ORIGINS OF SLANG

Slang is the use of informal words and expressions to describe an object or condition. Slang is vocabulary that is meant to be interpreted quicly but not necessarily literally, as slang words or terms are often a metaphor or an allegory.

First, one use of slang is to circumvent social taboos, as mainstream language tends to shy away from evoking certain realities. For this reason, slang vocabularies are particularly rich in certain domains, such as violence and crime. An interesting fact about the word slang is that it was originally a slang term for the old French phrase “ sale language”, which translated into English means” dirty language”. Alternatively, slang can grow out of mere familiarity with the things described. Among wine connoisseurs, cabernet sauvignon might be known as “Cab Sav,”Chardonnay as “Chard” and so on; this means that naming the different wine expends less superfluous effort. It also serves as a shared code among connoisseurs.

Then, even within a single language community, slang tends to vary widely across social, ethnic, economic and geographic strata. Slang sometimes grows more and more common until it becomes the dominant way of saying something, at which time it is regarded as mainstream, acceptable language(e.g the Spanish word Caballo), while at other times it may fall into disuse. Numerous slang terms pass into informal mainstream speech and sometimes into formal speech, though this may involve a change in meaning and usage.

Besides, 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”, “impressive” or “ good looking”.

Slang terms are often known only within a clique r in a group. For example , Leet (“Leetspeak” or”1337”), originally was popular only among certain internet sub-cultures, such as crackers (malicious “hackers”) and online video gamers. During the 1990s and 2000s, however, Leet became increasingly more commonplace on the internet, and has even spread outside of Internet- based communication and into spoken languages. Another type of slang, with roots in internet culture, is texting language(text or chatspeak), which is widely used in instant messaging on the internet (AOL speak ) and mobile phones (SMS language)

Certain dialects may be viewed by som people as slang, such as Hawaiian Creole English and African American Vernacular English

 

What is the purpose of the text above?

A.

to present the arguments about slang words

B.

to debate about slang language

C.

to explain about slang words “origin’

D.

to tell the write’s experience using slang words

E.

to discuss the different point of view on slang words

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ORIGINS OF SLANG