What's the difference between colloquialism and formal?

Colloquialism


Definition:

  • (n.) A colloquial expression, not employed in formal discourse or writing.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) When the Washington Post reports a boom in bullet-proof backpacks for children, it is not a good time to be a resident of a place colloquially known as The Arms.
  • (2) The prose rhythm and colloquial diction here work against exaggeration, but allow for humour.
  • (3) In colloquial terms, senior ministers in the new government should have been having more cups of tea with the crossbench members in the Senate in the weeks and months after the election.
  • (4) This paper attempts a new departure both in German dialectology and in phonemic analysis: (i) It is based on an open corpus of spontaneous, colloquial speech.
  • (5) The Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire was modified for use amongst British patients by the substitution of colloquial expressions.
  • (6) For both thyroxine and triiodothyronine the component contribution of within-individual variation to the population-based variation (the latter also termed the 'reference interval', or colloquially the 'normal range') was small.
  • (7) We can end our nation’s domestic violence epidemic by properly funding crisis lines, legal centres, emergency accommodation, affordable long-term accommodation and prevention.” Thousands of Australians still turned away from homeless services Read more Labor introduced a private members’ bill earlier in the year to criminalise the sharing of private sexual imagery without the consent of the subject, a practice colloquially known as revenge porn.
  • (8) Emad Hajjaj, a popular Jordanian cartoonist, drew an elderly Palestinian woman by her sagging UN tent saying – in an untranslatable pun on the words “Charlie” and the colloquial Arabic “I have been” – that she had lived as a refugee for the 67 years since the creation of Israel in 1948.
  • (9) The media as a whole should be united in defending freedom of expression.” NewstrAid, known colloquially as “Old Ben”, was set up in 1839 to support newspaper vendors in London.
  • (10) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem that succeeds through a series of vivid contrasts: standard English contrasting with colloquial speech; the devotion and virtue of the young knight contrasting with the growling threats of his green foe; exchanges of courtly love contrasting with none-too-subtle sexual innuendo; exquisite robes and priceless crowns contrasting with spurting blood and the steaming organs of butchered animals; polite, indoor society contrasting with the untamed, unpredictable outdoors.
  • (11) Whereas in 37 of 51 patients a normal or almost normal colloquial speech could be demonstrated, 30 of 39 patients with cleft lip and palate showed a normal or almost normal realization of the test sentences.
  • (12) Comey made self-deprecating jokes and slipped into colloquialisms.
  • (13) He was studiedly colloquial – "You won't believe this, Jacqueline" – and cast himself as the rebel.
  • (14) Being friends with Irish people is almost a nostalgic thing – we can speak some Irish language, reminisce about Irish colloquialisms and talk about sports.
  • (15) Similar changes were also observed on acupuncture points CV17 (Shan Zhong), CV 22 (Tian Tu), Yin Tang (at an area just between the eyebrows: the pituitary gland representation area, colloquially known as the "third eye") and GV20(Bai Hui), the entire pericardium meridian & triple burner meridian, their acupuncture points, the adrenal glands, testes, ovaries and perineum, as well as along the entire spinal vertebrae, particularly on and above the 12th thoracic vertebra, medulla oblongata, pons, and the intestinal representation areas of the brain located just above and behind the upper ear.
  • (16) In his commentary, Robinson writes that Chaplin "can move without warning from the baldly colloquial to dazzling yet apparently effortless imagery, as when the crushed Calvero gazes 'wearily into the secretive river, gliding phantom-like in a life of its own … smiling satanically at him as it flecked myriad lights from the moon and from the lamps along the embankment'".
  • (17) When a physician performs unprofessional activity breaking the rules of his profession, which is colloquially interpreted as charlatanism, the term "malpractice" is used.
  • (18) He volunteered initially but within months had secured a permanent position in the West Wing, latterly as the President's aide – a role dubbed the "body man", or more colloquially "butt boy" in the US.
  • (19) The voice that Plath eventually created is indeed fresh, brazen and colloquial, but also sardonic and bitter, the story of a young woman's psychological disintegration and eventual – provisional – recovery.
  • (20) He might have said "we agree to disagree" or used some other flaccid political colloquialism for the truth – that to Gordon, this lady's views were bizarre – but he just said it like it was.

