What's the difference between prattle and slang?

Prattle


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To talk much and idly; to prate; hence, to talk lightly and artlessly, like a child; to utter child's talk.
  • (v. t.) To utter as prattle; to babble; as, to prattle treason.
  • (n.) Trifling or childish tattle; empty talk; loquacity on trivial subjects; prate; babble.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The talk coming from senior Tories – at least some of whom have the grace to squirm when questioned on this topic – suggesting that it's all terribly complicated, that it was a long time ago and that even SS members were, in some ways, themselves victims, is uncomfortably close to the kind of prattle we used to hear from those we called Holocaust revisionists.
  • (2) An immensely cerebral man, who trained himself to need only six hours of sleep - believing that a woman should have seven and only a fool eight - Mishcon was not a man given to small talk, nor one who would tolerate prattle for the sake of it.
  • (3) Comparisons between present-day China and the soulless, dreary totalitarian socialist state immortalised in Orwell's masterpiece are difficult to sustain after seeing clutch after clutch of Chinese teenagers, dressed in the latest quasi-Japanophile fashion, walk down a mobbed Beijing pedestrian shopping arcade nibbling at bouquets of candy floss and prattling on as if the phrase "commodity fetishism" had never crossed their young lips.
  • (4) The opening prattle this week is all about the seven deadly sins.
  • (5) I think they're about to escort me from the building for prattling on in an unGuardian manner.
  • (6) Melancholia itself would have been talking point enough without Von Trier's prattling.
  • (7) These days depression is the stuff of postprandial dinner-party prattle, but Plath explored the condition with no sense of its being a "condition" that others shared, no established therapeutic vocabulary, and no Prozac.
  • (8) The South Americans have played 25 games, and are guaranteed to play two more including tomorrow's match • Three of Diego Forlán's four goals in World Cup finals history have come from outside the box 7:10pm: As ITV's panel prattling on about how surprising it is to see harmony in the Dutch camp - exagerrating the divisions of the past and reinforcing the view that English society remains stubbornly anti-intellectual (and anti-male knitting), afraid of anyone who does not fear to speak his mind - let's see what's happening in Uruguay.
  • (9) Anyway, I won't prattle on for there is more live action to be found: San Jose Earthquakes vs LA Galaxy is about to kick off.
  • (10) Or it could be that the Sun loves me when I'm a prattling, giggling, Essex boy "Shagger of the Year", when I'm in my proper place, beneath vacuous headlines, herding their flock towards dumb lingo and crap bingo, when I'm being cheeky on MTV or even unwisely invading answerphones, in a way that many would argue, is less offensive than the manner that they are alleged to have done.
  • (11) Inexperienced MPs who prattle on about deeper UK involvement in Syria don’t yet grasp how merely symbolic much of it is nowadays.
  • (12) When I hear him prattle on inanely I can imagine how Neil Lennon felt when the Geordie dullard kicked him in the head."
  • (13) 2.30pm BST If you'd like to see me, Ian Prior, Barry Glendenning and Owen Gibson prattling on in front of a camera about Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement, then you're in luck!
  • (14) The forced cheerfulness of Nicholson's earlier scenes with the hotel manager are a sharp contrast to the sense of anger and tension as he drives and listens to his wife and son prattle on.

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.