Slang

Any description of slang that is based purely on secondary or written sources (and most still are) cannot hope to do justice to a language which is primarily transmitted orally. Slang terms may exist in spoken usage for many years, even for centuries, before being written down; some are never committed to paper, so there is an absolute need for work `in the field' with primary sources; eavesdropping on and interviewing the users of slang themselves, and, where they are not able to report objectively on the words and phrases they are using, their neighbours, parents, colleagues, fellow-students and friends must be mobilised. This is the most exciting part of lexicography, if sometimes the most risky. The modern language researchers going undercover to listen in on conversations or setting up networks of informants at street-level can imagine themselves as successors to the pioneering anthropologists of the last century, rather than `harmless drudges' (Dr Johnson's memorable definition of the lexicographer) toiling alone in dusty libraries or staring at flickering screens.

Slang at the Millennium

The traditional breeding grounds of slang have always been secretive, often disenfranchised social groups and closed institutions with their rituals and codes. This has not changed, although the users in question have. Where once it was the armed forces, the public schools and Oxbridge that in Britain dominated socially and linguistically, now it is the media, the comprehensive playground and the new universities which exercise most influence on popular language: the office, the trading-floor and the computer-room have replaced the workshop, the factory and the street-market as nurturing environments for slang. The street gang and the prison, whence came nearly all the `cant' that filled the early glossaries, still provide a great volume of slang, as do the subcultures of rave, techno and jungle music, crusties and new agers, skaters and snowboarders. Football metaphors and in-jokes have long since ousted the cricketing imagery of yesteryear. Some special types of slang including pig-latin (infixing)and backslang (reversal, as in yob )seem virtually to have disappeared in the last few years, while the rhyming slang which arose in the early Victorian age continues to flourish in Britain and Australia, replenished by succeeding generations, and the even older parlyaree (a romance/romany/yiddish lingua franca) lingers on in corners of London's theatre-land and gay community. The effect of the media and more recently of the Internet means that slang in English can no longer be seen as a set of discrete localised dialects, but as a continuum or a bundle of overlapping vocabularies stretching from North America and the Caribbean through Ireland and the UK on to South Africa, South and East Asia and Australasia. Each of these communities has its own peculiarities of speech, but instantaneous communications and the effect of English language movies, TV soaps and music means that there is a core of slang that is common to all of them and into which they can feed. The feeding in still comes mainly from the US, and to a lesser extent Britain and Australia; slang from other areas and the slang of minorities in the larger communities has yet to make much impression on global English, with one significant exception. That is the black slang which buzzes between Brooklyn, Trenchtown, Brixton and Soweto before, in many cases, crossing over to pervade the language of the underworld, teenagers ( - it is the single largest source for current adolescent slang in both the UK and US), the music industry and showbusiness. Within one country previously obscure local slang can become nationally known, whether spread by the bush telegraph that has always linked schools and colleges or by the media: Brookside, Coronation Street, Rab C. Nesbitt and Viz magazine have all helped in disseminating British regionalisms. This mixing-up of national and local means that past assumptions about usage may no longer hold true: the earnest English traveller, having learned that fag and bum mean something else in North America, now finds that in fashionable US campus-speak they can actually mean cigarette and backside. In the meantime the alert American in Britain learns that cigarettes have become tabs or biffs and backside is now often rendered by the Jamaican batty . 

Speakers of English everywhere seem to have become more liberal, admitting more and more slang into their unselfconscious everyday speech; gobsmacked , O.T.T ., wimp and sorted can now be heard among the respectable British middle-aged; terms such as horny and bullshit which were not so long ago considered vulgar in the extreme are now heard regularly on radio and television, while former taboo terms, notably the ubiquitous British shag , occur even in the conversation of young ladies. In Oakland, California, the liberalising process reached new extremes late in 1996 with the promotion of so-called Ebonics : black street speech given equal status with the language of the dominant white culture. 

Youthspeak

The greatest number of new terms appearing in the new edition of the dictionary are used by adolescents and children, the group in society most given to celebrating heightened sensations, new experiences and to renaming the features of their world, as well as mocking anyone less interesting or younger or older than themselves. But the rigid generation gap which used to operate in the family and school has to some extent disappeared. Children still distance themselves from their parents and other authority figures by their use of a secret code, but the boomers - the baby boom generation - grew up identifying themselves with subversion and liberalism and, now that they are parents in their turn, many of them are unwilling either to disapprove of or to give up the use of slang, picking up their children's words (often much to the latters' embarrassment) and evolving their own family-based language ( helicopters, velcroids, howlers, chap-esses are examples).

