A Deep Dive Into Slang

One of the best aspects of the Oxford English Dictionary is its completeness; unlike some dictionaries, it doesn't turn up its nose at slang. The OED has published a two-part interview with slang expert, Jonathan Green, author of the Contemporary Dictionary of Slang. 

Let’s just wind back a bit and ask what I suppose is really the fundamental question here: what is slang?

There are – I won’t say an infinity – but there are many definitions. There are academic definitions, there are lexicographical definitions, there are definitions that depend on a term ticking certain linguistic boxes, there are amateur definitions, there are concerned litterateur definitions…

My feeling is that I don’t subscribe to a specific definition, rather the sense that slang has a pervasive state of mind. I would suggest that there is an underlying strain that goes through the entire slang lexis, which is sedition. It’s taking the mickey, it’s overturning. I have christened slang – and I am sure, quite consciously, that this is to do with that world of the ‘60s, which was known as the ‘counter-culture’ – for me, I call it ‘the counter-language’. I don’t think I even originated this, but for me it was a first.

So that’s how I see it. It’s always taking the mickey; it’s always in some way wanting to overthrow, to blow up – however you want to see it. That’s its essence. You may say, ‘Well, what about all these obscenities? Surely they’re not seditious, they’re not revolutionary?’ but within their context, the context being the standard English language, I would suggest that they are.