We had a great discussion about words on the chat today, but one I really wanted to bring to the board. Some people don't like to use slang and wish to use more traditional language. So I am wondering, didn't a lot of traditional language start as slang? Or does most slang either die or stay as slang? Is something, for example, that was slang in the 1940s still slang today? I think not, but what happens to it then?

I just read some of the discussion of the Indo-Aryan language, etc., which was WAY over my head. I can participate at a much lower level and slang is a good level. Language is changing so quickly today that slang becomes accepted language, especially in the high tech and scientific fields. I would welcome a discussion of modern slang. Slang is creative and colorful. E.g. "to be text messaged," or "Going to the loo."

Slang is how other people, of whom you disaprove or with whom you disagree, talk or write. Different social groups (based on type of job, class, economic status, etc.) speak differently. These different ways of speaking are called register or sociolects. Tell people linguistic factoids, like Japanese has two words for wife, one if it's the speaker's wife and another if it's the listener's, or that Chinese uses tones to differentiate otherwise homonymous words from one another, and they'll "ooh and ah" over the strange linguistic ways of the foreigners. But, tell somebody that using a different register during an interview can disqualify them from getting a job, and they'll look at you blankly. As I mentioned during yesterday's chat, there's slang and jargon, but also cant and argot (usually the slang of criminals). The same people who get bent out of shape being told how to speak and write because of silly political correctness, find it easy to correct and control how people speak. It's rather easy and guiltless to put people in their place by not listening to what it is they are saying, but to find fault in how they are saying it. To correct somebody, you have to udnerstand what it is they've said. If you've understood, what's the problem? It's not just the newness of the vocabulary that makes for slang, because we are constantly coining new words or using old words in new ways (much to the changrin of some). Slang, as opposed to dialect (or patois if you really don't like it or its speaker), is usually just about vocabulary. There's very few differences in grammar or syntax.

Very thoughtful, z, and I agree. BTW, what did you mean by "using a different register during an interview can disqualify them from getting a job..."?

I wondered how "slang" and "dialect" varied. But I see that "dialect" means: "A variety of a language that is distinguished from other varieties of the same language by features of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, and by its use by a group of speakers who are set off from others geographically or socially"...while slang is just about words.

Kalleh,

Try going for a job as a lecturer and peppering your interview with words and phrases such as "dude", "like", "so", "oh my God!", and so on. I suspect you'd not get the job.

If you applied for a job selling clothes in a boutique in California, say, you might well be successful.

I have this very issue with a few of the folks on my team. They'll send out emails with incorrect grammar. It's "incorrect" according the the accepted American rules, but it's not incorrect in their personal dialect. These people are from the inner city and they have a different register (thanks for the term, Z), but if they wish to move up in the library world, they'll need to work hard to learn the "proper" grammar of said world.

quote:

These different ways of speaking are called register or sociolects.

Thanks for the definitions, Z. I had always been surrounded by people who wanted to improve their language skills, beginning with my foreign born parents. In talking to a child, I habitually use the grown up word followed by a simple word. I don't "talk down" to him. Since moving to the rural south, I often speak with people, even affluent people, who don't understand what I am saying.
I don't want to seem snobbish or patronizing, but it is awkward to guess which "register" to use without offending people, and without offending my own sense of clarity. At least I now know "register" or "sociolects" are universal speech tools.