For other uses see Slang (disambiguation). This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. The talk page may contain suggestions. (June 2009)

Slang is the use of 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 often used to identify with one's peers and although it may be common among young people it is used by people of all ages and social groups. 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 considered in those contexts 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.1

Slang should be distinguished from jargon which is the technical vocabulary of a particular profession and which meets only the second of the criteria given above. Jargon like many examples of slang may be used to exclude nongroup members from the conversation but in general has the function of allowing its users to talk precisely about the technical issues in a given field.citation needed Extent and origins of slang

Slang can be regional (that is used only in a particular territory) but slang terms are often particular instead to a certain subculture such as music or video gaming. 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 shortening of Latin mobile vulgus2) 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 (and other groups) 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; it also helps to indicate the user's familiarity with wine.

Even within a single language community slang and the extent to which it is used 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") was originally 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 'youre' 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 the 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 slde bliss luck and Zelda a Jewish female first name) and even formal status (e.g. English mob)."5 Etymology The origin of the word slang is uncertain. It has a connection with Thieves' cant and the earliest attested use (1756) refers to the vocabulary of "low or disreputable" people. Beyond that however its origin is unclear. A Scandinavian origin has been proposed (compare for example Norwegian slengenamn which means "nickname") but is discounted by the Oxford English Dictionary based on "date and early associations".6 See also A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew Register Diner lingo References a b Dumas Bethany K.; Lighter Jonathan (1978). "Is Slang a Word for Linguists". American Speech 53 (5): 1415.  Online Etymological Dictionary Croft William (2000) Explaining Language Change: An Evolutionary Approach. Harlow: Longman: 75-6. Mitchell Anthony (December 6 2005). "A Leet Primer". http://www.technewsworld.com/story/47607.html#. Retrieved 2007-11-05.  See p. 21 in Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew by Zuckermann Ghilad Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan 2003. "Online Etymological Dictionary". http://www.etymonline.com/index.phptermslang. Retrieved 4 March 2010. ;"Oxford English Dictionary". http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50226993querytypeword&querywordslang. Retrieved 4 March 2010.  External links Look up slang in Wiktionary the free dictionary. Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Slang The Online Slang Dictionary - American and English terms features other statistical information SlangSite.com - Non-explicit American terms Urban Dictionary - Contributions by users mostly US-terms comprehensive but containing large amount of explicit language American slang - with part of speech and sample sentences