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

[John F. Sowa]

Merriam-Webster> 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.

MM> By this standard, Aviation English is a slang...
 > I think the difference is that its speakers are usually looked up to.

But that depends on whether it is spoken by an "airline captain" or
a "fly boy".

AY> To me, slang has the connotation of being "unofficial"...

The distinction between jargon and slang is another one that is
very hard to characterize by necessary and sufficient conditions.

As another example consider the speech of two groups of young women:

  1. Les Précieuses of 17th century France, who were satirized by
     Molière in _Les Précieuses ridicules_.

  2. The Valley Girls of 20th century California, who were satirized
     by almost everybody.

What Valley Girls spoke was called slang, but the manner of speaking
of Les Précieuses was called "preciosity".

Following is a definition of 'preciosity' from the Encyclopedia
Britannica:

 > style of thought and expression exhibiting delicacy of taste and
 > sentiment, prevalent in the 17th-century French salons. Initially
 > a reaction against the coarse behaviour and speech of the aristocracy,
 > this spirit of refinement and bon ton was first instituted by the
 > Marquise de Rambouillet in her salon and gradually extended into
 > literature. The wit and elegance of the honnête homme (“cultivated
 > man”) became a social ideal, which was expressed in the vivid,
 > polished style of Vincent Voiture’s poems and letters and in the
 > eloquent prose works of Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac. This ideal
 > revived the medieval tradition of courtly love, as expressed in
 > the novels of Honoré d’Urfé. The success of his L’Astrée (1607–27;
 > “The Astrea”), a vast pastoral set in the 5th century, was
 > attributable as much to its charming analysis of the phases of
 > love (i.e., chivalrous, mystical) and the corresponding adventures
 > and complications as to its portraits of members of contemporary
 > society.

Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/474364/preciosity


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