Word: slangs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...character is on view long enough to be irksome, or for the reader to wonder unduly at arbitrary choices of personal traits and adventures assigned by the author. Burgess, as always, throws in bits of the many languages he knows, mostly untranslated. But where the invented Russian- English slang in Clockwork Orange had a brilliant sting to it (horrorshow from horosho, meaning good, and lewdies from lyudi, people), the phrases here in Russian and Latin appear, after a dash to the dictionary, to be quite ordinary, not the keys to unsuspected puzzles...
Today Jersey Whitey, Carolina Slim, Alex the Greek and other pungent monikers of old sharks are simply quaint and colorful, and Minnesota Fats is the name of the overstuffed sandwich served at the Billiard Club. Still, mainstream pool will not wash away its old legacy. Slang like "snookered," "behind the eight ball" and "bad break" still means misfortune or treachery. The sport's new respectability may sadden those who savor the raunchiness of the old dives. For it was there, in the ramshackle shelter of the pool hall, on the margins of society, that one could, with luck...
GOLDMAN'S justification is even harder to take as the writing often employs a strange mixture of slang and cliche, stream-of-consciousness and narration that strains to mimic on-the-street realism. Goldman was way over his head in trying to reproduce the voices of Black men. "Basketball is both pastime and narcotic in the ghetto, the cheapest high on the street," or "James Bonner wasn't no fictional bad-ass like Stackolee or Sudden Death. James Bonner was the real thing," are but some of the most glaring examples. The writing improves as the story develops, and fortunately...
...though he were able to follow his characters into slang or thought disorder not because he identifies with their madness or participates in their emotion, but because he is such a knowledgeable and transparent narrator. From moment to moment, on the level of detail, DeLillo lets the reader understand, but he refuses to feel the material or to give it a larger meaning...
Only in the past ten years, though, has Spanglish begun to turn into a national slang. Its popularity has grown with the explosive increases in U.S. immigration from Latin American countries. English has increasingly collided with Spanish in retail stores, offices and classrooms, in pop music and on street corners. Anglos whose ancestors picked up such Spanish words as rancho, bronco, tornado and incommunicado, for instance, now freely use such Spanish words as gracias, bueno, amigo and por favor...