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).

There are some examples of nowadays' slang which I found from very interesting site:

A: An A tuning fork. Example: Man, my guitar's way out of tune. Can you pass me my A?

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a (good) kay and a half: One and a half kilometres; the distance to anywhere from anywhere else; a long way. Example: Where's Christie's Beach? About a kay and a half that way. How far are we from home? We'd be a good kay and a half, I reckon.

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A Buck One-Eighty: You have A Buck Three-Eighty. I have always heard it this way--so there's a variant. Example: Wonder if a buck three-eighty is actually the same amount as a buck one-eighty?

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a buck three eighty: The price for anything. Example: Q: How much is this, sir? A: That's a buck three eighty.

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a case of the ass or redass: Highly annoyed, pissed off. Currently used in US Army. Example: Sergeant Greenfield has this huge case of the ass with me ever since I wrecked his humvee.

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a couple two three: I guess this means two or three. (We don't say this in Chicago. It's a weird thing they say out west or something.) Example: He had a couple two three dogs in his yard.

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a dollar three eightyfive: A nonsensical price for when one does not want to give the real price. Example: How much did my Lexus cost? A dollar three eightyfive.

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a double: A twenty dollar bill. Example: I've got eighty dollars on me, all I need is a double to make it a hundred. [A double sawbuck is a twenty. Read Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler to see fin, sawbuck, and double sawbuck in action.]

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a fin: Five dollars. (Gamblers use it for $500.) Example: All I have is a fin and two dollars in change in my pocket.

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a freddy: a pint of beer, more specifically a pint of heineken, named after the late freddy heineken Example: Two freddys and a ginger ale, please.

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a happy Birthday: A phrase mostly used by guys when they catch themselves in a situation when a girl exposes some part of her anatomy without knowing it, clothed or not. Usually happens at the gym. Example: Did you see that girl's shirt? Now that is a happy birthday.

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A List: The people at school who are cooler than anyone else in the school. Example: I'm not cool enough to go out with her--she's A list.

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a Monet: Someone who is very good looking from a distance, yet from up close the attraction diminishes. Example: He was hot from afar, but he turned out to be a Monet when I went up to speak.

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a mouse in his pocket: Phrase used to describe someone large, probably very strong, but intensely stupid. From _Of Mice and Men_[?] Example: We've got a new guy at work who worries me; I swear I think he's got a mouse in his pocket.

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a nifty: A fifty dollar bill. Example: I borrowed a nifty from my mom and she upped it five bucks more.Now I owe her fifty-five dollars.

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a pig in your pocket: Used when a person doesn't want to assist another. Example: What do you mean we? Is there a pig in your pocket?

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a sims moment: Brief moment in which you can relate something in real life to something in the computer simulation game The Sims. Usually occurs after rounds of playing said game. Example: I'm having a sims moment. This kitchen looks almost like what I did in The Sims last night.

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a sleeve: A hundred dollar bill. Example: I got seven hundred dollars, all in sleeves.

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a solid: A favor. Example: Do me a solid and send me that website link.

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a whole 'nother: An entirely different. I've noticed this phrase in the vocabulary of many people of various backgrounds and have even heard it on national TV, but I have yet to see it written down (before now). Example: That's a whole 'nother story.

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A's and C's: n. (plural) abbr. of Arts and Crafts. Slang form, creative endeavour. Example: They're letting me out of that place today so I can do some A's and C's.

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A'stake: A mistake, (Thanks, Erin.) Example: I'm sorry, I made a'stake.

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A-Bag: Real estate exchanger term meaning a keeper property that would not be traded off without a substantial advantage gained. Example: That's a good property--it's A-Bag.

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A-D-orable: Really adorable and cute. Example: Look at that guy, he's A-D-orable!

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a-delic: Usually seen after funk, mack, or shag. Emphasizes the previous word to its maximum. Example: That lowrider is pimp-a-delic.

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a-dollar-three-eighty: The price for anything. Example: Question: How much is it? Answer: A-dollar-three-eighty.

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a-game: To do your best effort possible in any endeavor, not just pertaining to sports. Example: I didn't do to well on that test last week, next time I'm going to bring my A-game.

