slang

An informal nonstandard variety of speech characterized by newly coined and rapidly changing words and phrases.

See also:

• Argot
• Back Slang
• "A Defense of Slang," by Gelett Burgess
• Family Slang
• Lingo
• Patois
• Placeholder
• Rhyming Slang
• "Slang in America," by Walt Whitman
• The Triumph of Slang: Bosh, Humbug, and the Survival of 19th-Century Barbarisms
• What Is Family Slang?

Etymology:

Examples and Observations:

• "The most significant characteristic of slang overlaps with a defining characteristic of jargon: slang is a marker of in-group solidarity, and so it is a correlate of human groups with shared experiences, such as being children at a certain school or of a certain age, or being a member of a certain socially definable group, such as hookers, junkies, jazz musicians, or professional criminals."
  (Keith Allan and Kate Burridge, Forbidden Words. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006)



• The Language of Outsiders
  "[S]lang serves the outs as a weapon against the ins. To use slang is to deny allegiance to the existing order, either jokingly or in earnest, by refusing even the words which represent conventions and signal status; and those who are paid to preserve the status quo are prompted to repress slang as they are prompted to repress any other symbol of potential revolution."
  (James Sledd, "On Not Teaching English Usage." The English Journal, Nov. 1965)



• "The downtrodden are the great creators of slang. . . . Slang is . . . a pile of fossilized jokes and puns and ironies, tinselly gems dulled eventually by overmuch handling, but gleaming still when held up to the light. "
  (Anthony Burgess, A Mouthful of Air, 1992)



• "Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work."
  (Carl Sandburg)



• "When we refer . . . to food as 'grub,' it is perhaps hard to realize that the word goes back to Oliver Cromwell's time; from early 18th century come 'mob,' and also 'knock off,' to finish; and from early 19th century, the sarcastic use of 'clear as mud.'"
  (Paul Beale, editor of Partridge's Concise Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. Routledge, 1991)



• "The latest slang term for defecation, however, is dropping the kids off at the pool, which offers hope for a new generation of euphemistic suburbanites."
  (William Safire, "Kiduage." The New York Times, 2004)



• "With the exception of cool, which retains its effectiveness after well over half a century, slang words--groovy, phat, radical, smokin'--have a very brief life span in which they can be used to express sincere enthusiasm. Then they revert to irony or, at best, expressions of a sort of mild sardonic approval."
  (Ben Yagoda, When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It. Broadway Books, 2007)