{"id":531,"date":"2012-05-07T17:08:13","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T05:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=531"},"modified":"2012-05-07T17:08:13","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T05:08:13","slug":"the-problem-with-slang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=531","title":{"rendered":"The problem with slang"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>On a shelf of the bookcase that sits at my elbow there are 17 dictionaries.\u00a0 Another three live, more or less permanently, on my desk.\u00a0 (Even in this speed-of-light online age, I still find myself referring to \u2018paper\u2019 dictionaries several times a day, every day.)<\/p>\n

Among the dictionaries on the shelf is The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My edition of The Oxford<\/em> Dictionary of Modern Slang<\/em> was published in 1992.\u00a0 And, considering the long history of the English language, that doesn\u2019t seem very long ago.\u00a0 But it\u2019s surprising how many entries now seem \u2026 well, at best, quaint.<\/p>\n

At about the time the ODMS<\/em> was being published, some friends and I attended a jazz festival at which, in a welcoming speech, the mayor of the hosting metropolis addressed the audience as \u2018cats\u2019.<\/p>\n

The ODMS defines cat<\/em> as \u2018An expert in, or one expertly appreciative of, jazz\u2019<\/em>. \u00a0And perhaps the mayor (or his speechwriter) thought that the use this word would help to establish him as \u2018hip\u2019 in the eyes of the festival goers.\u00a0 But it didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Some members of the audience groaned.\u00a0 And some just laughed.\u00a0 It seems that the term cat had lost its credibility even before the dictionary had reached the bookshops.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s one of the problems with slang.\u00a0 By the time it gets off the street and into the dictionary, it has either become mainstream (and, therefore, no longer slang) or it has become dated.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not against slang. \u00a0Used well, slang has a place.\u00a0 Used well, slang can<\/em> help establish rapport with the reader.\u00a0 And, used well, it can sometimes add vibrancy to a piece of otherwise-stodgy communication.<\/p>\n

But, often, by the time slang finds its way into the world of mainstream writing, it has already become stale.\u00a0 And stale slang, like stale fish, is usually best avoided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a shelf of the bookcase that sits at my elbow there are 17 dictionaries.\u00a0 Another three live, more or less permanently, on my desk.\u00a0 (Even in this speed-of-light online age, I still find myself referring to \u2018paper\u2019 dictionaries several … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=531"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":533,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions\/533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}