Word: slang
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
LANGUAGE IS LIKE money. It is an acceptable medium used to communicate and conduct business with others. A five dollar bill is useful because it is always accepted and recognized. Standard English is important, not because it is intrinsically better or more pleasing to the ear than slang, but because--like legal tender--it is universally accepted...
...would not tolerate a society where only those who could afford the best education could figure out the nation's currency, leaving the rest to develop a substandard bartering system. Similarly Americans should not tolerate the rapidly developing situation where the majority of the public communicates in a substandard slang and standard English is the property of the privileged. Slang confines those without a decent education to lives of limited expectations. Without a mastery of standard English, they will never be able to hold any but the lowest level jobs or to appreciate fully American culture and heritage...
...Liverpudlian. It was the discovery of an English city -- working class and influenced by Irish and American adventurers -- that had seen it all and was not easily impressed. A fond parodic cynicism rode the crest of every inflection; a suspicion of all things posh lurked in the slurs and slang. This was the perfect voice to carry pop culture through the mid-'60s, till things went tragic and the Beatles turned into eminences cloistered enough to be their own parodies...
Having one of your own is a phrase with a ring to it, and since the mid- 1960s, when only one privately owned railroad car rolled in the entire country, it is a ring that more than a few people have answered. Railroad slang for privately owned stock is "private varnish," and a magazine by that name is sent to some 3,000 train buffs. The American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners has 157 full and 240 associate members, and 230 cars are registered in Amtrak's Washington headquarters, most of them lavishly furnished and all fully functional...
Though designed for foreigners, the course would be an eye-opener to most Americans, who rarely reflect on the quantity of slang and colloquialisms they use. Even the President talks about making some foreign government "say uncle" (an expression from the Irish anacol, meaning mercy). Non-slang can baffle by its seeming want of logic. Is a billboard a board on which you stick a bill? Jingle? "Is that an Irish song?" a student asked. "What does it mean," another wondered, "to kick...