Slang

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 highly regional, specific to a particular territory.

Slang terms are frequently particular to a certain subculture, such as musicians, and members of minority groups. Nevertheless, usage of slang expressions can spread outside their original arenas to become commonly understood, such as "cool" and "jive." While some words eventually lose their status as slang, others continue to be considered as such by most speakers. In spite of this, the process tends to lead the original users to replace the words with other, less-recognized terms to maintain group identity.

Slang and jargon

Being informal speech, slang should be distinguished from jargon, which is the technical vocabulary of a particular profession. Moreover, jargon may not be intended to exclude nongroup members from the conversation, but rather deals with technical peculiarities of a given field requiring a specialized vocabulary.

According to Bethany K. Dumas and Jonathan Lighter, 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 that 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."

Origins of slang

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 sexuality, violence, crime and drugs.

Alternatively, slang can grow out of mere familiarity with the things described. Among wine connoisseurs, Cabernet Sauvignon might be known as "Cab Sav," Chardonnay as "Chard" and so on; this means that naming the different wines expends less superfluous effort. It also serves as a shared code among connoisseurs.

Even within a single language community, slang tends to vary widely across social, ethnic, economic, and geographic strata. Slang sometimes grows more and more common until it becomes the dominant way of saying something, at which time it is regarded as mainstream, acceptable language (e.g. the Spanish word caballo), while at other times it may fall into disuse. 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 very common for such novel meanings to diverge significantly from the standard meaning. Thus, "cool" and "hot" can both mean "very good or impressive."

Slang terms are often only known within the community of users. For example, Leet Speak (Leet or "1337") is popular among online video gamers (although it is slowly being picked up by gaming in general). Text speak is also a commom form of slang, used among people to shorten words when typing.

External links

• Urban Dictionary - A dictionary of contemporary slang with user-contributed definitions. Largely unreliable and amateurish, but often the only reference to include very recent slang.
• Double-Tongued Dictionary - A collection of citations of slang captured from actual usage. Far from comprehensive, but trustworthy where it does have coverage.
• Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical, and Anecdotal By John Camden Hotten. Now largely out of date and superseded by subsequent works. 1874 ed. at Google books
• The Alternative Dictionaries - Slang, profanities, insults and vulgarisms from all the world. Poorly documented. Includes many terms that cannot be substantiated.

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