Once the language of thieves and beggars, slang is an ever present part of today's culture for people across the strata. It allows us to connect to others, to express otherwise guarded thoughts, and to convey humor in the everyday. But how did slang escape its stigma as the language of the streets and integrate itself so seamlessly with "standard English?"
Slang is a widespread phenomenon in English, but, despite its pervasiveness, it has been marginalized or neglected in linguistics. Does it exhibit the same word-formation mechanisms as the standard language? In other words, is it the result of well-established grammatical rules? Or is it outside regular grammar? Again, is slang internally organized in terms of semantic relations and lexical fields, or is it rather a disorganized, complex lexicon made up of vague words and polysemous expressions?
Pardon My English! looks into some of the shadier recesses of the English language, considering the slang terms used by different professions and sectors of society, the slang used in different countries and different parts of Britain, and the development of slang over the centuries. In doing so, it covers a huge variety of words, ranging from quaint archaisms to industrial-strength expletives.
Do you know any English slang? It's quite common in songs. films and lV shows, as well as in conversational English. In this month's issue. we're looking at 4 key reasons why you should learn the English slang as well as giving you 50 useful slang expressions for talking about going out at night. Our Film of the Month, The Hongowr POff Ill. is full or slang expressions. Another film we're looking at this month is The Hobbil. Director Peter Jackson has divided the original story by JRR Tolkien into three parts. In the book version, the Hobbit has to solve a number of riddles, which are ty'pes of word puzzles...
