. New York: Knopf, 1963. Includes a chapter on "American Slang."

Partridge, Eric. Slang Today and Yesterday, with a Short Historical Sketch and Vocabularies of English, American, and Australian Slang. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1970. Dated, but thorough.

Richter, Alan. The Dictionary of Sexual Slang: Words, Phrases, and Idioms from AC/DC to Zig-zag. New York: Wiley, 1992.

Spears, Richard A., ed. NTC's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions. 3d ed. Chicago: NTC Publishing Group, 2000. Accessible and up-to-date.

Expressions that do not belong to standard written English. For example, “flipping out” is slang for “losing one's mind” or “losing one's temper.” Slang expressions are usually inappropriate in formal speech or writing. (See jargon.)

A type of informal verbal communication that is generally unacceptable for formal writing. Slang words and phrases are often colorful exaggerations used to emphasize the speaker's point; they may also be shortened versions of an often-used word or phrase. Examples of American slang from the 1990s include "yuppie" (an acronym for Young Urban Professional), "awesome" (for "excellent"), wired (for "nervous" or "excited"), and "chill out" (for relax).

n.

The grunt of the human hog (Pignoramus intolerabilis) with an audible memory. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense.

Quotes:

"By such innovations are languages enriched, when the words are adopted by the multitude, and naturalized by custom." - Miguel De Cervantes

"I've found that there are only two kinds that are any good: slang that has established itself in the language, and slang that you make up yourself. Everything else is apt to be pass? before it gets into print." - Raymond Chandler

"All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry." - Gilbert K. Chesterton

"The language of the younger generation has the brutality of the city and an assertion of threatening power at hand, not to come. It is military, theatrical, and at its most coherent probably a lasting repudiation of empty courtesy and bureaucratic euphemism." - Elizabeth Hardwick

"Dialect words are those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel." - Thomas Hardy

"Nothing can be more depressing than to expose, naked to the light of thought, the hideous growth of argot. Indeed it is like a sort of repellent animal intended to dwell in darkness which has been dragged out of its cloaca. One seems to see a horned and living creature viciously struggling to be restored to the place where it belongs. One word is like a claw, another like a sightless and bleeding eye; and there are phrases which clutch like the pincers of a crab. And all of it is alive with the hideous vitality of things that have organized themselves amid disorganization." - Victor Hugo

See more famous quotes about Slang

"Slanguage" redirects here. For the artist collective, see Slanguage Art Collective.

For other uses, see Slang (disambiguation).

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (June 2009)

Look up slang in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Slang is the use of highly informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's dialect or language. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo (see euphemism). It is also used to identify with others that are similar to you.

Contents 1 Defining slang 2 Extent and origins of slang 3 Distinction between slang and colloquialisms 4 Etymology 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

Defining slang

Few linguists have endeavored to clearly define what constitutes slang.^[1] Attempting to remedy this, Bethany K. Dumas and Jonathan Lighter argue that an expression should be considered "true slang" if it meets at least two of the following criteria:

• It lowers, if temporarily, "the dignity of formal or serious speech or writing"; in other words, it is likely to be seen in such contexts as a "glaring misuse of register."
• Its use implies that the user is familiar with whatever is referred to, or with a group of people who are familiar with it and use the term.
• "It is a taboo term in ordinary discourse with people of a higher social status or greater responsibility."
• It replaces "a well-known conventional synonym." This is done primarily to avoid the discomfort caused by the conventional item or by further elaboration.

An example would be "getting a pop", in black terms, meaning getting a haircut, or buying threads as in buying clothes."^[1] Slang should be distinguished from jargon, which is the technical vocabulary of a particular profession. Jargon, like many examples of slang, may be used to exclude non–group members from the conversation, but in general has the function of allowing its users to talk precisely about technical issues in a given field.

Extent and origins of slang

Slang can be regional in that it is used only in a particular territory, but slang terms often are particular to a certain subculture, such as music. Nevertheless, slang expressions can spread outside their original areas to become commonly used, like "cool" and "jive." While some words eventually lose their status as slang (the word "mob", for example, began as a slang shortening of Latin mobile vulgus^[2]), others continue to be considered as such by most speakers. When slang spreads beyond the group or subculture that originally uses it, its original users often replace it with other, less-recognized terms to maintain group identity. One use of slang is to circumvent social taboos, as mainstream language tends to shy away from evoking certain realities. For this reason, slang vocabularies are particularly rich in certain domains, such as violence, crime, drugs, and sex. Alternatively, slang can grow out of mere familiarity with the things described. Among Californian wine connoisseurs, for example, Cabernet Sauvignon is often known as "Cab Sav," Chardonnay as "Chard" and so on;^[3] this means that naming the different wines expends less superfluous effort.

Even within a single language community, slang tends to vary widely across social, ethnic, economic, and geographic strata. Slang may fall into disuse over time; sometimes, however, it grows more and more common until it becomes the dominant way of saying something, at which time it usually comes to be regarded as mainstream, acceptable language (e.g. the Spanish word caballo), although in the case of taboo words there may be no expression that is considered mainstream or acceptable. Numerous slang terms pass into informal mainstream speech, and sometimes into formal speech, though this may involve a change in meaning or usage.

Slang very often involves the creation of novel meanings for existing words. It is common for such novel meanings to diverge significantly from the standard meaning. Thus, "cool" and "hot" can both mean "very good," "impressive," or "good-looking".

