Microsoft Word 23 ig muhartoyo ok docx

Slang Words 

Meaning 

Lame 

Stupid or foolish 

Chill out 

Relaxing, having fun 

Geek  

Someone who is generally not athletic and enjoys video games; comic books; 

being on the internet and etc. 

Nerd 

An individual persecuted for his superior skills or intellect, most often people fear 

and envy him/her 

Epic 

Being unusually large, powerful or wonderful 

 

 

The five slang words are chosen from online website dictionary which is nowadays popular 

among students in university according to the writer’s experiences. 

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 HUMANIORA Vol.5 No.1 April 2014: 197-209 

M. Alfredo Niceforo, a widely travelled Italian, believes that slang is employed because of one 

(or more) of fifteen reasons, as quoted Partridge (1979): (1) In sheer high spirits, by the young in heart 

as well as by the young in years; “just for the fun of the thing”; in playfulness or waggishness; (2) As 

an exercise either in wit and ingenuinity or in humor. (the motive behind this is usually self-display or 

snobbishness, emulation or responsiveness, delight in virtuosity.); (3) To be “different”, to be novel; 

(4) To be picturesque (either positively or—as in the wish to avoid insipidity—negatively); (5) To be 

unmistakably arresting, even startling; (6) To escape from cliches, or to be brief and concise (actuated 

by impatience with existing terms); (7) To enrich the language (this deliberateness is rare save among 

the well-educated, Cockneys forming the most notable exception; it is literary rather than 

spontaneous); (8) To lend an air of solidity, concreteness, to the abstract; of earthiness to idealistic; of 

immediacy and appositeness to the remote; (9.a) To lessen the sting of, or on the other hand to give 

additional point to, a refusal, a rejection, a rencantation, (9.b) To reduce, perhaps also to this perse, the 

solemnity, the pomposity, the accessive seriousness of a conversation (all of a piece of writing), (9.c) 

To soften the tragedy, to lighten or to “prettify” the inevitability of that or madness, or to max the 

ugliness or the pity of profound (e.g., treachery, ingratitude) ; and/or thus to enable the speaker or his 

author or both to endure, to “carry on”; (10) To speak or write down to an inferior, or to amuse a 

superior public ; or merely to be on a colloquial level with either one’s audience or one’s subject 

matter; (11) For ease of social intercourse (Not to be confused or merged with the preceding). (12) To 

induce either friendliness or intimacy of a deep or durable kind (Same remark); (13) To show that one 

belongs to a certain school, trade, or profession, artistic or intellectual set, or social class; in brief to be 

“in the swim” or to establish contact; (14) Hence, to show or prove that someone is not “in the swim”; 

(15) To be secret-not understood by those around one. (Children, students lovers, members of political 

secret societies, and criminals in or out of prison, innocent persons in prison, are the chief exponents) 

 

Slang words is formed by linguistic process that is found in morphology study such as: 

coinage, compounds, acronym, clipping, back-formation, abbreviation, blends, cockney, public-house 

slang, workmen’s slang, commercial, and also standard slang. From that many kinds of slang, this 

research only focuses on the four kinds of slang words that are usually used and circulated in student 

college’s communication. They are blend, acronym, new insight of the pre-existing word, and 

aphaeresis. The definition of these four slang words is as follows. 

 

First, blend. Blend is similar to compound but parts of the words that are combined are 

deleted, for example bittersweet (adj + adj), this one is the example of compound. Beside, smog 

(smoke + fog), this is the example of blend. So, blend is the process of combining two or more words 

to create a new words with parts of the words that are combined are deleted. 

 

Second, acronym. Acronym is word derived from the initial of several words, for example 

ASAP

  (As Soon As Possible),  OMG  (Oh My God),  BTW  (By The Way). Acronym is different from 

abbreviation.  In abbreviation, the short form and the expanded form has the same pronunciation, for 

example, Mr. is pronounced Mister, etc. is pronounced et cetera. 

 

Third, new insights of pre-existing words. Nearly all slang consists of old words changed in 

form or, far more often, old words with new meanings or new shades of meaning (Partridge, 1979:22). 

Partridge also added that Slang is much rather a spoken than a literally language. It originates, nearly 

always, in speech. The slang that is common to all those who, in less formal moments and good 

colloquial English, use slang at all. Standard slang is more flexible and picturesque than standard 

English.So, it’s not surprising that the new insights of the pre-existing word appears as part of a kind 

of slang which develop among students in university. 

 

Lastly, aphaeresis. Aphaeresis is formed from Greek, apo “away” and hairein “to take” which 

means the loss of an unstressed vowel from the beginning of a word. According to DeMoss it is also 

called front-clipping. Aphaeresis refers to the shortening of a word by dropping an initial sound or 

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The Use of English ….. (Muhartoyo; Baby Samantha Wijaya) 

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sounds, especially an unstressed syllable, as when bout was formed from earlier about, or fence from 

defence (Merriam Webster, 1991:19). 

 

The use of English slang words by college students is influenced by many factors. Those 

factors indirectly affect students in using English slang words, for example social network, song’s 

lyric, movie or TV programs, and social media. 

 

Social network is one of the factors that affects on the use of English slang words. Lesley 

Milroy mentioned in his study of social network in Belfast concerning some of the advantages of 

social network: it is a useful tool for studying small, self-contained groups in detail; it is useful in 

situations (such as school children or immigrant communities) where the concept of social class is 

either irrelevant or not clear-cut; and it is based on the relationship between individuals rather than 

subsuming individuals into group averages, and so it is fundamentally inter-subjective. From Milroy’s 

opinion  it can be concluded that social network becomes an important part of someone that affects on 

his or her style of communication. How they communicate each other is influenced by their social 

network or people around them. 

 

Music is the real evidence how surrounding environment influences people to make a song. 

Many song’s writer write a lyric indirectly influenced by their personal experiences or the conditions 

of surrounding environment. Many of them also write the lyrics according to their personal 

experiences. It’s not surprising anymore if slang words sometimes appear on the song’s lyric, because 

its existence is getting popular nowadays. For example, the writer chooses second verse in Nicky 

Minaj’s song Super Bass,  

 

[Verse 2:] 

This one is for the boys in the polos 

Entrepeneur niggas in the moguls 

He could ball with the crew, he could solo 

But I think I like him better when he dolo 

And I think I like him better with the fitted cap on