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A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. [1] It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of particular in-groups in order to establish group identity, exclude outsiders, or both.
Internet slang (also called Internet shorthand, cyber-slang, netspeak, digispeak or chatspeak) is a non-standard or unofficial form of language used by people on the Internet to communicate to one another. [1] A popular example of Internet slang is "lol" meaning "laugh out loud".
African American slang is formed by words and phrases that are regarded as informal. It involves combining, shifting, shortening, blending, borrowing, and creating new words. African American slang possess all of the same lexical qualities and linguistic mechanisms as any other language. AAVE slang is more common in speech than it is in writing ...
Jonathon Green, in his 1999 book The Cassell Dictionary of Slang, defines slang as "A counter language, the language of the rebel, the outlaw, the despised and the marginal". [6] Recognising that there are many definitions, he goes on to say, "Among the many descriptions of slang, one thing is common, it is a long way from mainstream English".
Some colloquial language contains a great deal of slang, but some contains no slang at all. Slang is often used in colloquial speech, but this particular register is restricted to particular in-groups, and it is not a necessary element of colloquialism. [7] Other examples of colloquial usage in English include contractions or profanity. [7]
It's so important that the Oxford Dictionary, the so-called "definitive record of the English language," started a new research project compiling words and phrases from the style of speaking ...
Regardless, “zhuzh” — the pronunciation sounds a bit like "jouj" — is in fact a real word, meaning “to fix, to tidy; to smarten up,” according to Green’s Dictionary of Slang.
Ain't has been called "the most stigmatized word in the language", [25] as well as "the most powerful social marker" in English. [26] It is a prominent example in English of a shibboleth – a word used to determine inclusion in or exclusion from, a group. [25] Historically, this was not so.