Before we look at your book selection, could you tell us what slang is? Slang is difficult because everything about it defies simple classification. Nobody knows the etymology of the word slang. If ...

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. When we talked about “bizarro” words last week, we promised to talk this week about the difference between “colloquial ...

One of the stories our news department did this week really got my attention. It's about a UNCW professor who is teaches a course on the profession of teaching. As part of this, he thinks tomorrow's ...

Slang’s literary origins are widespread and ever-expanding. Its social roots, however, are narrow and focused: the city. If, as has been suggested, the story of standard English is that of a London ...

Often, what we call slang means dirty words. And dirty words were usually not dirty at the time of their origin or even considered to be so by the people who initially employed them (usually a ...

Slang is probably as old as human language, though the first slang dictionaries only started popping up in the 16th century. But nothing has been a boon for slang lexicography like the digital age, as ...

One of the biggest frustrations for English learners is never quite crossing the bridge from ‘learner’ to ‘native’. No matter how fluent or confident you become, speaking English like you’ve grown up ...