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#151787 - 12/08/05 05:14 PM learning the lingo
of troy Carpal Tunnel Registered: 10/17/00 Posts: 5400 Loc: rego park	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? _________________________ my other obsession
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#151788 - 12/08/05 05:51 PM Re: learning the lingo
tsuwm Carpal Tunnel Registered: 04/03/00 Posts: 10463 Loc: this too shall pass	dialect idiom(?)
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#151789 - 12/08/05 08:02 PM Re: learning the lingo
dalehileman Pooh-Bah Registered: 07/10/05 Posts: 1773 Loc: Apple Valley, CA, USA	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 _________________________ dalehileman
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#151790 - 12/08/05 08:31 PM Re: learning the lingo
Jackie Carpal Tunnel Registered: 03/15/00 Posts: 11578 Loc: Louisville, Kentucky	Idiolect. I pretty much have one on this board (sometimes), but not where I live.
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#151791 - 12/09/05 03:36 AM Re: learning the lingo
wsieber old hand Registered: 03/15/00 Posts: 1010 Loc: Switzerland	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"
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#151792 - 12/09/05 07:49 AM Re: learning the lingo
of troy Carpal Tunnel Registered: 10/17/00 Posts: 5400 Loc: rego park	[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. _________________________ my other obsession
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#151793 - 12/09/05 09:01 AM Re: bling-bling
inselpeter Pooh-Bah Registered: 03/14/01 Posts: 2379 Loc: New York City	The first couple of times I saw this word, I liked it. Now, it is emetic.
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#151794 - 12/09/05 09:48 AM Re: learning the lingo
zmjezhd Carpal Tunnel Registered: 08/13/05 Posts: 3268 Loc: R'lyeh	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.] Edited by zmjezhd (12/09/05 12:14 PM)
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#151795 - 12/09/05 11:32 AM Re: learning the lingo
maverick Carpal Tunnel Registered: 09/15/00 Posts: 4757	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!
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