What's the difference between colloquialism and slang?

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.

Slang


Definition:

  • () imp. of Sling. Slung.
  • (n.) Any long, narrow piece of land; a promontory.
  • (n.) A fetter worn on the leg by a convict.
  • (n.) Low, vulgar, unauthorized language; a popular but unauthorized word, phrase, or mode of expression; also, the jargon of some particular calling or class in society; low popular cant; as, the slang of the theater, of college, of sailors, etc.
  • (v. t.) To address with slang or ribaldry; to insult with vulgar language.
  • () of Sling

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Moreover, are schoolchildren thoughtlessly taunting each other with slang such as: "That's just straight"?
  • (2) Chicago police say the number 300 is street slang for Black Disciple gang.
  • (3) Downing Street, reluctant to become involved in a slanging match , offered no response to the announcement last night.
  • (4) (You need to know that "dog" is pejorative slang in America for an ill-favoured woman).
  • (5) Ferdinand directed a jibe at a Twitter follower containing the word ’sket’, which is understood to be a slang term taken to mean a promiscuous girl or woman.
  • (6) As a portrait of modern society, it is startlingly astute – a scene with two schoolgirls arguing at a bus stop is uncanny in its depiction of south London slang, and speech mannerisms, and all the more notable because this is so rarely done accurately and with empathy.
  • (7) Her videos have been "accessorised with black dancers" and she uses US street slang like "rachet" (ghetto-diva) in her lyrics.
  • (8) It was recommended that more attempts should be made to subdivide measures of social deviancy by means of slang as there is some evidence of possible further differentiation of subcultural types by means of slang.
  • (9) It was a piece of rag on which was written a message describing a "TOS", jailhouse slang for "terminate on sight".
  • (10) But it emerged afterwards he was simply using snowboarding slang, meaning to "go big".
  • (11) It was the first time in my life I'd been around guys talking in slang and patois – stuff that had been passed down – and I was fascinated.
  • (12) In my role as a journalist working for TÊTU , the biggest French gay-oriented magazine, I used to think French society was mature enough to face such a debate without resorting to slanging matches.
  • (13) In Alain's work, the mixture of graceful, sometimes slightly quaint French, Congolese rhythm and Parisian street slang is very complex, but it is a complexity achieved by him as a writer.
  • (14) According to one reader, who for the sake of his career shall remain nameless, ecstasy tablets on Merseyside at the time owed their nickname to a piece of rhyming slang derived from the former Liverpool defender Gary Ablett.
  • (15) All the classic ingredients of tabloid fare are there: vast wealth, broken promises, honour, shame, "krysha" – Russian for "roof" but a slang term meaning "protection" – and a few chateaux, yachts and flamboyant women thrown in too.
  • (16) Richard McLaren receives ‘deluge’ of requests after Wada doping report Read more “I don’t want to get into a slanging match with the IOC about the way they’ve handled it.
  • (17) It turned into a slanging match in which the Iranians came to the assistance of the Russians.
  • (18) Indeed, the recent dustup about supposedly fixed parliamentary elections was essentially a slanging-match between the Blairite pressure group Progress (largely funded by Lord Sainsbury, and founded by people close to such über-New Labour types as Peter Mandelson), and the trade union Unite, whose leader Len McCluskey has recently been heard bemoaning the power held by "Oxbridge Blairites".
  • (19) Jungle don mature” [the jungle has matured] goes the Nigerian slang meaning: “the game is on.” It is a phrase on the lips of more than one Nigerian political commentator and aptly describes the tension as Africa’s most populous nation gears up for presidential elections just eight weeks away.
  • (20) Conrad also took Kimball to task for his lack of understanding of much of the slang Tsarnaev used in his tweets.