Anthony Burgess

J. B. Priestley

Raymond Chandler

Slang, according to Wikipedia, is the use of highly informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's dialect or language. Slang is very often colloquial; the language and dialect tend to be specific to a particular territory.

…slang sometimes forms a kind of sociolect aimed at excluding certain people from the conversation. Slang words tend to function initially as a means of obfuscation, so that the non-initiate cannot understand the conversation The use of slang is a means of recognizing members of the same group, and to differentiate that group from society at large. In addition to this, slang can be used and created purely for humorous or expressive effect. As informal as it may seem, slang is commonly used among college proffesors (sic) and high-ranked governmental figures. (1)

The study of language reveals a great deal about human psychology; in this case, it reflects the urge to form secret societies and clubs, and the desire of others who are not part of the in crowd to fit in. Like fashion, it spills over into other segments of society, its origins are obscured or forgotten, and new slang is invented or evolves as the old slang is dropped or incorporated into the standard vocabulary over time. (Interestingly, I expected "thieves' cant" to be wholly unfamiliar, and instead, found that I could guess the meaning of many of the words; some are still in use today. On the other hand, being American, I just throw up my hands in exasperation over Cockney Rhyming Slang. Go ahead, talk behind my flour sack and see if I curl my hair.)

Have you ever made up a word, just to see how far it will travel and how readily it will be adopted?

Slang can also be an expression of carelessness. Over time, slang loses the ability to limit communication to the members of a particular group within society at large. What at first seems "cool," funny, cute, fashionable, or novel enough to incorporate into one's own speech or writing becomes mere habit and no longer expresses any real thought. Come to think of it, the excluded speakers who only picked it up a particular form of slang in order to be part of the in crowd probably never gave much thought to the deeper meaning inherent in the words, anyway.

One of my goals for this year – as established for me by my eleven-year-old son, no doubt in an attempt to curry favor with his Language Arts teacher – is to "stop using the word 'like' inappropriately," like, well, you know. I have to pay William a quarter each time I slip back into bad habits and misuse “like.” It’s one of his teacher’s pet peeves, and fortunately is not a habit my son has picked up, so he catches me at it every time. I think I owe him about twelve dollars and fifty cents, now! That’s like, a fortune, or something.

(From the Historical Dictionary of American Slang, http://www.alphadictionary.com/slang/)

So, my misuse of the word “like” apparently dates back to the 1960s and is a form of speech punctuation (not much better than “um,” or “uh,” when you put it in that context). Unfortunately, there are others. It would seem that in our attempt to expunge the words "uh," "um," "er," "ah," and their ilk from our speech, we have picked up other unsavory hitchhikers along the way. We now punctuate speech with four-letter words, and I don't mean "love." The infamous F-word – given the appropriate suffixes - can now serve as a verb, noun, gerund, adjective, adverb, comma, semicolon, exclamation, epithet (well, it's always done duty as an epithet), euphemism (I shudder to think what's worse, but I could give examples)… An amazingly versatile word, the F-word, it still isn't welcome in polite society. Drop a quarter in the bucket, vow to sin no more, and move along…

(1) Wikipedia contributors, "Slang," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slang&oldid=121633265 (accessed April 10, 2007).

(2) Historical Dictionary of American Slang, http://www.alphadictionary.com/slang/ (accessed April 10, 2007).

Remember when I first started doing the For Authors Newsletter, on "December 21, 2004: jessiebelle" ? I presented you with an exercise on rhetorical devices, or figures of speech. (Go ahead, click the link – this issue will wait.) A few intrepid readers actually attempted it.

Imagine my delight to find this blog: "It Figures: Figures of Speech" (http://www.figarospeech.com/), which presents real-world, modern day examples; political commentary; and social criticism to illustrate the use of classical rhetorical devices.

Now, you try it – send me your examples!

It's an occupational hazard. I feel compelled to point out the typos on the menu at nice restaurants. I have an urge to climb billboards with cans of whitewash and red paint. I have even considered carrying a bucket of plastic letters around in the trunk of my car for emergencies. Normal people just snicker, feel superior, and move on. Me? I grab a Sharpie.

