by Sherry Umlah
Slang is like a “black cat bone” to a subcultural group. Although many people superstitiously believe that black cats are unlucky, African American hoodoo practitioners believe that every black cat has a single magical bone in its body that grants the power of invisibility to its human possessor. Slang, like a “black cat bone,” serves as a social shield of invisibility by creating a barrier of cryptic communication, isolating groups from mainstream culture, and uniting individuals through the use of a subcultural, secret language.
Slang can create a shield of invisibility for a subcultural group as it provides a cryptic way for its members to communicate while excluding non-members who do not understand the language. This cryptic usage of slang in language dates back long before teenagers started using abbreviated words and acronyms to parent-proof their mobile phone text messages to peers. As author Piero Scaruffi described, in his book titled A History of Popular Music before Rock Music, the usage of slang to hide true meaning occurred in the early form of blues music, when black musicians tried to lessen the offensiveness and obscenity of their songs’ lyrics:
Through encrypting the meaning of his music with the double talk language of slang, the bluesman was able to preserve his song of cultural reflection and sing it openly to an otherwise condemning, white society. He avoided oppression and censorship and expressed himself through lyrics of double meaning that white folk, ignorant of black slang expressions, interpreted differently. Songs like John Estes’ tune titled “The Girl I Love, She Got Long Curly Hair,” cryptically sang of needing to “get one’s ashes hauled,” which had nothing to do with cleaning one’s chimney stacks or ridding of soot remains from fire pit. According to author Debra Devi, within the subculture of blues musicians, the expression refers to feeling sexually deprived and needing to ejaculate (5). Such indiscreet and private topics were often the theme of blues music and were cloaked in slang terms that caused most white folk to misinterpret their meaning; thus, the taboo songs were accepted into the mainstream culture. Metaphors and allegory were used by bluesmen to describe irresistible young women as “flaky biscuits dripping with butter and honey.” Devi explains that the term “boogie,” recognized by Americans as a definition for dance, was used in blues lyrics as a noun for the buttocks or booty, or as a verb that meant to shake the butt or to have sexual intercourse (35). The double interpretation of the majority of blues music’s lyrics made it possible for the genre and subculture of the bluesmen to exist in a disapproving, conservative white society. This usage of slang in the blues subculture acted as a shield of invisibility from the oppressing values of white folk. It allowed black men to communicate and participate in mainstream society while still expressing their own values and cultural heritage.
Similar to emancipated black bluesmen, the oppressed subculture of today’s homosexuals has its own language which is filled with obscure, slang words, encoded signals, and symbols that hold a unique meaning to its members. Many members of this subculture encrypt their communication using words like “cruise” in place of “going out to look for sex.” The term “rough trade” is used to describe a straight man seeking homosexual sex which often results in violence on behalf of the straight partner at the end (“Crossing Signals”). Much like blues music, the slang usage found within the subculture of homosexuals can be both dirty and funny, but is almost always cryptic by nature. This encrypted language separates homosexuals from straight persons and further unifies its members through understanding and a shared system for communication.
While sexual orientation may define a subculture that bears its own slang terms and expressions, within the subculture of homosexuality there exists a gender-based subgroup that segregates themselves through the use of additional slang terms, independent of the homosexual subculture as a whole. Author Julia Stanley explains that “there are two gender-determined subdialects of the [homosexual] vocabulary, and females make class distinctions among themselves that are apparently not understood by males” (47). It is evident that the use of slang as a bonding tool is not limited to groups of any specific kind. The formation of a group-specific language is not unique to sexual orientation or gender-based groups. In fact, the criteria required to belong to a specific group has no impact on the formation of that group’s slang language. Slang is constructed by its members for the purpose of uniting its members and ultimately differentiates their subculture from the culture held by mainstream. It would appear that nearly all subcultures have formed a language of their own, constructed with the usage of slang terms that are indiscernible by outsiders. They use their subcultural language to form a private bond among members while erecting a communication barrier that serves as a shield against the oppressive influences and contradicting beliefs of mainstream culture.
