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Jan 25, 2023 · Why do we use slang? "We use slang as a way to have a special form of communication with a subset of people," Brewster said. "By using words that are only understood by the small group of people ...
- CBS News Minnesota
- 3 min
- Overview
- Development of slang
- Creators of slang
- Sources
- Linguistic processes forming slang
slang, unconventional words or phrases that express either something new or something old in a new way. It is flippant, irreverent, indecorous; it may be indecent or obscene. Its colourful metaphors are generally directed at respectability, and it is this succinct, sometimes witty, frequently impertinent social criticism that gives slang its characteristic flavour. Slang, then, includes not just words but words used in a special way in a certain social context. The origin of the word slang itself is obscure; it first appeared in print around 1800, applied to the speech of disreputable and criminal classes in London. The term, however, was probably used much earlier.
Other related types of nonstandard word usage include cant and jargon, synonyms for vague and high-sounding or technical and esoteric language not immediately intelligible to the uninitiate. In England, the term cant still indicates the specialized speech of criminals, which, in the United States, is more often called argot. The term dialect refers to language characteristic of a certain geographic area or social class.
Slang emanates from conflicts in values, sometimes superficial, often fundamental. When an individual applies language in a new way to express hostility, ridicule, or contempt, often with sharp wit, he may be creating slang, but the new expression will perish unless it is picked up by others. If the speaker is a member of a group that finds that hi...
Civilized society tends to divide into a dominant culture and various subcultures that flourish within the dominant framework. The subcultures show specialized linguistic phenomena, varying widely in form and content, that depend on the nature of the groups and their relation to each other and to the dominant culture. The shock value of slang stems largely from the verbal transfer of the values of a subculture to diametrically opposed values in the dominant culture. Names such as fuzz, pig, fink, bull, and dick for policemen were not created by officers of the law. (The humorous “dickless tracy,” however, meaning a policewoman, was coined by male policemen.)
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Slang Through the Ages Vocabulary Quiz
Occupational groups are legion, and while in most respects they identify with the dominant culture, there is just enough social and linguistic hostility to maintain group solidarity. Terms such as scab, strike-breaker, company-man, and goon were highly charged words in the era in which labour began to organize in the United States; they are not used lightly even today, though they have been taken into the standard language.
In addition to occupational and professional groups, there are many other types of subcultures that supply slang. These include sexual deviants, narcotic addicts, ghetto groups, institutional populations, agricultural subsocieties, political organizations, the armed forces, Gypsies, and sports groups of many varieties. Some of the most fruitful sources of slang are the subcultures of professional criminals who have migrated to the New World since the 16th century. Old-time thieves still humorously refer to themselves as FFV—First Families of Virginia.
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Most subcultures tend to draw words and phrases from the contiguous language (rather than creating many new words) and to give these established terms new and special meanings; some borrowings from foreign languages, including the American Indian tongues, are traditional. The more learned occupations or professions like medicine, law, psychology, s...
The processes by which words become slang are the same as those by which other words in the language change their form or meaning or both. Some of these are the employment of metaphor, simile, folk etymology, distortion of sounds in words, generalization, specialization, clipping, the use of acronyms, elevation and degeneration, metonymy, synecdoch...
Dec 12, 2018 · Slang can be mean and uncaring and disgusting. It can also bind people and define the boundaries of the gang. “It confirms that we’re together and it confirms that you’re not one of us ...
- 2 min
Aug 5, 2018 · Person 2: (Person’s name), you need to chill. Person 3: ahahahahah damn didn’t mean to start beef. The term “start beef”, is a humorous way of saying “to have a grudge with another person” (“Beef”). In this example, slang is used to alleviate the tension in the conversation by inserting humor.
In the 1750s we see it gaining a new name, slang, and a new, linguistic branch of development opens up for that word. In 1756 we are told that ‘Thomas Throw had been upon the town, knew the slang well’, had worked as an attendant in gambling dens, ‘and understood every word in the scoundrel’s dictionary’. 1758 gives us our first ...
Slang. A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing. [1] It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of particular in-groups in order to establish group identity, exclude outsiders, or both.
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More often, slang serves social purposes: to identify members of a group, to change the level of discourse in the direction of informality, to oppose established authority. Sharing and maintaining a constantly changing slang vocabulary aids group solidarity and serves to include and exclude members. Slang is the linguistic equivalent of fashion ...
