Diffusion of slang. Slang invades the dominant culture as it seeps out of various subcultures.
Some words fall dead or lie dormant in the dominant culture for long periods. Others vividly express an idea already latent in the dominant culture and these are immediately picked up and used. Before the advent of mass media, such terms invaded the dominant culture slowly and were transmitted largely by word of mouth.
Thus a term like snafu, its shocking power softened with the explanation situation normal, all fouled up, worked its way gradually from the military in World War II by word of mouth because the media largely shunned it into respectable circles. Today, however, a sportscaster, news reporter, or comedian may introduce a lively new word already used by an in-group into millions of homes simultaneously, giving it almost instant currency.
For example, the term uptight was first used largely by criminal narcotic addicts to indicate the onset of withdrawal distress when drugs are denied. Later, because of intense journalistic interest in the drug scene, it became widely used in the dominant culture to mean anxiety or tension unrelated to drug use. It kept its form but changed its meaning slightly.
Other terms may change their form or both form and meaning, like one for the book anything unusual or unbelievable. Sportswriters in the U.S. borrowed this term around 1920 from the occupational language of then legal bookmakers, who lined up at racetracks in the morning the morning line is still figuratively used on every sports page to take bets on the afternoon races. Newly arrived bookmakers went to the end of the line, and any bettor requesting unusually long odds was motioned down the line with the phrase, That s one for the end book. The general public dropped the end as meaningless, but old-time gamblers still retain it. Slang spreads through many other channels, such as popular songs, which, for the initiate, are often rich in double entendre.
When subcultures are structurally tight, little of their language leaks out. Thus the Mafia, in more than a half-century of powerful criminal activity in America, has contributed little slang.
When subcultures weaken, contacts with the dominant culture multiply, diffusion occurs, and their language appears widely as slang. Criminal narcotic addicts, for example, had a tight subculture and a highly secret argot in the 1940s now their terms are used freely by middle-class teenagers, even those with no real knowledge of drugs. 9. Uses of slang In some cases slang may provide a needed name for an object or action walkie-talkie, a portable two-way radio tailgating, driving too close behind another vehicle, or it may offer an emotional outlet buzz off! for go away! or a satirical or patronizing reference smokey, state highway trooper. It may provide euphemisms john, head, can, and in Britain, loo, all for toilet, itself originally a euphemism, and it may allow its user to create a shock effect by using a pungent slang expression in an unexpected context.
Slang has provided myriad synonyms for parts of the body bean, head schnozzle, nose, for money moola, bread, scratch, for food grub, slop, garbage, and for drunkenness soused, stewed, plastered. Slang is used for many purposes, but generally it expresses a certain emotional attitude the same term may express diametrically opposed attitudes when used by different people. Many slang terms are primarily derogatory, though they may also be ambivalent when used in intimacy or affection.
Some crystallize or bolster the self-image or promote identification with a class or in-group. Others flatter objects, institutions, or persons but may be used by different people for the opposite effect.
Jesus freak, originally used as ridicule, was adopted as a title by certain street evangelists. Slang sometimes insults or shocks when used directly some terms euphemize a sensitive concept, though obvious or excessive euphemism may break the taboo more effectively than a less decorous term. Some slang words are essential because there are no words in the standard language expressing exactly the same meaning e.g freak-out, barn-storm, rubberneck, and the noun creep.
At the other extreme, multitudes of words, vague in meaning, are used simply as fads. There are many other uses to which slang is put, according to the individual and his place in society. Since most slang is used on the spoken level, by persons who probably are unaware that it is slang, the choice of terms naturally follows a multiplicity of unconscious thought patterns. When used by writers, slang is much more consciously and carefully chosen to achieve a specific effect.
Writers, however, seldom invent slang. It has been claimed that slang is created by ingenious individuals to freshen the language, to vitalize it, to make the language more pungent and picturesque, to increase the store of terse and striking words, or to provide a vocabulary for new shades of meaning. Most of the originators and purveyors of slang, however, are probably not conscious of these noble purposes and do not seem overly concerned about what happens to their language. 10.