These different and heterogeneous phenomena united under the vague term slang cause natural confusion and do not encourage scholars to seek more objective criteria in order to distinguish the various stylistic layers of the English colloquial vocabulary. The confusion is made still deeper by the fact that any word or expression apparently legitimate, if used in an arbitrary, fanciful or metaphorical sense, may easily be labelled as slang. Many words formerly labelled as slang have now become legitimate units of Standard English. Thus the word kid (child), which was considered low slang in the nineteenth century, is now a legitimate colloquial unit of the English literary language.
Some linguists, when characterizing the most conspicuous features of slang, point out that it requires continuous innovation. It never grows stale. If a slang word or phrase does become stale, it is replaced by a new slangism. It is claimed that this satisfies the natural desire for fresh, newly created words and expressions, which give to an utterance emotional coloring and a subjective evaluation. Indeed, it seems to be in correspondence with the traditional view of English conservatism, that a special derogative term should have been coined to help preserve the «purity of standard English» by hindering the penetration into it of undesirable elements. The point is that the heterogeneous nature of the term serves as a kind of barrier which checks the natural influx of word coinages into the literary language. True, such barriers are not without their advantage in polishing up the literary language. This can be proved by the progressive role played by any conscious effort to sift innovations, some of which are indeed felt to be unnecessary, even contaminating elements in the body of the language. In this respect the American newspaper may serve as an example of how the absence of such a sifting process results in the contamination of the literary tongue of the nation with ugly redundant coinages. Such a barrier, however, sometimes turns into an obstacle which hinders the natural development of the literary language.
The term `slang', which is widely used in English linguistic science, should be clearly specified if it is to be used as a term, i. e. it should refer to some definite notion and should be definable in explicit, simple terms. It is suggested here that the term 'slang' should be used for those forms of the English vocabulary which are either mispronounced or distorted in some way phonetically, morphologically or lexically. The term 'slang' should also be used to specify some elements which may be called over-colloquial. As for the other groups of words hitherto classified as slang, they should be specified according to the universally accepted classification of the vocabulary of a language.
But this must be done by those whose mother tongue is English. They and they only, being native speakers of the English language, are its masters and lawgivers. It is for them to place slang in its proper category by specifying its characteristic features.
Slang is nothing but a deviation from the established norm at the level of the vocabulary of the language. V.V. Vinogradov writes that one of the tasks set before the branch of linguistic science that is now called stylistics, is a thorough study of all changes in vocabulary, set phrases,» grammatical constructions, their functions, an evaluation of any breaking away from the established norm, and classification of mistakes and failures in word coinage. See: Виноградов B. B. O Kyльтуре речи и неправильном словоупотреблении. «Литературная газета», 1951, 11 декабря, N 146.
H. Wentworth and S. Flexner in their «Dictionary of American Slang» write:
«Sometimes slang is used to escape the dull familiarity of standard words, to suggest an escape from the established routine of everyday life. When slang is used, our life seems a little fresher and a little more personal. Also, as at all levels of speech, slang is sometimes used for the pure joy of making sounds, or even for a need to attract attention by making noise. The sheer newness and informality of certain slang words produce pleasure.
«But more important than this expression of a more or less hidden aesthetic motive on the part of the speaker is the slang's reflection of the personality, the outward, clearly visible characteristics of the speaker. By and large, the man who uses slang is a forceful, pleasing, acceptable personality.»
This quotation from a well-known scientific study of slang clearly shows that what is labelled slang is either all kinds of nonce-formations - so frequently appearing in lively everyday speech and just as quickly disappearing from the language-, or jocular words and word-combinations that are formed by using the various means of word-building existing in the language and also by distorting the form or sense of existing words. Here are some more examples of words that are considered slang:
to take stock in-'to be interested in, attach importance, give credence to
bread-basket-'the stomach' (a jocular use)
to do a flit-'to quit one's flat or lodgings at night without paying the rent or board'
rot-'nonsense!'
the cat's pajamas-'the correct thing'
So broad is the term 'slang' that, according to Eric Partridge, there are many kinds of slang, e. g. Cockney, public-house, commercial, society, military, theatrical, parliamentary and others. This leads the author to believe that there is also a standard slang, the slang that is common to all those who, though employing received standard in their writing and speech, also use an informal language which, in fact, is no language but merely a way of speaking, using special words and phrases in some special sense. The most confusing definition of the nature of slang is the following one given by Partridge.
