Slang

The definitions and explanations of slang are extremely varied among theoreticians. Hornby
defines it as
a) Words or phrases which are in common use but which are not considered suitable for use
on serious occasions;
b) The language of a particular class of people; other authors include in it mere vulgarisms
(vulgar words or phrases).
Other authors do not clearly distinguish between slang and idiomatic English.
Leviţchi takes into account both diachronical and synchronical criteria and considers slang as “an
extreme, short-lived form of colloquial English (words or phrases), mainly based on metaphors
of the live type, and rejected by literary language.” (Leviţchi, 1970: 118-119). Slangy words and
phrases are always stylistic synonyms of current words and phrases.
I.V. Arnold classifies slangy words and phrases into:
a) general slang, universally understood and widely spread graphical words and phrases with a
strong emotional colouring, e.g. bob (“shilling”), to booze (“to carouse”), hide (“human skin”),
dope (“narcotic drops”), to work the steam off (“to rid oneself of excessive energy”), etc.
b) special slang, that is to say words and phrases belonging to this or that special or professional
vocabulary: the slang of sailors, of sportsmen, actors, lawyers, students, etc. and the slang of
different social groups, for example cockney (the dialect of the ordinary London people), the
high-life jargon, the thieves’ cant (cant is generally a “secret kind of language”), etc.
In point of form the following classification may be adopted:
1) Slang proper, e.g. rot-gut (“bad, small beer”), to shave a customer (“o overcharge a
customer”), whisperer (“constant borrower”), etc.
2) Back slang, mainly based on spelling the words backwards or rather, on pronouncing
them rudely backwards, e.g. to cool (“to look”), doog (“good”), edgabac (“cabbage”),
eno (“one”), etc.
3) Rhyming slang, based on words and phrases rhyming with the actual word or phrase they
mean to express, e.g. Abraham’s willing (“shilling”), Charing Cross (“horse”), plates of
meet (“feet”), to read and write (“to fight”), etc.
 4) Centre slang, formed by making the central vowel of a word its initial letter, and adding
vowels and consonants sufficient to make the sound imposing, e.g. ugmer or hugmer
(“mug”, “fool”), etc.
(Leon Leviţchi, Limba engleza contemporana. Lexicologia, 1970, Editura DIdactica si
Pedagogica, Bucuresti)