Lawyers and judges go online (NEW YORK TIMES vocable 670)

(vocable 670)It can take years for slang terms to be included in traditional dictionaries. Anyway lawyers and judges have to understand those terms so they turn to the urban dictionary  
It is very interesting to note how important slang words are. What do you think ? how do you keep Learning English ? How is the language of the street  familiar to you ?

Slang has always been a challenge for the courts in cases that involve vulgar or insulting language. Conventional dictionaries lag the spoken word by design. That has lawyers and judges turning to a more fluid source of definitions: Urban Dictionary, a crowdsourced collection of slang words on the Internet.

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http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20130521_To_get_the_word_on_the_street_lawyers_and_judges_go_online.html?id=208253541



Dernière édition par MurielB le Mer 9 Oct - 9:25, édité 1 fois

Hi Muriel,

Thanks for your posting this article.
As a fan of American English, which is very far from a frozen language, I've to be keen on slang and the subject is important.

In America, they like to say: "people rule", that means that there's no Academy, no organization to state what good language is but, on the contrary, the language spoken in the real street is THE true language.
Of course this is rather difficult and uncomfortable as still more than in other languages, there're always improvements that are needed: even the grammar is moving and what was known yesterday may have to be avoided tomorrow because it woud be out and ridiculous in front of natives.
New words, new grammar, etc. even daily news (TV, newspapers, Internet) becomes part of the US language.

I didn't read the Internet page yet but will do shortly, and comment further.

Muriel,

I'd like to link the article in Vocable to a topic I opened yesterday, that speaks about dialects (mainly one) absorbing oodles of other words to stay in our global world.
This page says "dialect" but it is not an old thingy spoken by a tiny group of people lost in the middle of nowhere but a language spoken daily by many many young humans who want to live. They don't adopt slang (lol no need!) but they adopt foreign words and foreign characters.


NB: This is only a side-remark, I don't want to shift the subject of the article in Vocable.

Hi Muriel, hi everyone,

I just read the entire article.

It is not exactly what I expected. I guessed it would be more about judges and legal arena.
Anyway.
Congrats to The Urban Dictionary and to Aaron Peckham on the success of the enterprise.
I like this article much because it shows American culture regarding pragmatism, and respect for anyone (though not an official organization), and trust in democracy and Internet (though led by unknown persons - trust in Wiki method).
... of course the guy of the Oxford Dictionary doesn't like!

Hi Gérard hi everyone.
of course a language is people 's means of expression. The words are not immediately in the dictionary.
As Gérard said "the language spoken in the real street is THE true language"

Hi Muriel,

> The words are not immediately in the dictionary.
Yes but...
-1- as the article says it, some organizations need them
-2- difficult to insert in a traditional dictionary especially if paper is the support
-3- should it need a new official means or shall we trust wikis?