Is 'temping' a culture-specific term?
I have a character working in a short-term temporary position in an organisation and refer to her doing the work using the usual UK word, 'temping'. Will this be understood by readers in the US and other English-speaking cultures? If not, is there an equivalent culture-neutral term or should I spell it out?
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I believe the word "temping" is culturally-specific, but not along national lines of culture. An American with experience in corporate environments where temps are common would know the word. A Brit without that corporate experience might not.
In either case, the word is pretty self-explanatory. I would use it without hesitation in anything I wrote.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26672. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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All slang is culturally specific. The meaning of most of it can be figured out by context though. Certainly "temping" falls into that category.
But vocabulary recognition simply does not happen on a word by word basis. It happens in the context of the story being told. As kids, we pick up new words all the time, not from having them defined for us, but from hearing them used in context and seeing what they mean and how they are used. (This is why learning to speak a second language idiomatically from a book or in a classroom is so difficult. We don't get to see use in context.)
You can make up entirely new slang and just use it in context and if you set the context right, the reader will pick up its meaning.
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