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A-list: A mythical group of weblogs and personal sites (and their creators) who are simply Much Cooler Than You. It is worth noting that (a) no such list actually exists, (b) those who are on the list adamantly deny its existence, and (c) it is not the same as the Cabal. A-list is frequently used in a mocking manner by those who are not members. Example: Oh, one link from kottke.org and now you go all A-list on us! OR You haven't seen this yet? All the A-listers linked to it.

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a-loin: Used in the place alone. Especially leave me alone. Example: I'm having a bad day, so just leave me a-loin.

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A-madnay: (uh-mad-nay) From the French, un moment donne, at a given time. Example: We really need to catch up. Maybe we could go for coffee a-madnay.

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a-scared: Like afraid, but not as dramatic. Usually an adjective, but sometimes a verb. Example: Oh, you a-scared me, I didn't know anyone was here.

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A.R. three-eighty: An anal rententive person. A perfectionist. Example: Ugh, look at how he constantly straightens his hair. What an A.R. three-eighty.

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Aabar: To use sly, deceitful, or illegal tactics to occupy the first place in any ordered listing, esp. phone directories. Example: You will have to aabar well to rank higher in the dictionary than this.

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aaboos: Abuse. Brummie translation of the Welsh. Example: You are aaboosing me, you naughty Welshman.

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aaiight!: All Right! Used in times of intense emotion. Example: Dad: Son, get in there and clean your room. Son: Aaiight!

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aarqeunaamaaei: (Pronounciation: arch-ay-nay-mey) Used in the place of arch enemy. However, aarqeunaamaaei usually refers to political enemies. (Plural: aarqeunaamaaeis) Example: Fidel Castro and George W. Bush are aarqeunaamaaeis.

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Aazing: Like amazing, but not quite. Example: The 30-story building was aazing.

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abacoral: The backbone of a snail. Example: Hello, class. We're going to look for abacorals today.

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Abal: Used by the younger generation to label a person as dumb, uncouth, unsophisticated. Example: You're just an Abal.

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abbamatically: The tendency for an unbearably cloying song to repeat over and over in your head all day after hearing it on the radio. Example: More Than a Woman has been playing abbamatically in my head since breakfast.

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abbeverate: To feed a person a drink, to offer a drink, or provide a drink. Example: I'm going to abbeverate our guests before they die of thirst.

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Abdicate: To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach. Example: If you drink 24 beers a day you must be prepared to abdicate seeing your toes again.

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abeer: used in place of ahmen, usually as a type of thanks. Example: Paul-I'll get the next round of sodas. Group (in unision)-abeer!

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abella: Someone who owns everything possible. Example: That abella rules at Counter-strike.

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Aberzombie: One who wears only Abercrombie & Fitch clothing. Example: Trust me, you're not his type. He's only into other Aberzombies like himself.

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abnatural: an obscene violation of what is natural. Example: McDonald's food, industrial pollution, and repression of happiness are all abnatural, screaming contradictions to healthy existence.

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abode: A board. A piece of lumber used to build a structure. Example: Is that abode fence?

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aboot: About. Used to emphasize Canadianess. Example: You're Canadian? What are you talking aboot, eh?

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abra-kebabra: The inevitability that the kebab you are consuming at 3am after one too many beers with your mates will reappear in the very near future. Example: We had almost made it home after a big night out when suddenly....abra-kebabra.

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ABS: Asshole Behavior Scale. Logarithmic scale from 1 to 10 used to measure how much of an asshole someone is being. Similar to the Richter scale for earthquakes with each whole number representing an intensity 10 times greater than the next lower number. Example: Chris's extremely cranky again today. Had to be at least a 6.2 on the ABS.

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absogoddamnlutely: Ultimate absolutely. Example: I am absogodamnlutely sure I've used this word hundreds of times.

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absoludacris: Something absolutely ludicrous--say, to Mr. T, for example. Example: Drugs are *bad* Drugs are absoludacris.

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absoludicrous: The peak of ridiculousness. Absolutely ludicrous. Example: Look! That guy has blue hair. How absoludicrous.

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absonotly: Used when the intent is to most definitely decline in no uncertain terms. Example: I absonotly won't do that.

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absopause: (n) When, for some odd reason, everyone shuts up and listens when you talk. Rare. Example: During the absopause, everyone heard Rob's plan.