While slang has been used to unite members of race and sexuality, it has also been used to unite people of a generation or age group. Trendy slang terms come and go as society evolves, leaving parents confused by a foreign glossary of words created and used for communication by their own children. While some of these slang terms have resulted from the technological need to create shorter phone text messages in abbreviated format, such as BF for boyfriend or GF for girlfriend, other slang words have evolved from youth inversing the meaning of traditional words. For example, to today’s teenagers, the term “bad” means “good.” Other slang word invention tactics involve combining two words (of slang by nature or understood by mainstream) to create a unique word such as “chillaxin:” a popular term used by youth which refers to chilling and relaxing (Greco). The inventive nature of teenagers, as it relates to language and slang, allows this generation to isolate themselves from older populations that do not understand the terms used by youth when communicating with their peers. Slang creates a barrier between generations and results in solidarity of a younger generation through exclusion of other age groups that are not privy to youth’s slang terms and expressions.
Within these social groups, which are formed on the basis of factors like age, sexuality, or race, the cryptic nature of slang can isolate its membership, or subculture, from the oppressiveness of mainstream culture. It allows group members the ability to practice their own beliefs, regardless of whether or not they are viewed as taboo by mainstream culture, under a cloak of invisibility.
In addition to shielding subcultures from mainstream culture, slang serves several purposes in communication and relationship-building, including using it to impress others and fit in with specific social groups. As author Julie Coleman describes, in her book titled Life of Slang,“Slang creates in-groups and out-groups and acts as an emblem of belonging” (3). Slang is often used by individuals to form a bond with others through shared language and experience. In the early days, blues music and African song lyrics focused on shared, painful experiences, like their history of slavery and oppression. Scaruffi explains that black slaves used music and song lyrics as a form of emotional expression of daily activities, such as work tasks or parties. They united together through song lyrics that allowed them to release unpleasant emotion in the form of humorous or derogatory slang. In a similar bonding fashion, David Paul Gordon from the Institute of Human Learning at the University of California, Berkeley, believes that pained hospital patients also use slang to promote group rapport:
As in the case of hospital patients and slaves, slang can be used as a tool for uniting groups of individuals who share similar beliefs, pain, anxiety, or life experiences. Slang is also often sourced from or referenced in mainstream mass media: entertainment, news, sports, computer games, or television shows which Americans use as a base of common knowledge for bonding socially with one another. It is no surprise that mass media is a common source for the offspring of related slang expressions like “pulling a Trayvon Martin:” a slang phrase which can be defined as bringing a poor attitude and no weapon to a gunfight. Mass media introduced Trayvon Martin to America as a young black youth, seventeen years young, who was fatally shot by a community neighborhood watch coordinator, despite being unarmed (Hanley). The only items held in the hands of Trayvon were a can of Arizona Iced Tea® and a pack of Skittles® candy. As this news spread through mainstream culture, Skittles candy became a subcultural symbol that was used as a focal point in photographs by advocacy group members who demanded justice in the killing of young Trayvon Martin. To other subcultural groups, however, the terms “skittles” and “tea” are associated with illegal drugs. For example, “tea” was used as a slang term by author Jack Kerouac when referring to marijuana in his novel titled On the Road: “You could smell tea, weed, I mean marijuana, floating in the air, together with the chili beans and beer” (I.13.2). The term “skittles” is a street name, or cryptic slang term, used as a cloaking label for the drug Dextromethorphan:
Since these terms have different meanings to members of different subcultures, stating that Trayvon Martin was found dead with skittles and tea in-hand could leave members of separate subcultures with two different impressions: 1) Trayvon was an innocent child who enjoyed consuming candy and tea beverages; or 2) Trayvon was a deviant youth who possessed illegal drugs. Regardless of whether a person sided with the deceased or the shooter in the killing of Trayvon Martin and the court trial that ensued, depending on which social group one belonged to, the story has a very different meaning when considering the usage and interpretation of slang words. This particular example of mass media’s influence on slang also depicts several groups’ varying usage of slang to represent a single word. From drug users’ attribution of popular candy names for illegal drugs to anti-racist advocates’ use of the same candy as a symbol for justice, societal groups unite through a shared definition of language, symbols, and slang. This act is independent of the attribution of definitions by other subcultures to the same word.
