From a review of the new book “The Life of Slang”: “The arguments in favor of slang [are] about slang itself: it is vibrant, creative, and so on,” she writes. “These qualities might be attributed to slang-creators. The arguments against [are] largely about slang-users: they’re unintelligent and have limited vocabularies. And that’s one of the reasons why I find it hard to take sides in this argument: slang words often are witty and appealing, but not all slang-users are. On the other hand, slang-users might be perfectly charming were it not for their irritating repetition of tired slang words. …
There are inhibitions against the playful use of language, especially when you get older. There are no such inhibitions against jargon, since jargon is not playful but serious.
Much technical and Professional insider language seems to exist to hide rather than to illuminate. Slang is the same, people may laugh at you if you do not understand their slang.
Slang is unusual in how many people it excludes from understanding. Technical vocabulary is more excusable when there aren't simple ordinary ways to say the same thing. Usually when we signal via how we say things we don't stop lots of people from understanding what we are saying.
I seem to recall Robin consistently using the term "ems." I don't think that that piece of jargon would be understood by most people, especially considering the large number of other English usage of "ems" and "em."
I think calling it "jargon" indicates a positive status bias and calling it "slang" indicates a negative status bias. I think you are right that jargon and slang are essentially the same thing.
The claim of wanting to reach the widest audience is not consistent with your use of "near" and "far" on the blog without at least links to older posts explaining the hypotheses, nor with your tendency to use a certain tone on topics you are actually tentative about.
Also I don't buy that slang is necessarily low status - plenty of high status industries have their very own jargon that is in many ways not too different from slang... Unless of course you argue that the difference between jargon and slang is precisely the assocated status...
You sometimes use odd abbreviations which some might call slang, e.g. "tech" or "ems" - I recommend against using them.
Yes. "Em" and "Ems" I tried wikipedia and couldn't figure out which one. Tried "em scenario" on google, not luck. I'd say that's slang/jargon.
1|= y()u (4|\| r3@d 7#5, y0|_| /\r3 @ IVI0/\/$+3|2 &33|<
slang isn't very hard to figure out. Look it up:http://www.urbandictionary....
There are inhibitions against the playful use of language, especially when you get older. There are no such inhibitions against jargon, since jargon is not playful but serious.
Good point. Robin uses a lot of idiosyncratic jargon.
Much technical and Professional insider language seems to exist to hide rather than to illuminate. Slang is the same, people may laugh at you if you do not understand their slang.
I used to be a slang hater like Robin... until I took an arrow to the knee.
(Don't forget the power of internet memes in signaling ingroup status.)
Slang is unusual in how many people it excludes from understanding. Technical vocabulary is more excusable when there aren't simple ordinary ways to say the same thing. Usually when we signal via how we say things we don't stop lots of people from understanding what we are saying.
I seem to recall Robin consistently using the term "ems." I don't think that that piece of jargon would be understood by most people, especially considering the large number of other English usage of "ems" and "em."
So how precisely does that differ from slang?
Perhaps, once it was enjoyable to use slang and attract the company of "young" people. At present, that is no longer worthwhile.
Better to attract a flock of pigeons.
Perhaps the mechanism by which jargon and slang are "designed" to operate may be the distinction.
What we call jargon works by excluding outsiders while what we call slang works by building familiarity and comfort with insiders.
It may be a trivial distinction, but it's what comes to mind immediately.
I think calling it "jargon" indicates a positive status bias and calling it "slang" indicates a negative status bias. I think you are right that jargon and slang are essentially the same thing.
Deleted
lol oh my God, can you believe Robin said that? He is, like, suuuuuch a loser.
The claim of wanting to reach the widest audience is not consistent with your use of "near" and "far" on the blog without at least links to older posts explaining the hypotheses, nor with your tendency to use a certain tone on topics you are actually tentative about.
Also I don't buy that slang is necessarily low status - plenty of high status industries have their very own jargon that is in many ways not too different from slang... Unless of course you argue that the difference between jargon and slang is precisely the assocated status...