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absopositively: (adj) Absolutely and positively combined. Example: I am absopositively sure that Milton likes you.

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absosilence: (n) When everyone in a noisy room becomes silent at the same time with no apparent cause. Example: Three-hundred people shut up at the same time. The absosilence was weird.

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Absotively: Combination of absolutely and positively. Usually used an answer to a request. Example: Q: Will you go to the store for me? A: Absotively.

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absotively-posilutely: Scrambled absolutely and positively. Example: I am absotively-posilutely sure about that.

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abstractional-dopmology: The study of brown dots in any carpet. Example: I see you've been catching up on your abstractional-dopmology.

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Absurdbaijan: (n) The realm or domain of absurd ideas. Example: John must be from Absurdbaijan; he thinks aliens are spying on him with mashed potatoes.

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abuba: Huh? Example: My math teacher asked me, Can you prove that there are infinitely many real numbers? I replied, Abuba?

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abyssagation: A void before a great discovery, as well as a person who has writers' block and then writes better than he's ever written. Example: Any inventor has experienced abyssagation in his life at least once.

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Abyssicaletphedence: An endless nothingness of boredom. Example: James sat in abyssicaletphedence druing class.

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abyssinia: I'll be seeing you. Example: Abyssinia!

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AC: Atlantic City, New Jersey. Example: AC is a pretty ghetto town.

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Accckkkk: Exclamation. Example: Accckkkk! The monkey sold the liver I was planning on using for the transplant.

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accellurate: To add (a lot, and fast) extra minutes to your cellular plan. Example: I've been accellurated to 3000 minutes on nights and weekends.

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accipurp: A deliberate act intended to appear accidental Example: I hit him by accipurp.

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accipurpodentally: Accidentally on purpose, when you meant to do something but pretend you really didn't. Example: I accipurpodentally hit on my sister's guy friend.

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accordianated: Being able to refold a road map and drive at the same time. Example: She showed how accordianated she was by folding up the road map and steering the car at the same time.

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accribitz, deccribitz: Used in an episode of the TV show _Veronica's Closet_ when a character could not think of a synonym for increase or decrease. Example: I expect sales figures to accribitz in the next quarter.

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ace: One's best friend. Example: Jim's my ace.

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ace: excellent, great Example: I had an ace time at Jeff's party!

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ace: Ass, fool. Example: I ran into a wall today, and felt like an ace.

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aces: Said in a very excited moment, when there is just nothing else to say. From poker, where the best hand is five aces. Example: A. That gorgeous babe over there just asked me for your phone number. B. Aces!

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achecanantooch: To eat foreign food. Example: I'm hungry. Let's achecanantooch all night!

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acheye: The pain you feel in your eyes after looking at a screen for ages. Example: Acheye is really setting in now; but, boy, is this screen entertaining.

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Achoo: Used when a conversation is boring, to stir excitement or some type of response, using follow by something like Oh, all the silence is making me sneeze. Example: .... Achoo! Oh, Bless me, I'm allergic to silence.

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achuwie: A varation of the word actually; a poor pronunciation of actually, often caused by speaking too fast. Example: I achuwie am getting too excited. That's why my speech is slurred.

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ack: Exclamation used to indicate surprise, irritation, or disgust, often with one's own actions. Example: Ack! I deleted my entire inbox!

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acklapootis: Cool, awesome, etc. Example: Angelina Jolie is one acklapootis babe when she gets to talkin' about her and Billy Bob.

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aclueistic: Incapable of having a clue Example: If you have to ask, you must be aclueistic.

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acluistic: Not having a clue. Example: Those cable repair guys are acluistic.

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acrapulate: Word used for describing a large amount of useless junk collected over a period of time . Example: I can't believe how much I've acrapulated over the years.

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acribit: To increase. Example: There are many ways to acribit your wealth. (P.S. Why would you write, Please use the word you are submitting in the example? Are people honestly that stupid? Err, sorry, forget I said that. ;)

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acrojumble: Using too many acronyms. Such as, I'd love to, but it is the DFR deadline week for all KIXs and ZSWs. Example: Her memo was unreadable because of severe acrojumble.

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acronize: To provide an acronym for. Example: I tried to acronize his name into a befitting insult, but failed to produce anything suitable.

