Slang

The main obsessions among slang users of all ages, as revealed by word counts, have not changed; intoxication by drink or drugs throws up (no pun intended) the largest number of synonyms; lashed, langered, mullered and hooted are recent additions to this part of the lexicon. These are followed by words related to sex and romance - copping off, out trouting, on the sniff and jam, lam, slam and the rest - and the many vogue terms of approval that go in and out of fashion among the young (in Britain ace, brill, wicked and phat have given way to top, mint, fit and dope which are themselves on the way out at the time of writing). The number of nicknames for money, bollers, boyz, beer-tokens, squirt and spon among them, has predictably increased since the materialist 1980s and adolescent concern with identity-building and status-confirming continues to produce a host of dismissive epithets for the unfortunate misfit, some of which, like wendy, spod, licker, are confined to the school environment while others, such as trainspotter, anorak and geek , have crossed over into generalised usage.

Other obsessions are more curious; is it the North American housewife’s hygiene fetish which has given us more than a dozen terms (dust-bunny, dust-kitty, ghost-turd, etc.) for the balls of fluff found on an unswept floor, where British English has only one (beggars velvet )? Why do speakers in post-industrial Britain and Australia still need a dozen or more words to denote the flakes of dung that hang from the rear of sheep and other mammals, words like dags, dangleberries, dingleberries, jub-nuts, winnets and wittens ? Teenagers have their fixations, finding wigs (toop, syrup, Irish, rug) and haemorrhoids (farmers, Emma Freuds, nauticals) particularly hilarious. A final curiosity is the appearance in teenage speech fashionable vogue terms which are actually much older than their users realise: once again referring to money, British youth has come up with luka ( the humorous pejorative "filthy lucre" in a new guise), Americans with duckets (formerly "ducats", the Venetian gold coins used all over Renaissance Europe).

 

 

2. Exercises on slang

 

1. Translate the sentences from English. [24]

a) Sarah: hey why is Jimmy in the background of our prom picture?

Ryan: irk, he must have photobombed it at the last second.

b) I couldn't get a word in edgewise. She kept talking to me about her shoes, purse, and how her best friend just got dumped. I am a word receptacle.

c) Every morning Sherwin swings by our area to say hi and pulls a management by driveby.

d) Tiger: "I have to run to Zales to get a Kobe Special."

Friend: "What's that?"

Tiger: "A house on a finger."

e) "Dan won't answer your calls. He's in airplane mode."

f) "Sarah went into airplane mode for three days after Charlie dumped her."

g) Man, when I get back to work I'll have to start going to the gym again- I've put on some serious holiday pounds

2. Find slang words in the part of `` Roaring Girl`` [35]

Prologus

A play expected long makes the audience look

For wonders, that each scene should be a book,

Compos'd to all perfection; each one comes

And brings a play in's head with him: up he sums

What he would of a roaring girl have writ;

If that he finds not here, he mews at it.

Only we entreat you think our scene

Cannot speak high, the subject being but mean:

A roaring girl whose notes till now never were

Shall fill with laughter our vast theatre;

That's all which I dare promise: tragic passion,

And such grave stuff, is this day out of fashion.

I see attention sets wide ope her gates

Of hearing, and with covetous list'ning waits,

To know what girl this roaring girl should be,

For of that tribe are many. One is she

That roars at midnight in deep tavern bowls,

That beats the watch, and constables controls;

Another roars i' th' daytime, swears, stabs, gives braves,

Yet sells her soul to the lust of fools and slaves.

Both these are suburb roarers. Then there's beside

A civil city roaring girl, whose pride,

Feasting, and riding, shakes her husband's state,

And leaves him roaring through an iron grate.

None of these roaring girls is ours: she flies

With wings more lofty. Thus her character lies;

Yet what need characters, when to give a guess

Is better than the person to express?

But would you know who 'tis? Would you hear her name?

She is call'd mad Moll; her life, our acts proclaim.

Enter Mary Fitzallard disguised like a sempster with a case for bands, and Neatfoot a serving-man with her, with a napkin on his shoulder and a trencher in his hand as from table.

NEATFOOT

The young gentleman our young master, Sir Alexander's son, is it into his ears, sweet damsel emblem of fragility, you desire to have a message transported, or to be transcendent?

MARY

A private word or two, sir, nothing else.

NEATFOOT

You shall fructify in that which you come for: your pleasure shall be satisfied to your full contentation. I will, fairest tree of generation, watch when our young master is erected, that is to say, up, and deliver him to this your most white hand.

MARY

Thanks, sir.

NEATFOOT

And withal certify him that I have culled out for him, now his belly is replenished, a daintier bit or modicum than any lay upon his trencher at dinner. Hath he notion of your name, I beseech your chastity?

MARY

One, sir, of whom he bespake falling bands.

NEATFOOT

Falling bands: it shall so be given him. If you please to venture your modesty in the hall amongst a curl-pated company of rude serving-men, and take such as they can set before you, you shall be most seriously and ingeniously welcome.

MARY

I have [dined] indeed already, sir.

NEATFOOT

Or will you vouchsafe to kiss the lip of a cup of rich Orleans in the buttery amongst our waiting-women?

MARY

Not now in truth, sir.

NEATFOOT

Our young master shall then have a feeling of your being here; presently it shall so be given him.

MARY

I humbly thank you, sir.

