Slang, By Sara Cherrouk

As I went on my phone one morning I received a text off my mum saying "Morning you butterz sket, luv you." My response to her was "Morning m8, how you doing?" Me and my mum tend to use slang like this a lot; we primarily use it because we know it's not serious as both of us understand each other's sense of humour, so we use it just for fun.

Slang is a type of language that consists of many words and phrases that are seen as very informal, slang is commonly used all around the world during texts, phone calls, online discussions but mostly in speech than writing. This led me to think about the use of slang used by both British and American speakers, during this I came across two books which spoke about the differences between British and American slang and the grammar differences.

• Zoltan Kovceses, 2000, American English: An Introduction.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1-sL6hIbW-MC&pg=PP6&lpg=PP1&dq=American+english+an+introduction#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

• John Algeo, 2006, British Or American English?: A Handbook of Word and Grammar Patterns.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/British-American-English-Handbook-Patterns/dp/0521379938/ref=sr_1_fkmr3_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1371987589&sr=8-3-fkmr3&keywords=British+or+American+English%3F%3A+A+handbook+of+word+and+grammer+patterns

 

Many people use slang, it is used by people in all different types of social groups and social classes in different places around the globe. Slang is associated with "Jargon" as it is like "shoptalk" words and expressions used by any group, as a language trade. People use slang for a variety of many different things such as to be different, to fit in with people from other social groups, for sarcasm or for their own personal amusement and other people's personal amusement. The use of slang can determine what age, social class or group they are from and in what area(s) they are originated from.

 

British and American slang varies in many different ways, for an example many expressions used by British people American people don't understand and the same with expressions used by American people, British people don't understand them; over the years many slang expressions and terms have drifted around the word that now are used in different terms which have different meanings. A website that I found shows numerous examples of slang terms which are used by both American and British speakers.

 

• http://www.alainenthusiast.com/miscellaneous/british-and-american-slang-terms/

The thought of different genders using slang led me to research about dies slang differentiate with gender? During this I didn't find any information or sources to prove whether this statement is true or not. In personal opinion I think that it does, as many male's use taboo slang terms more often than females do, from what I hear on day to day daily basis. One thing that I did find was a website with an article about Gender roles and a book that is available to purchase.

 

• http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1025644921272

 

Quoted from Henry David Thoreau's book Walking he once said "It's too late to be studying Hebrew; it's more important to understand even the slang of today." This basically means that the growth of slang is spreading worldwide and it's more useful to know the language of slang than it is to be learning another language such as Hebrew.