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Acronyze: (verb) The process of shortening phrases, via an acronym, for the purpose of simplifing statements. Typically used in technical data reporting or inter-office e-mails. (IE FUBAR or KISS) Example: I didn't realize that phrase had been acronyzed.

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Action tooth: A gold tooth. Can also mean to smile, as in Show me your action tooth. Example: I got some pictures of you the other night flashing your action tooth.

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adalada: Ay-duh-la-duh. Not a lot. Example: Brandon: What's goin on? Nicky: Adalada.

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adam henry: From the phonetical representation for the letters a and h. Typically used by law enforcement officers on the radio to inform another officer that the person they are dealing with is behaving like an asshole. Example: 104 to Control; start additional assistance for an adam henry

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adda be: Congratulatory phrase, often used in a sarcastic manner. Example: Your girlfriend just slapped you in front of the whole school? Adda be, doofus.

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addictant: what you are addicted to Example: Nicotine is quite an addictant.

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addictefreak: One who is addicted to something 24/7. Example: Boy, Sam is sure an addictefreak when it comes to StarCraft.

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Addy: short form of address Example: What is your addy? What is the addy?

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adevo: A generally exaggerated amount. Also used to refer to smack downs in video games. Example: Who wants to feel the adevo power?

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Adger: A mistake, or pathetically stupid remark in conversation, usually involving disastrous consequences, which could have been avoided with even the slightest amount of forethought. Example: Oh, mate, that certainly was an enormous adger you made there, and now you look a right tit.

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adipolli: Superb,Fantastic. Example: The stage show was adipolli.

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admin: Administrator. Also used to describe one who knows nothing about her job and ends up doing it poorly. Example: Slim: Grrr. Who chose these workstations anyway? And why this software? Bob: Oh, that'd be the admin.

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administraitor: A semi-high-level government employee who blows the whistle on her agency. Example: Our former boss, Harvey, sure put a lot of us out of work. Damned administraitor.

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administrivia: Small print at the bottom of written documents, particularly those written by corporate lawyers. Example:

You can see here: http://www.slangsite.com/

 Conclusion

The use of slang usually involves deviation from standard language, and tends to be very popular among adolescents. However, it is used to at least some degree in all sectors of society. Although slang does not necessarily involve neologisms (some slang expressions, such as quid, are very old), it often involves the creation of new linguistic forms or the creative adaptation of old ones. It can even involve the creation of a secret language understood only by those within a particular group (an antilanguage). As such, slang sometimes forms a kind of sociolect aimed at excluding certain people from the conversation. Slang words tend to function initially as a means of obfuion, so that the non-initiate cannot understand the conversation. The use of slang is a means of recognizing members of the same group, and to differentiate that group from society at large. In addition to this, slang can be used and created purely for humorous or expressive effect.

Slang terms are frequently particular to a certain subculture, such as musicians, and members of a minority. All the same, slang expressions can outside their original arena and become commonly understood; recent examples include "cool". While some such words eventually lose their status as slang, others conti to be considered as such by most speakers. In e of this, the process tends to lead to their replacement by other, less well-recognised, expressions by their original users.

Slang is to be distinguished from jargon, the technical vocabulary of a particular profession, as the association of informality is not present. Moreover, jargon may not be intended to exclude non-group members from the conversation, but rather deals with technical peculiarities of a given field which require a specialized vocabulary.

According to Bethany K. Dumas and Jonathan Lighter[1], an expression should be considered "true slang" if it meets at least two of the following criteria:

It lowers, if temporarily, "the dignity of formal or serious speech or writing"; in other words, it is likely to be seen in such contexts as a "glaring misuse of register."

Its use implies that the user is familiar with whatever is referred to, or with a group of people that are familiar with it and use the term. "It is a term in ordinary discourse with people of a higher social status or greater responsibility." It replaces "a well known conventional synonym". This is especially to avoid "the discomfort caused by the conventional item [or by] further elaboration."

Functions and origins of slang One use of slang is simply to circumvent social s. Mainstream language tends to away from everything explicitly evoking certain realities, and slang can permit one to talk about these realities, whether euphemistically or not. For this reason, slang vocabularies are particularly rich in certain ns, such as uality, violence, crime, and s. They can be quite regional, and in the case of easily parodied examples, short-lived, such as 'valspeak'.

