Why People Use Slang?

Because most people are individuals who desire uniqueness, it stands to reason that slang has been in existence for as long as language has been in existence. Even so, the question of why slang develops within a language has been hotly debated. Most agree that the question is still unanswered, or perhaps it has many answers. Regardless, there is no doubt that we can better explain slang's existence by analyzing how and why it exists.

Foreign words are a common resource for the development of slang, as are regional variations of standard words. David Crystal, author of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, calls the introduction of foreign words into a language "borrowings." Likewise, slang may incorporate "elements of the jargons of special-interest groups (e.g., professional, sport, regional, criminal, and drug subcultures)." The Historical Dictionary of American Slang says that "Slang is lexical innovation within a particular cultural context." Sometimes these foreign words and regional variations become part of the standard language.

The Historical Dictionary of American Slang points out that many groups "use slang largely because they lack political power." It is simply a safe and effective way that people rebel against the establishment. Often, however, it appears that slang is ever present and exists even in complacent times. It is created by individuals and perpetuated based upon its usefulness and applicability.

The Columbia Encyclopedia notes that slang is often "well developed in the speaking vocabularies of cultured, sophisticated, linguistically rich languages." Whereas slang was once considered as the lowest form of communication, many now consider slang to be an intelligent and insightful variation to the blandness of the standard language. Gerald Parshall, in a 1994 article for U.S. News & World Report, describes this as "proletarian poetry." The Oxford English Dictionary points out that George Eliot's character in Middlemarch, written in 1871, says that "Correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays." For some, it is enough that Shakespeare often used slang.

Others, however, condemn the use of slang, believing that it undermines the standard language and reflects poorly upon its users. Parshall notes that Ambrose Bierce, in his dictionary, called slang "the grunt of the human hog." Even The Oxford English Dictionary's 1989 edition defines slang as "the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar type." In fact, both Crystal and The Historical Dictionary of American Slang point out that Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Swift produced the very first dictionaries partly out of great concern for the corruption of the standard English language.

Whatever the reason(s), slang is here to stay, and its longevity demands attention and explication. Below is an excerpt from David Crystal's book. Crystal cites examlpes from Eric Partridge's Slang, Today and Yesterday to illustrate the many uses of slang. Partridge, according to The Historical Dictionary of American Slang, is "perhaps the century's best-known collector of unconventional English." Of Partridge's "fifteen important impulses behind the use of slang," Crystal notes that he considers numbers 13 and 14 to be the most significant:

"According to the British lexicographer, Eric Partridge (1894-1979), people use slang for any of at least 15 reasons:

1. In sheer high spirits, by the young in heart as well as by the young in years; 'just for the fun of the thing'; in playfulness or waggishness.

2. As an exercise either in wit and ingenuity or in humour. (The motive behind this is usually self-display or snobbishness, emulation or responsiveness, delight in virtuosity).

3. To be 'different', to be novel.

4. To be picturesque (either positively or - as in the wish to avoid insipidity - negatively).

5. To be unmistakably arresting, even startling.

6. To escape from clichés, or to be brief and concise. (Actuated by impatience with existing terms.)

7. To enrich the language. (This deliberateness is rare save among the well-educated, Cockneys forming the most notable exception; it is literary rather than spontaneous.)

8. To lend an air of solidity, concreteness, to the abstract; of earthiness to the idealistic; of immediacy and appositeness to the remote. (In the cultured the effort is usually premeditated, while in the uncultured it is almost always unconscious when it is not rather subconscious.)

9. A. To lessen the sting of, or on the other hand to give additional point to, a refusal, a rejection, a recantation;

B. To reduce, perhaps also to disperse, the solemnity, the pomposity, the excessive seriousness of a conversation (or of a piece of writing);

C. To soften the tragedy, to lighten or to 'prettify' the inevitability of death or madness, or to mask the ugliness or the pity of profound turpitude (e.g. treachery, ingratitude); and/or thus to enable the speaker or his auditor or both to endure, to 'carry on'.

10. To speak or write down to an inferior, or to amuse a superior public; or merely to be on a colloquial level with either one's audience or one's subject matter.

11. To ease of social intercourse. (Not to be confused or merged with the preceding.)

12. To induce either friendliness or intimacy of a deep or a durable kind.

13. To show that one belongs to a certain school, trade, or profession, artistic or intellectual set, or social class; in brief, to be 'in the swim' or to establish contact.

14. To show or prove that someone is not 'in the swim'.

15. To be secret - not understood by those around one. (Children, students, lovers, members of political secret societies, and criminals in or out of prison, innocent persons in prison, are the chief exponents.)