12
votes
Accepted
Is it a coincidence that words ending in -ooch in English tend to be colloquial? If not, why?
Because of the way different sounds developed in English and in languages that English got words from, the sequence "ooch" tends not to regularly arise in words with the most common kinds of ...
- 17.8k
9
votes
Accepted
Can "da" phrase endings used in Russian and Kannada be traced back to the same origin (as in usage, not like cognates)?
Absolutely not. Its similar to asking if Kannada word alla, which is a negation suffix and also a separate word for no/not, is same as the Islamic deity. It's just coincidence. They are false friends.
...
- 548
7
votes
Accepted
How to make a reference grammar of colloquial forms of a language?
No, there is no easy way to make a reference grammar of a "colloquial" language, in fact I think that it is impossible to do so, but you could dial back your aspirations and write "a ...
- 82k
5
votes
Is it a coincidence that words ending in -ooch in English tend to be colloquial? If not, why?
A number of those words are borrowed from other languages, for example kloo(t)ch is Chinook Jargon and the original source seems to be Nootka. "Brooch" is a variant of "broach" pronounced with [o] not ...
- 82k
4
votes
Slang, colloquial use, informal speech, etc
Slang isn't necessarily pejorative but, as you mentioned, it does imply use in particular groups. If the phrase started as slang in the '60s and has already become mainstream, colloquial or informal ...
- 506
3
votes
Sociolinguistics and slang
As WavesWashSands points out, slang is a subset of language use, so it can be studied using any of the tools we use to study language in general.
For example, you can study the interesting ...
- 2,392
3
votes
Accepted
What is the particular function of "lol" or "lmao" in the middle of sentences?
There's nothing syntactically unusual about such uses of these expressions, though how exactly they're deployed and understood is debatable: you may consider them either as orthographically ...
- 1,490
3
votes
Is there a linguistic difference between slang and colloquial speech?
Slang is generally very informal language used a specific segment of speakers of a language. An example of slang (that I just found on the internet) is the word "Bandini", which is supposedly a word ...
- 1,114
2
votes
Third-person singular used for emphasis in online communication -- Why?
In IRC (and I imagine other early text-based messaging services), someone's online handle would usually appear immediately to the left of their message. So a message like "winks at you" ...
- 64k
2
votes
How to make a reference grammar of colloquial forms of a language?
Perhaps (as already hinted) by compiling a reasonably representative corpus of the variety you are after. If you want just the grammar, you do not even need a phote[tm]ic transcription, but an ...
- 454
2
votes
Expressions derived from Italian mafia
According to the following source, the expression "break/bust my balls" comes from the old practice of cattle castration:
Whether it’s busting or breaking, balls or stones, this expression ...
- 319
2
votes
How do people know the meaning of new rhyming slang?
I don't know the research here, but my guess is that people simply memorize the rhyming slang, just as you would memorize any other idiom. Those that are sufficiently frequent hat everyone in the ...
- 171
1
vote
Can "da" phrase endings used in Russian and Kannada be traced back to the same origin (as in usage, not like cognates)?
The origin and roles are different since Kannada is a Dravidian language, not a relative of the Japanese or Basque, while Russian makes a part of the Slavic branch within the Indo-European family.
...
- 2,771
1
vote
What is LOLspeak, and does it have equivalents in languages other than English?
It is similar to Eye dialect—a kind of constructed accent in written language.
P.S. See also this question: We have constructed languages, but are there constructed accents?
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