Alternatively, slang can grow out of mere familiarity with the things described. Among Californian connoisseurs, Cabernet Sauvignon might be known as "Cab", Chardonnay as "Chard" and so on[2]; this means that naming the different s expends less superfluous effort. It also serves as a shared code among connoisseurs.

There is not just one slang, but very many varieties -- or dialects -- of it. Different social groups in different times have developed their own slang. The importance of encryption and identity, of having a secret code or language, varies between these instances. For slang to maintain its power as a means of encryption, it must constantly renew its process of expression, so that those not part of the group will remain unable to understand it. Many slang words are replaced, as speakers get bored of them, or they are co-opted by those outside the group. For this reason, the existence of slang dictionaries reduces the perceived usefulness of certain slang words to those who use them.

Numerous slang terms pass into informal mainstream speech, and thence sometimes into mainstream formal speech, perhaps changing somewhat in meaning to become more acceptable.

Examples of slang Historical examples of slang are the "thieves' cant" used by beggars and the underworld generally in previous centuries: a number of cant dictionaries were published, many based on that published by Thomas Harman. For example a 'dingbat' means a person.

Another famous example, still in use, is ney rhyming slang in which, in the simplest case, a given word or phrase is replaced by another word or phrase that rhymes with it. Often the rhyming replacement is abbreviated further, making the expressions even more obscure. A new rhyme may then be introduced for the abbreviation and the process contis. Examples of rhyming slang are apples (and pears), for stairs, and trouble (and strife), for wife. An example of truncation and replacement of rhyming slang starts with bottle and glass being used for arse (ass). This was reduced to bottle, for which the new rhyme Aristotle was found; Aristotle was then reduced to Aris for which plaster of Paris became the rhyme. This was, in turn, reduced to plaster. Ergo, plaster means arse.

Backwards slang, or Backslang, is a form of slang where words are reversed. English backward slang tends to reverse words letter by letter while French backward slang tends to reverse words by syllables. Verlan is a French slang that uses backward words, similar in its methods to the back slang. Louchebem is French er's slang, similar to Latin. Vesre is the Rio de la Plata's region version of a backwards language which reverses syllables; it is closely associated with lunfardo.

Slang very often involves the creation of novel meanings for existing words. It is very common for such novel meanings to diverge significantly from the standard meaning. Thus, "cool" and "hot" can both mean "very good or impressive." In fact, one common process is for a slang word to take on exactly the opposite meaning of the standard definition. This process has given rise to the positive meaning of the word "bad," as in the Michael on song of that title, for example.

Polari is an interesting example of slang that drew on various sources, including ney and Italian. Polari was used in London fish markets and the subculture in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, becoming more widely known from its use by two camp characters, Julian and Sandy, in Round the Horne, a popular radio show.

Slang terms are often only known within the community of users. For example, Leet Speak (Leet or "1337") is a "language" that is popular among online video gamers. Another example of slang being derived from a specific element in popular culture is Nadsat, a form of slang used in the book A Clockwork Orange, which borrows words from the Russian language and from various forms of English slang.

Literature

1. Partridge 13 for the history and definition of the terms, and H.M. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1965) 315316 for a discussion of the various terms for jargon and slang.

2. Stuart Berg Flexner, preface, Dictionary of American Slang, by Robert L. Chapman (1960; New York: Harper and Row, 1986) xviii.

3. DJchellette 232252 for French acronyms, and individual entries in Brophy. Most acronyms are jargon, but some become slang (see SNAFU, below). A First World War example is the German AEG (allgemeines Etappengeschw@tz=, general headquarters gossip) formed on Allgemeiner Elektrizit@tsgesellschaft (General Electric Company) of Berlin. See Mausser 52.

4. “Slang and the Dictionary” Tony Thorne

5. Dumas, Bethany K. and Lighter, Jonathan (1978) "Is Slang a Word for Linguists?" American Speech 53 (5): 14-15.
6.Croft, William (2000) Explaining Language Change: An Evolutionary Approach. Harlow: Longman: 75-6.

6. A Historical Dictionary of American Slang (2006), ed. Robert Beard, alpha Dictionary.com, http://www.alphadictionary.com/slang/.

7. Beard, Robert (2006) What is Slang? alphaDictionary.com, http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/what_is_slang.html

8. On changing slang usage, see Stephanie Smith (2006) Household Words: Bloomers, er, s, scab, , cyber. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

9. The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Contemporary Slang.

10. http://www.slangsite.com/