Slang terms are often known only within a clique or ingroup. For example, Leet ("Leetspeak" or "1337") originally was popular only among certain Internet subcultures, such as crackers and online video gamers. During the 1990s, and into the early 21st century, however, Leet became increasingly more commonplace on the Internet, and it has spread outside Internet-based communication and into spoken languages.^[4] Other types of slang include SMS language used on mobile phones, and "chatspeak," (e.g., "LOL," an acronym meaning "laughing out loud" or "laugh out loud" or ROFL, rolling on the floor laughing), which is widely used in instant messaging on the Internet.

Distinction between slang and colloquialisms

Some linguists make a distinction between slangisms (slang words) and colloquialisms. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, "slang refers to informal (and often transient) lexical items used by a specific social group, for instance teenagers, soldiers, prisoners and thieves. Slang is not the same as colloquial (speech), which is informal, relaxed speech used on occasion by any speaker; this might include contractions such as 'you’re,' as well as colloquialisms. A colloquialism is a lexical item used in informal speech; whilst the broadest sense of the term ‘colloquialism’ might include slangism, its narrow sense does not. Slangisms are often used in colloquial speech but not all colloquialisms are slangisms. One method of distinguishing between a slangism and a colloquialism is to ask whether most native speakers know the word (and use it); if they do, it is a colloquialism. However, the problem is that this is not a discrete, quantized system but a continuum. Although the majority of slangisms are ephemeral and often supplanted by new ones, some gain non-slang colloquial status (e.g. English silly – cf. German selig ‘blessed’, Middle High German sælde ‘bliss, luck’ and Zelda, a Jewish female first name) and even formal status (e.g. English mob)."^[5]

Etymology

The orgin of the word slang is much disputed. The Oxford English Dictionary now discounts the connection to the Old Norse word slengenamn which means nickname. ^[6]

It is now widely believed to be a corruption or shortening of secret language into slang as stated in the Barbara Windsor episode of the BBC documentary, Who do you think you are?.

The word "slang" is given as a term within cant(see link below)which refers to the canting speech itself.

See also

• A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew
• Register
• Diner lingo

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Dumas, Bethany K. and Lighter, Jonathan (1978) "Is Slang a Word for Linguists?" American Speech 53 (5): 14-15.
2. ^ Online Etymological Dictionary
3. ^ Croft, William (2000) Explaining Language Change: An Evolutionary Approach. Harlow: Longman: 75-6.
4. ^ Mitchell, Anthony (December 6, 2005). "A Leet Primer". http://www.technewsworld.com/story/47607.html#. Retrieved 2007-11-05. 
5. ^ See p. 21 in ‘‘Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew’’, by Zuckermann, Ghil’ad, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
6. ^ [1]

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Slang

• Urban Dictionary - Contributions by users, mostly US-terms, comprehensive but containing large amount of explicit language
• The Online Slang Dictionary - American and English terms, features other statistical information
• SlangSite.com - Non-explicit American terms
• SlangSlang - Open Source User-contributed thesaurus and dictionary that covers eleven languages.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - slang
v. intr. - skælde ud
v. tr. - bruge slang

idioms:

• slanging match    skænderi

Nederlands (Dutch)
slang

Français (French)
n. - argot
v. intr. - injurier
v. tr. - injurier

idioms:

• slanging match    (GB) prise de bec

Deutsch (German)
n. - Slang, Jargon
v. - beleidigen

idioms:

• slanging match    gegenseitige Beschimpfung

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - ιδιωματική γλώσσα, αργκό, γλώσσα της πιάτσας, συνθηματική ή περιθωριακή γλώσσα
v. - καθυβρίζω, επιπλήττω, κατσαδιάζω

idioms:

• slanging match    αλληλοβρίσιμο

Italiano (Italian)
slang

idioms:

• slanging match    scambio di insulti

Português (Portuguese)
n. - jargão (m), calão (m), gíria (f)
v. - atacar com palavras violentas

idioms:

• slanging match    longa troca de insultos e acusações

Русский (Russian)
жаргон, ругань, цепочка, ножные кандалы, относящийся к сленгу, жаргонный, говорить на жаргоне, браниться, поносить

idioms:

• slanging match    перебранка

Español (Spanish)
n. - argot, germanía, jerga
v. intr. - utilizar lenguaje abusivo
v. tr. - insultar, maltratar de palabra

idioms:

• slanging match    intercambio de insultos

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - slang
v. - skälla ut, skälla på

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
俚语, 用粗话骂, 欺骗, 诈取

idioms:

• slanging match    互相漫骂

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 俚語
v. intr. - 用粗話罵
v. tr. - 用粗話罵, 欺騙, 詐取

idioms:

• slanging match    互相漫罵

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 속어, (특정 사회의) 통용어, 은어
v. intr. - 속어를 쓰다
v. tr. - ~을 욕하다, 욕지거리하다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 俗語, スラング, 卑語, 俗語の
v. - 俗語を使う, 悪口を言う

idioms:

• rhyming slang    押韻スラング

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) لغه عاميه أو دارجه (فعل) يهاجم بالفاظ قاسيه, يخدع‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮עגה, דיבור המוני, סלנג‬
v. intr. - ‮השתמש בעגת דיבור המונית‬
v. tr. - ‮גידף, תקף בגסות‬

If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.

To select your translation preferences click here.