[Corpora-List] Corpora containing common English words including slang.

[amsler at cs.utexas.edu]

There is a difference in 'why' language is labeled 'slang' vs.  
'jargon'. The difference depends upon its status in the mind of the  
person writing/talking about it. Jargon has its emphasis on being  
'unintelligible' (without the necessarily being a put-down) whereas  
'slang' has its emphasis on being 'outside the mainstream' and 'looked  
down upon'. Both require there be a group of speakers using the terms,  
else the langauge becomes '-isms' of a given speaker, as in Casey  
Stengalisms or Buckminster Fullerisms).

This obviously creates a dilemma for 'tagging' text as the tags could  
be somewhat subjective and worse yet, dated to the specific time of  
the tagging.
Of course if the texts were historic and featured slang/jargon that  
has disappeared from contemporary use, then perhaps tagging could be  
accurate.

But if the text is contemporary English, then its more difficult.
Yesterday's 'slang/jargon' could become mainstream language and no  
longer looked down upon. This could happen relatively quickly,  
probably in only a few years given our mass communication media. A  
jargon/slang term could be 'discovered' by the mainstream practically  
overnight if events caused it to become 'useful' to speech writers or  
the general public.

Some of the computer slang of hackers became jargon and much of it is  
now mainstream language. Computer terms like 'reboot', 'crash',  
'off-line', 'online', 'bug', etc. are now mainstream.


> Quoting maxwell <maxwell at umiacs.umd.edu>:


> Slang vs. jargon is in the eye of the beholder, in other words.  I think we
> are in agreement.
>
>> The distinction between jargon and slang is another one that is
>> very hard to characterize by necessary and sufficient conditions.
>


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