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I am interested in creating slang or a vernacular for a particular group in my story. I want it to be distinctive and a definite marker for in-group/out-group, but not incomprehensible. I'm not loo...
Question
language
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-13T12:00:29Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/17270 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T04:15:36Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/17270 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
I am interested in creating slang or a vernacular for a particular group in my story. I want it to be distinctive and a definite marker for in-group/out-group, but not incomprehensible. I'm not looking for industry jargon, and it's not extensive enough to be a dialect. For example, Cockney rhyming slang: You start with a word like "phone," rhyme it with a phrase like "dog and bone," and then drop the word which actually rhymes, so the slang for "phone" is "dog." (I find this insanely complicated and I have no idea how it functions in real life other than to memorize a laundry list of slang terms.) So what would be some techniques for me as the author to use to develop a slang vocabulary for my in-group? I may or may not have the method explained to a cabbagehead character. (Slang of this type is also known as _argot, patois,_ or _cant_, as in [theives' cant.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cant_%28language%29))
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2015-05-15T14:10:16Z (over 9 years ago)
Original score: 11