I think there must be some foul movement afoot (a conspiracy of stinky feet, if you will), to change the rules on how to construct a plural noun. On what planet does this require an apostrophe? It is not tree's in a forest or sock's for sale or cheeseburger's in a family meal deal – nor is it desks' in an office or cars' on the lot or bowls' of rice. A simple "s" will suffice.

It's vs. its is harder to remember, with good reason. I'm willing to excuse the confusion once or twice. Just remember that an apostrophe that is standing in for a letter, working extra hard, trumps one that's just showing ownership or denoting possession:

On the other hand, you cannot stick an apostrophe in where an "e" is needed. In other words, it's "Tomatoes $1.00/pound" not "Tomato's $1.00/pound."

You think it doesn't matter? Watch Jay Leno's "The Headlines." Unless it's just a desperate attempt to get your writing featured (and ridiculed) on The Tonight Show, it matters.

{link:http://www.c00lstuff.com/467/Best_Of_Jay_Leno_Headlines_Video_Compilation/ }

{user: }

April Sunday writes:

Jess, glad to read your feedback. Links great. Thanx. Slang -- do slang!

PSanta-I'm ba-ack! writes:

In his story The Stone Thing, Michael Moorcock manages to create a sentence that is a page and a half long, but grammatically correct.

NotFrodo

Jay Bingham writes:

Run-on sentences are bad. But, you know, every once in a while, like anything else, there's just a time and a place where you have to start stringing words together in any arrangement that carries the feeling and emotion and just forget about periods, period, and keep putting words together until you feel like you're gonna pop, or need to stop and take a breath, or something, and you know a comma's just not gonna do the job for you, so you keep going and going and going like an Energizer bunny, only you're writing and not banging on a drum. Besides, they're fun to write, and you can always go edit them later if you need to.

What you're describing here is "pressured speech." Or you're doing a really frightening imitation of James Joyce. -- Jessiebelle

monty31802 writes:

Written with a profound effect on me.

Thanks for the great newletter.

windac writes:

Excellent NL Jessiebelle! It's good to know that I'm not the only dufus out there (hopefully) that at times that grapples with the comma vs semi-colon vs dash dilemma. Thanks for the reminders!!

darkin writes:

Wonderful newsletter. Very informative. I'm going to keep this one in my note pad, where I can find it quickly

Darkin

Vivian writes:

Uh, Jessie, you forgot the comma needed with the conjunction to correct the comma-splice into a correct compound sentence. You created another run-on with "Jim is a photographer and he teaches digital photography at the local high school." A comma is needed after the word photogrpaher. Hmmm ... wonder how many times I'll now get the response from a review telling me that Jessiebelle™ wrote that was correct? ~~ Viv

Awww, dang it!! I meant to take out the word "he" after "and." More troublesome, yet – did I misspell photographer, or did you? Written that way, it looks like – never mind. Okay, so we're about to play "choose your authority" – time to gird our loins (my son wants to know where our "loins" are and how we "gird" them, and I'm thinking eleven's too young for that conversation – what do you think, Viv?), prepare for the onslaught of email, and provide a united front… Folks, Viv's right. I should've stricken "he" from that sentence. -- Jessiebelle

Ronis brain tumor is gone! writes:

Awesome Newsletter, Will be coming back to this for references! I can't wait to see your next one!

Seisa-sleepingcatbooks.com writes:

Jessiebelle thanks for the great newsletter about punctuation and run-on sentences! I was a technical writer and editor in a previous incarnation, so I am particularly attuned to these things, as well as poor grammar and spelling. I find it very distracting to try to read a piece with lots of errors that others would probably consider minor. That's why most of my reviews consist mainly of pointing them out! Wink

I'm a technical writer and editor in this incarnation. You could've warned me while there was still time to pick something else, like fishmongerer! -- Jessiebelle

schrijvert writes:

Hi Jessiebelle,

As a Dutchman, my lack of knowledge about English grammar rules is rather apparent in my writing. Are there web sites where I can "go back to school" to boost my proficiency?

I'd suggest perusing back issues of the For Authors Newsletter, where you'll find a number of pointers and related links. When I run across a great tutorial or English language reference site, I try to remember to share it here. -- Jessiebelle