3. Do the test [20]

1. action (1)

 

If you're interested in American politics, the action is

in London in Washington in Tokyo

 

2. axe | ax (1)

 

The company had to axe Georgio because he

worked too hard always came early made too many mistakes

 

3. beat it

 

If somebody tells you to "Beat it!", they're telling you to

hit something defeat something go away

 

4. blast (2)

 

The manager blasted his secretary for

forgetting to give him a message writing an excellent letter doing such a good job

 

5. crap (2)

 

Shane said that the website we showed him was crap. He thinks it's

a pretty good website a really bad website a very interesting website

 

6. bent

 

The company's accountant was bent. For a long time he'd been

making simple mistakes stealing the company's money working too hard

 

7. busted

 

Glen has to go to court on Friday. He was busted last week for

growing his own vegetables growing his own marijuana brewing his own beer

 

8. can (2)

 

If you don't want to do time in the can, make sure you don't

know the law obey the law break the law 9. con She met lots of men on the internet and conned quite a few into chatting with her online telling her about their lives sending her money

10. cop

 

A cop's job is to

protect innocent people shoot bad people arrest good people

 

11. app

 

If you want to find some killer apps, you should go to

a software website the city zoo a high-security prison

 

12. blog

 

If you want to see some blogs, you should

go walking in a jungle go to an aquarium go online

 

13. egosurf

 

If you'd like to go egosurfing, you'll need

a surfboard a surf report an Internet connection

 

14. flame

 

Cathy was flamed in an online forum. Someone said she was

sexy funny stupid

 

15. geek

 

If you want to meet a lot of geeks, you should go to

a baseball game a software convention a jazz festival

 

16. acid

 

If someone takes a tab of acid, they will probably

be arrested for stealing chemicals see things that aren't real go to sleep

 

17. alky | alkie | alchy

 

Gillian thinks her husband's an alkie because he

gets drunk every day has wine with his dinner most nights drinks beer with his mates some nights

 

18. blow (2)

 

If someone says, "Hey, you wanna score some blow?" they're trying to sell you some

1. Pornography
2. Marijuana
3. cocaine

19. booze

 

The guys were looking for more booze, and Ted yelled "Yes!" when he found a bottle of

cough mixture methylated spirits Scotch whisky

 

20. busted

 

Glen has to go to court on Friday. He was busted last week for

growing his own vegetables growing his own marijuana brewing his own beer

 

21. ace (1)

 

Louis is an ace driver on the Formula One circuit, so he's

very good at driving golf balls highly skilled at racing fast cars an average Formula One driver

 

22. awesome

 

Francine said the most awesome thing she did on her holiday was

read an interesting book buy some clothes go skydiving for the first time

 

23. dork

 

A young person who is called a dork is probably

good at sports not good at relating to people clever at maths and science

 

24. dweeb

 

The kids call Mark a dweeb because he's

clever but he doesn't say much stupid and aggressive good-looking and smart

 

25. gnarly

 

When my kids say something is gnarly, it means they think it's

extremely good extremely bad either of the above

 

4. Translate the dialogue in Standard English

David: I thought this was supposed to be a big bash!

Bob: Oh, it will be. Stephanie said it`s gonna be huge. We`re just early, that`s all. So , what do ya think of her house?

David: This place`s really cool. Stephanie`s old man must be loaded. Hey, look! There`s that Donna chick. Man, can she strut her stuff! Don`t ya think she`s a turn on?

Bob: No way! Have you lost it? She may have a great bod, but as for her face , we`re talkin` butt ugly. Get real! Come on, let`s go scarf out on some chow before it`s gone.

David: What is this stuff?

Bob: Beats me. Looks like something beige. Just go for it.

David: Yuck! Make me heave! Hey, dude… this party`s a drag. I dunno about you, but I’m makin` a bee line for the door. I `m history!

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

According to the British lexicographer, Eric Partridge (1894-1979), people use slang for any of at least 17 reasons:

1. In sheer high spirits, by the young in heart as well as by the young in years; 'just for the fun of the thing'; in playfulness or waggishness.
2. As an exercise either in wit and ingenuity or in humour. (The motive behind this is usually self-display or snobbishness, emulation or responsiveness, delight in virtuosity).
3. To be 'different', to be novel.
4. To be picturesque (either positively or - as in the wish to avoid insipidity - negatively).
5. To be unmistakably arresting, even startling.
6. To escape from clichés, or to be brief and concise. (Actuated by impatience with existing terms.)
7. To enrich the language. (This deliberateness is rare save among the well-educated, Cockneys forming the most notable exception; it is literary rather than spontaneous.)
8. To lend an air of solidity, concreteness, to the abstract; of earthiness to the idealistic; of immediacy and appositeness to the remote. (In the cultured the effort is usually premeditated, while in the uncultured it is almost always unconscious when it is not rather subconscious.)
9. To lesson the sting of, or on the other hand to give additional point to, a refusal, a rejection, a recantation;
10. To reduce, perhaps also to disperse, the solemnity, the pomposity, the excessive seriousness of a conversation (or of a piece of writing);
11. To soften the tragedy, to lighten or to 'prettify' the inevitability of death or madness, or to mask the ugliness or the pity of profound turpitude (e.g. treachery, ingratitude); and/or thus to enable the speaker or his auditor or both to endure, to 'carry on'.
12. To speak or write down to an inferior, or to amuse a superior public; or merely to be on a colloquial level with either one's audience or one's subject matter.
13. For ease of social intercourse. (Not to be confused or merged with the preceding.)
14. To induce either friendliness or intimacy of a deep or a durable kind.
15. To show that one belongs to a certain school, trade, or profession, artistic or intellectual set, or social class; in brief, to be 'in the swim' or to establish contact.
16. Hence, to show or prove that someone is not 'in the swim'.
17. To be secret - not understood by those around one. (Children, students, lovers, members of political secret societies, and criminals in or out of prison, innocent persons in prison, are the chief exponents.)