«…personality and one's surroundings (social or occupation-al) are the two coefficients, the two chief factors, the determining causes of the nature of slang, as they are of language in general and of style.» Partridge, Eric. Op. cit., p. 5.
According to this statement one may get the idea that language, style and slang all have the same nature, the same determining causes. Personality and surroundings determine:
1. the nature of the slang used by a definite person,
2. the nature of the language he uses,
3. the kind of style he writes.
There is a general tendency in England and to some extent in the US to over-estimate the significance of slang by attaching to it more significance than it deserves. Slang is regarded as the quintessence of colloquial speech and therefore stands above all the laws of grammar. Though it is regarded by some purists as a language that stands below standard English, it is highly praised nowadays as «vivid», «more flexible», «more picturesque», «richer in vocabulary» and so on.
Unwittingly one arrives at the idea that slang, as used by English and Americans, is a universal term for any word or phrases which, though not yet recognized as a fact of Standard English, has won general recognition as a fresh innovation quite irrespective of its nature: whether it is cant, jargon, dialect, jocular or a pure colloquialism. It is therefore important, for the sake of a scientific approach to the problem of a stylistic classification of the English vocabulary, to make a more exact discrimination between heterogeneous elements in the vocabulary, no matter how difficult it may be.
The following is an interesting example illustrating the contrast between Standard English and non-literary English including slang.
In the story «By Courier» O. Henry opposes neutral and common literary words to special colloquial words and slang for a definite stylistic purpose, viz. to distort a message by translating the literary vocabulary of one speaker into the non-literary vocabulary of another.
«Tell her I am on my way to the station, to leave for San Francisco, where I shall join that Alaska moose hunting expedition. Tell her that, since she has commanded me-neither to speak nor to write to her, I take this means of making one last appeal to her sense of justice, for the sake of what has been. Tell her that to condemn and discard one who has not deserved such treatment, without giving him her reason or a chance to explain is contrary to her nature as I believe it to be.»
This message was delivered in the following manner:
«He told me to tell yer he's got his collars and cuffs in dat grip for a scoot clean out to' Frisco. Den he's goin' to shoot snowbirds in de Klondike. He says yer told him to send' round no more pink notes nor come hangin' over de garden gate, and he takes dis mean (sending the boy to speak for him. - I.G.) of putting yer wise. He says yer referred to him like a has-been, and never give him no chance to kick at de decision. He says yer swiled him and never said why.»
The contrast between what is standard English and what is crude, broken non-literary or uneducated American English has been achieved by means of setting the common literary vocabulary and also the syntactical design of the original message against jargonisms, slang and all kinds of distortions of forms, phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactical.
It is suggestive that there is a tendency in some modern dictionaries to replace the label slang by informal or colloquial. See also Prof. R.W. Burclifield's remark on the system of labelling in his Introduction to "A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary". Oxford, 1972, p. XVI. Such a practice clearly manifests the dissatisfaction of some lexicographers with the term 'slang'. This is mainly due to the ambiguity of the term.
On the other hand, some lexicographers, as has already been pointed out, still make use of the term 'slang' as a substitute for 'jargon', 'cant', 'colloquialism', 'professionalism', 'vulgar', 'dialectal'. Thus, in his dictionary Prof. Barnhart gives the label st to such innovations as «grab - to cause (a person) to react; make an impression on», which, to my mind, should be classed as newspaper jargon; «grass or pot - marijuana», which are positively cant words (the quotation that follows proves it quite unambiguously); «groove-something very enjoyable,» «grunt - U.S. military slang», which in fact is a professionalism; «gyppy tummy, British slang, - a common intestinal upset experienced by travellers», which is a colloquialism; «hangup-a psychological or emotional problem», which is undoubtedly a professionalism which has undergone extension of meaning and now, according to Barnhart also means «any problem or difficulty, especially one that causes annoyance or irritation.»
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