when is a word:
slang? or
cant? pr
collocial? or
vulgar? (in the dictionary sence and in common usage)
jargon? or...

The phone thread got me thinking about different terms for what might be 'non-standard" (where standard is 'recieved english')words.

how would we catorgize ain't? (it used to be part of standard english, but now is considered 'incorrect'-but its still know, (and used!))

and phone? is it slang? or collocial?

and TV is it an abbreviation? or a word? (is it correct? or should you always use Television in formal writing?)

English (certain US english) is full of truncate words-
like phone, or tarp, or fax. at what point does a fax machine become a fax machine, (and copies from it faxes?)

how is cant different than slang. (to me, cant, like a speil, is a collection of words and phrases particular to a group (sales men, drug pushers, any group) but slang is used by everyone.)

any terms i missed? and how do you catorgorize non standard terms?

dialect
idiom(?)

expression, acronym, buzzword, cliché, catchword, catchphrase, buzzword, saying, metaphor, vernacular, patois, lingo, proverb, neologism, portmanteau, blend

Your q is a good one as these terms overlap. I too have longed for a set of rules-of-thumb by which one might quickly decided into which category a word belongs

Idiolect. I pretty much have one on this board (sometimes), but not where I live.

longed for a set of rules-of-thumb by which one might quickly decided into which category a word belongs
- The snag here is that most of those categories are defined as not coming under a rule , i.e. they are only negatively defined (by exclusion), e.g. "non-standard"

[blue]The snag here is that most of those categories are defined as not coming under a rule , i.e. they are only negatively defined (by exclusion), e.g. "non-standard"
[/blue]

Yeah, but...
a buzz word is very different than slang.
(once in a while, maybe you could say they over lap--bling-bling, maybe for a while was both.

i haven't looked up specific dictionary entries for slang, vs. idiolect--but idiolect is (to me, to my way of thinking) something more like how londoner's say th (as in thread or other words) not really slang. Idiolect might also includes words like bleeper (vs US beeper) or skip(vs dumpster) or to put a finer point on it, it might be the difference between (US,North) setting a table and (US South) laying a table.
Set and Lay are not cant, or slang, but diolect differences.

The first couple of times I saw this word, I liked it. Now, it is emetic.

As others have suggested the fine gradations of meanings for these words is probably non-existent. For me, though cant is the jargon of thieves, perhaps cony-catchers. Jargon is sort of the specialized -ese of some professional group. (I speak a kind of technolect or nerdspeak, easily understood by my peers but disparaged by others.) Ideolect is the dialect of one person. Sociolect is the dialect of some social group. A standard language is the dialect of some privileged group. Slang seems to be the linguistics bits which haven't yet made it into the dictionary that scary groups speak (e.g., teens and the unwashed). Vernacular is a sort of homey, old-timey term for what the proles happen to speaking. The vulgar tongue is related to a patois, which is a (French) rustic dialect. The semantic field of glossonyms is hazy at best.

[Fixed typos.]

Good summary, nunc - I'd go with that too. I often preface meetings with clients by telling them I'm fully bilingual: marketing bullshit and plain English!