Stylistic classification of the english vocabulary

Colloquial Neutral Literary

Kid Child Infant

Daddy Father Parent

Chap Fellow Associate

Teenager Boy (girl) Youth (maiden)

These synonyms are not only stylistic but ideographic as well, i.e. there is slight semantic difference between the words.

There are very few absolute synonyms in any langu­age. The main distinction between synonyms remains sty­listic.

Colloquial words are always more emotionally colou­red than literary ones. The neutral words have no degree of emotiveness. •

The lines of demarcation between common colloquial and the neutral on the one hand, and common literary and neutral, on the other, are blurred.

The neutral vocabulary may be viewed as the invari­ant of the Standard English vocabulary. Synonyms of neu­tral words, both colloquial and literary, have a great deg­ree of concreteness.