Poll: Slang

[Professor James]

I was thinking one day Is slang officially or technically a part of a language. Sure only people who live in "urban" areas say street slang but there also very common slang like "gay" or "ghetto or ain't."

Edit

I'm sorry, gay is more of a colloquialism then slang but I thought since slang and colloquialism usually go hand in hand I decided to say the word as slang due to lack of examples.

 

[L3m0n_L1m3]

I'm sorry, but what on earth is "gay" slang?

 

[TheTaco007]

I was thinking one day Is slang officially or technically a part of a language. Sure only people who live in "urban" areas say street slang but there also very common slang like "gay" or "ghetto."

Slang is a part of our lingo, not our language.

 

[unicron44]

Maybe more dialect than language.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Yes, because occasionally in the crossword they will have something like 16. Enthusiastic (slang), and they wouldn't put it in a crossword unless it qualified as a real word... right? [sub][sub]why yes, I am just making shit up, why do you ask?[/sub][/sub]

And there seems to be a mistake. There is only one poll in this thread.

 

[Good morning blues]

There is no official list of words that are a part of a language. You can't call the headquarters of "English" and make a complaint.

 

[Dango]

... since when is gay a slang term?

OT: Yes.

 

[General_Potatoes]

Well i guess it is now.

 

[BorisFriend]

Hmm it kind of depends,

Colloquialisms can be a huge part of a local language (speaking as an Australian, we have more slang terms than the rest of you English speaking nations ) and it helps build regional languages

However "slang" really denotes offencive terms and both slang and colloquialisms can change over time and with society, for example:

Older meaning of "Gay" = Happy, joyful, exuberant
Old meaning of "Gay" = Homosexual (often specifically a homosexual male)
Newest meaning of "Gay" = Horrible, awful, terrible, stupid etc.

So yes, slang forms part of the local language (local meaning anything from a town to a nation)