ABSTRACT
W hat was said in earlier chapters about the free-dom, or want-or-freedom, of the individual in relation to what is conventional in language, naturally brings us to treat or Slang, a form of speech which actually owes its origin to a desire to break away from the commonplaces of the language imposed on us by the community. But it is important to keep this side of the matter in view and to separate slang as sharply as possible from other kinds of language with which it is often confused. The ordinary Slang-Dictionaries include, not only what is slang in the proper sense, but words from thieves-language (which will be treated in Chapter X), and vulgarisms, (which have their proper place in the discussion of the social stratification). I r is also of course quite reprehensible when these motley collections are given a local designation, as though the most significant thing about the words was that they were used in some particular Capital. I am thinking of such titles as Villatte's Parisismen and Baumann's Londonismen, or Sainean's Le tangage
pansien. One form of language may indeed shade into another: - but here we shall make an attempt to bring out the fundamental differences.