Formal


Definition:

  • (n.) See Methylal.
  • (a.) Belonging to the form, shape, frame, external appearance, or organization of a thing.
  • (a.) Belonging to the constitution of a thing, as distinguished from the matter composing it; having the power of making a thing what it is; constituent; essential; pertaining to or depending on the forms, so called, of the human intellect.
  • (a.) Done in due form, or with solemnity; according to regular method; not incidental, sudden or irregular; express; as, he gave his formal consent.
  • (a.) Devoted to, or done in accordance with, forms or rules; punctilious; regular; orderly; methodical; of a prescribed form; exact; prim; stiff; ceremonious; as, a man formal in his dress, his gait, his conversation.
  • (a.) Having the form or appearance without the substance or essence; external; as, formal duty; formal worship; formal courtesy, etc.
  • (a.) Dependent in form; conventional.
  • (a.) Sound; normal.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We present the analysis both formally and in geometric terms and show how it leads to a general algorithm for the optimization of NMR excitation schemes.
  • (2) If Lagarde had been placed under formal investigation in the Tapie case, it would have risked weakening her position and further embarrassing both the IMF and France by heaping more judicial worries on a key figure on the international stage.
  • (3) The appointment of the mayor of London's brother, who formally becomes a Cabinet Office minister, is one of a series of moves designed to strengthen the political operation in Downing Street and to patch up the prime minister's frayed links with the Conservative party.
  • (4) Eleven per cent of the courses that responded provided no formal substance misuse training.
  • (5) However ITV deny that any approach or offer, formal or informal, has been made.
  • (6) The wives and girlfriends who were originally invited to accompany their playing partners on the World Cup tour have had their invitations formally rescinded.
  • (7) This formalism allows resolution of the intrinsic protein folding-unfolding parameters (enthalpy, entropy, and heat capacity changes) as well as the ligand interaction parameters (binding stoichiometry, enthalpy, entropy, and heat capacity changes).
  • (8) This demonstrates a considerable range in surgeons' attitudes to day surgery despite its formal endorsement by professional bodies, and identifies what are perceived as the organizational and clinical barriers to its wider introduction.
  • (9) Children as young as 18 months start by sliding on tiny skis in soft supple boots, while over-threes have more formal lessons in the snow playground.
  • (10) Britain and France formally announced this week they would abstain, along with Portugal and Bosnia.
  • (11) After the formal PIRC inquiry was triggered by the lord advocate, Frank Mulholland, Bayoh’s family said police gave them five different accounts of what had happened before eventually being told late on Sunday afternoon how he died.
  • (12) Instituut voor Sociale Geneeskunde, Vrije Universiteit (The process of directing self-care, informal and formal assistance).
  • (13) He was greeted in Kyoto by Abe, with the men dispensing with the formal handshake that starts most head of governments' greetings in favour of a full body hug.
  • (14) A formal notion of relatability is defined, specifying which physically given edges leading into discontinuities can be connected to others by interpolated edges.
  • (15) Formal audits of the continuing medical education activities of physicians licensed in Michigan were undertaken to assess compliance with a law mandating participation in 150 hours of continuing medical education each 3 years.
  • (16) His central focus was on the neutrality of government rules – or what he called (on p117), "the Rule of Law, in the sense of the rule of formal law, the absence of legal privileges of particular people designated by authority" – not the elimination of government rules: "The liberal argument is in favor of making the best possible use of the forces of competition as a means of coordinating human efforts, not an argument for leaving things just as they are."
  • (17) The Washington Post report is the latest in a flurry of unattributed articles suggesting that the Justice Department is unlikely to take up formal charges against Assange.
  • (18) The government will formally begin the sale of Royal Mail on Thursday by announcing its intention to float the 497-year-old postal service on the London Stock Exchange.
  • (19) His formal entry into the contest marks a key moment in the nascent race for the Republican nomination, which is set to be the most congested presidential primary either party has held since 1976.
  • (20) The formal results of the analysis show that when psychological considerations are incorporated into a state-dependent utility model, the normative results customarily obtained concerning value-of-life need to be qualified.