SLANG

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.

William E.King

slang vernacular vocabulary not generally acceptable in formal usage. It is notable for its liveliness, humor, emphasis, brevity, novelty, and exaggeration. Most slang is faddish and ephemeral, but some words are retained for long periods and eventually become part of the standard language (e.g., phony, blizzard, movie). On the scale used to indicate a word's status in the language, slang ranks third behind standard and colloquial (or informal) and before cant. Slang often conveys an acerbic, even offensive, no-nonsense attitude and lends itself to poking fun at pretentiousness. Frequently grotesque and fantastic, it is usually spoken with intent to produce a startling or original effect. It is especially well developed in the speaking vocabularies of cultured, sophisticated, linguistically rich languages. Characteristically individual, slang often incorporates elements of the jargons of special-interest groups (e.g., professional, sport, regional, criminal, and drug subcultures). Slang words often come from foreign languages or are of a regional nature. Slang is very old, and the reasons for its development have been much investigated. The following is a small sample of American slang descriptive of a broad range of subjects: of madness—loony, nuts, psycho; of crime—heist, gat, hit, heat, grifter; of women—babe, chick, squeeze, skirt; of men—dude, hombre, hunk; of drunkenness—sloshed, plastered, stewed, looped, trashed, smashed; of drugs—horse, high, stoned, tripping; of caressing—neck, fool around, make out; of states of mind—uptight, wired, mellow, laid back; the verb to go —scram, split, scoot, tip; miscellaneous phrases—you push his buttons,get it together,chill, she does her number, he does his thing, what's her story, I'm not into that.

Bibliography: See H. L. Mencken, The American Language (3 vol., 1936–48); P. Farb, Word Play (1973); J. Green, The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (1985); R. Chapman, Thesaurus of American Slang (1989); E. Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (1990); J. E. Lighter, ed., Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (2 vol., 1994–97); Bodleian Library, ed., The First English Dictionary of Slang, 1699 (2010).

slang / slang/ • n. a type of language that consists of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people: grass is slang for marijuana army slang. • v. [tr.] inf. attack (someone) using abusive language: he watched ideological groups slanging one another.

slang (orig., but now differentiated from) †cant, jargon XVIII; colloquial language of an undignified kind XIX. In its earliest appearance a cant term variously applied, with gen. implication of irregular or lawless activity variously specialized; of uncert. orig.
Hence slang vb. †exhibit at a fair XVIII; rail, or rail at, abusively (as in slanging match) XIX.

slang a type of language that consists of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people. The word is recorded from the mid 18th century, but the ultimate origin is unknown.

slang Non-standard, colloquial form of idiom or vocabulary that is highly informal and often full of obscure or colourful imagery. Slang may be restricted to certain social, ethnic, occupational, hobby, special-interest, or age groups.

slang •bang, Battambang, bhang, clang, Da Nang, dang, fang, gang, hang, harangue, kiang, Kuomintang, Kweiyang, Laing, Luang Prabang, meringue, Nanchang, Pahang, pang, parang, Penang, prang, Pyongyang, rang, sang, satang, Shang, shebang, Shenyang, slambang, slang, spang, sprang, Sturm und Drang, tang, thang, trepang, twang, vang, whang, Xizang, yang, Zaozhuang •Xinjiang, Zhanjiang, Zhenjiang •Palembang • whiz-bang • charabanc •pressgang • chaingang • Wolfgang •strap-hang • ylang-ylang • boomslang •Semarang • boomerang • linsang •Sittang • mustang