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

[Joe Moore]

I want to thank everyone for the very considered responses I've received to
my question. The responses are very useful and certainly made me reflect a
bit more on the material I was searching for.

When I initially attempted to find a list of terms it seemed that many of
those lists did not include profanity and other items I would expect to find
in a "list of commonly used words". In retrospect, my use of the term
"slang" to describe what I was looking for was done in haste and may not
have been the most accurate way to describe the material.  It does seem that
jargon is a term used by a person who privileges the language while slang is
often used in cases where the language is taken to be disreputable in some
way. I can't say this was my criteria per se so maybe it would have been
better to write "a large list of (not necessarily tagged) English words used
by a broad cross section of speakers that includes profanity".

Again, thanks for all the help. I subscribe to a number of lists on a
variety of topics: programming, art, theory and I have to say that I've not
received an extended reply like the previous very frequently.

Best,
Joe





On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:49 AM, <amsler at cs.utexas.edu> wrote:

> 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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