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11 April 2008
Unraveling the Mysteries: Tools for Decoding Slang
This article appeared in the August 2007 edition of eJournal USA.
By A.C. Kemp
English is often perplexing to students of the language and to native speakers alike. The author reveals several ways to find the meanings of new slang expressions. A.C. Kemp is the director of the American slang Web site Slang City [http://www.slangcity.com]. She teaches in the English Language Studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Since I began teaching English-as-a-second language classes 12 years ago, I've often heard complaints from students that the more words they learn, the more unfamiliar words they encounter.
I understand their frustration. One of the greatest challenges in learning a language is mastering its vocabulary, and English is said to have more words than any other. While estimates vary, the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary defines more than 170,000 words in current use — a daunting number that continues to grow every year.
But while all those official words can make the language difficult for English learners, even more puzzling are the unofficial ones: the lexicon of the street, popular culture, and insider groups. Even native speakers can be baffled by these seemingly unbreakable codes, as any parent with teenage children will tell you.
That doesn't mean you can't find the clues to solve these linguistic mysteries, though. With a little work and an Internet connection, you can be a veritable Sherlock Holmes of English.
Often, the first step is to find out what you're looking for. In popular music, for example, singers rarely take care to pronounce words clearly. In fact, misunderstanding song lyrics is so common that there is a popular Web site [http://www.kissthisguy.com] devoted to such mistakes. To complicate matters, when we hear a strange word, our brains naturally tend to substitute something more familiar. Thus, San Francisco rapper E-40's call for listeners to "get hyphy" (go crazy) may be heard as "get high fee" (be charged a lot of money) by those who don't know that regional slang expression.
Happily, there are a remarkable number of online song lyric sites created by fans, and, even better, musicians frequently post the words to their songs on their official Web sites. Likewise, many television and movie transcripts are available on the Web, in case you have questions about what you heard on The Simpsons or 24. Typed directly from the finished programs, these documents are more accurate than scripts, which can change during filming.
Once you know what the word is, it's time to look for a definition. Believe it or not, it doesn't hurt to start with a standard dictionary. Many add new words every year, and you can conveniently search more than a dozen online dictionaries at the same time at Onelook [http://www.onelook.com].
If you're looking for brand-new street terms and slang, the largest Web reference is Urban Dictionary [http://www.urbandictionary.com]. This site's content is user-generated; anyone can add a word and hundreds of young people do so every day. The definitions are rated by other visitors for correctness, and the entry with the most positive feedback is moved to the top, resulting in better accuracy.
This system has advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, if there are not many votes, you can't be sure that a definition is correct. On the other hand, it encourages multiple submissions for the same word, increasing your chances of locating the facts you need. For example, the word "n00b", which describes a new and inexperienced player in online computer games, is very unusually spelled; you'd be unlikely to think of using zeros for the letter "O" unless you'd seen it that way in print. However, on this site, you can also find definitions for it spelled "noob," "nube," or "newb."
If Urban Dictionary is the place to go for new language straight from the teens that use it, the smaller Double-Tongued Dictionary [http://www.doubletongued.org] is a great spot for learning freshly coined slang and jargon you might find in print sources like newspapers and magazines. This site, which is frequently updated, includes definitions and numerous examples of real-life usage for terms in fields as diverse as business, sports, and politics.
Since many kinds of slang are specific to one group, if you are watching a skateboarding competition, reading a book about American cowboys in the 19th century, or listening to hip-hop music, you might want to consult a specialized reference. To find such insider guides, try searching online for your topic along with the word "glossary" or "dictionary." Amazingly, such mini-dictionaries exist for nearly every sport, hobby, and profession.
Whichever resource you consult, always remember that just as a good mystery writer throws red herrings (false clues) into the story, English can trick you with words that have more than one meaning. If an American teenager told you that your favorite T-shirt was "sick," for example, you might feel insulted. However, in slang, "sick" can be a glowing compliment. Read all the definitions and choose the one that best fits the context in which you heard it.
Still, it can be difficult to interpret the meaning of several street words used together, especially if the context includes obscure cultural references. For this reason, I developed Slang City [http://www.slangcity.com], which offers detailed explanations of movie quotes and popular songs.
Finally, there are some cases in which, as we say in English, a picture is worth a thousand words. For instance, Urban Dictionary's definition of "skanking" explains that it is a dance to Ska music that looks like "running in place while flailing your arms." If that's hard to imagine, a quick search on YouTube [http://www.youtube.com] will provide you with dozens of videos showing how this strange dance is performed, as well as auditory examples of the musical style. You can also find visual representations of slang words for hairstyles, car accessories, gestures, and more on photo-sharing databases like Flickr [http://www.flickr.com]. Each picture is marked with descriptive tags, making it easy to find what you're looking for.
As you can see, for every kind of English, there is a resource online. Sherlock Holmes may have had just one Watson to help him, but for the detective of English words, there are hundreds of online assistants ready to reveal the language's secrets. Unraveling the mysteries of this constantly evolving language is just a mouse click away.
You might also want to check out some of these other sites not previously mentioned:
A Sampler of Unusual Online Mini-Dictionaries
The Rap Dictionary: http://rapdict.org
Slang from rap music
Old West Legends: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-Slang.html
1800s slang from the American West
Skateboarding Glossary: http://www.exploratorium.edu/skateboarding/largeglossary.html
Glossary of skateboarding terms from the San Francisco Exploratorium, including videos of tricks
Slang from the Great Depression: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA04/hess/Slang/slang.html
Slang terms from 1928-1941
Song Lyric and Television/Movie Transcript Sites
Leo's Lyrics: http://www.leoslyrics.com/
Song lyric database that allows you to search for artist, title, or keywords
Drew's Script-O-Rama: http://www.script-o-rama.com
Scripts and transcripts from new and old movies and television shows
Twiz TV: http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/
Television transcripts from popular shows, including many new programs (Note: Unfortunately, this useful site features pop-up ads.)
The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.
