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

Tue Sep 1 18:01:32 UTC 2009

There was a entire monograph on slang recently published by OUP that
goes into just this issue: what slang is, what it's for, how it's
distinguished from jargon, etc.:

http://www.amazon.com/Slang-Peoples-Poetry-Michael-Adams/dp/0195314638

Disclosure -- I was the editor who originally commissioned this title
for OUP, but I am no longer affiliated with the press.

Erin
---------------------
Erin McKean
Wordnik.com :: All The Words
http://www.wordnik.com
erin at wordnik.com
our blog: http://blog.wordnik.com

amsler at cs.utexas.edu wrote:
> It would appear the editors at Merriam-Webster have given some thought
> to this. The following is the Synonym paragraph from the Third
> International Unabridged Dictionary for Jargon, Slang (and several more
> related terms).
> 
> What I get from this is that there is a strong effort here to put-down
> speech  which one doesn't consider 'educated' or 'intelligible' to
> educated people. The emphasis is on the connotative aspects of the use
> of the words, usually negative connotations, but maybe sometimes
> positive as in the case of words which evoke more vivid imagery than
> ordinary descriptive vocabulary. (i.e., it's certainly more powerful to
> say that a microwave 'nukes' food than that it 'heats' it).
> 
> The interesting thing about JARGON appears to be that the dictionary
> makers consider it to be vocabulary which springs up to meet an urgent
> need for words to describe things for a specialized purpose... given
> time, JARGON may become general language, but for the moment it is
> outside regular language because the speakers are in a rapidly evolving
> domain where they need words for things that don't have words yet. The
> derogatory nature of JARGON is that the general public doesn't
> understand it and hence feels excluded. The JARGON users, however, feel
> 'included' which reinforces their use as a mark of distinction that they
> are the 'in' crowd. (e.g, Hacker Jargon).
> 
> [From Merriam-Webster's Third International Unabridged Dictionary]
> 
> "syn PATOIS, CREOLE, JARGON, LINGO, SLANG, ARGOT, CANT, VERNACULAR,
> PATTER, along with DIALECT, are used in different meanings with varying
> degrees of exactness and with dissimilar value judgements involved. 
> DIALECT is often used to designate the regional forms of a language
> <Yorkshire dialect>, <the dialects of Texas>, <the following outline of
> Anglo-Saxon grammar is restricted to the West Saxon
> dialect--J.W.Bright>. This word may or may not connote marked difference
> from a received standard language or marked preference for that received
> standard language.  PATOIS is likely to suggest a regional dialect, esp.
> one used by the unlettered <the patois of the peasantry around
> Carassonne> The word is of French origin and its use is likely to be
> more common in Romance language areas than elsewhere.  CREOLE is used
> mainly in reference to languages that come into existence when a
> politically or economically subordinate group adopts the language of a
> dominant group, usu. with very considerable modification <the creole of
> Haiti> JARGON may apply to a quickly evolved mixed linguistic form for
> simple communication between speakers of different languages, like
> Beche-deMer or pidgin English. JARGON may also signify a phase of
> language containing an undue number of words unfamiliar to the average
> speaker <the technical jargon of sport - C.E. Montague> <the proper
> meaning of jargon is writing that employs technical words not commonly
> intelligible - Ernest Gowers>  LINGO, a word more common in preceding
> centuries than now, is often derogatory and stresses the
> incomprehensibility of a strange language or unfamiliar phase of one's
> own language <a lingo that few people understand or care about -- C.C.
> Furnas> SLANG is likely to indicate a complex of words and constructions
> preferred within a limited group, esp. an informal one, to the standard
> language, and often more or less forceful or novel in their suggestion. 
> ARGOT sometimes refers specif. to the forms of speech used in criminal
> groups <the professional criminal speaks one or more argots in addition
> to colloquial English - D.W. Maurer>  CANT, which usu. has derogatory
> implications, may be applied to the language of thieves and their
> companions, or to the special languages of artisans or even of learned
> or professional groups, esp. if one wishes to ridicule, although JARGON
> is perhaps more common in designating the language of the latter. <the
> pseudoscientific cant which is talked about the ''Baconian philosophy''
> - T.H. Huxley> VERNACULAR, with less suggestion of the derogatoy than
> the others in this group, denotes the simple, colloquial, everyday
> speech of the commoner in contrast to more bookish and erudite speech
> <his gumption, to use the vernacular word - William James>  PATTER may
> suggest fast, glib, voluble speech, ostensibly spotaneous, to lull or
> deceive <the dispute resembles a conjuror's patter -- its primary
> purpose is to divert attention from what is going on elsewhere -
> Economist> <the patter of a professional guide -H.S. Canby>"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Quoting maxwell <maxwell at umiacs.umd.edu>:
> 
>> On Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:07:31 -0500, amsler at cs.utexas.edu wrote:
>>> The Wikipedia entry referenced makes the distinction between slang and
>>> jargon. I am not as certain that holds up...
>>
>> I agree about the failure of the distinction, but we could try--maybe we
>> could paraphrase another famous definition: Jargon is slang with a
>> conference and a journal.  Or maybe someone here can come up with a
>> better
>> X and Y, as in "Jargon is slang with an X and a Y."
>>
>>    Mike Maxwell
>>
> 
> 
> 
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