A shared language unites a group of individuals through creating social boundaries between groups and identification within a subculture. As author Julia Stanley explains in an issue of American Speech journal:
The usage of slang vocabulary by an individual allows him or her to identify with other users through subcultural participation in language. For example, asking another individual for “skittles” could be a completely innocent request between two children at the playground that results in bonding over a shared love for candy. However, in the context of a subculture of drug users and sellers, this seemingly innocent request becomes a cryptic plea to participate in, and bond through, the illegal activity of buying and selling drugs. Until law enforcement catches on to the meaning of the new slang term, its candy label also cloaks its identity; thus, slang allows members of an illegal drug subculture to more freely communicate within a society that prohibits drug abuse. This is similar to the blues musician’s usage of cryptic slang terms as a means for hiding communication behind the lyrics of his songs. Both obscene language and drug abuse are frowned upon by a virtuous society that values its own beliefs, ethics, and moral foundation. To exist and hold a set of values contrary to mainstream’s beliefs requires a secret language that can unite one with others who hold similar beliefs.
While the use of slang can unify its speakers, it can also create outcasts and a significant, linguistic division between societal groups. Teens often use slang to create social boundaries between teens and adults, in addition to establishing boundaries between each other. Although there is an obvious time-consumption advantage in the act of shortening the length of text messages through the invention of slang and abbreviated words, teenagers are not ignorant to the cloaking effect slang possesses. Teenagers can speak a slang language of their own in an attempt to encrypt their conversation and prevent parents from understanding. While this deceptive behavior may not always be the intent of the teenager, it is often the result because parents are not familiar with the terms used by their children for everyday conversation. Parents become outcasts as a communication barrier is erected between their selves and their children.
Through the use of slang in communication, linguistic barriers are erected to unify or divide societal groups, making it possible for subcultures to isolate themselves from mainstream culture. Best defined by a New York Times article, slang “[…] delineates a kind of cultural and spiritual geography — membership, so to say, in a clan of speakers” (Klinkenborg). Slang is often used by its adopters to communicate openly, yet cryptically, with like-minded individuals in an environment where the conversation topic would not be acceptable to others. It provides them with the ability to communicate using a language that is not understood by disapproving people outside their group. Some view this usage of cryptic language as secretive and believe that slang, used for this purpose, inevitably leads to deviant behavior (Devi 3). One can argue that purposely excluding others from conversation through the usage of cryptic language is inconsiderate and uncivil. However, purposeful modification of language occurs often and with good intention, as adults shield and exclude younger, impressionable listeners from harmful, mature conversation. Hospitals also use a self-defined system of numerical codes to cryptically announce hazards and emergencies over public intercoms without causing panic to unaffected listeners. Retail clerks broadcast encrypted codes over store speakers to call for security without alerting offending shoplifters. These are merely a few examples of using a form of cryptic language to better society instead of using it for deviant purposes. In addition to using targeted language to exclude individuals, society also modifies speech to target and capture the attention of a specific audience. For example, the practice of marketing consumer products is founded heavily on the ability to modify language in an attempt to intentionally include and connect with others. Building relationships requires this ability to communicate through inclusion and exclusion of individuals, through encryption and decryption of hidden meaning, and observation and interpretation of each other’s beliefs and values that are expressed with words. It is no surprise that this communication practice of relationship-building also applies to society’s formation of subcultures through the usage of slang.
Within subcultures, the usage of slang acts as a cloak of invisibility that is constructed with encrypted communication. It isolates groups from mainstream culture and unites individuals through a secret, insider language. Obtaining unity through this invention and usage of slang, much like obtaining a “black cat bone,” can happen in a plethora of ways. As African American hoodoo practitioners describe, one of the methods for obtaining a magical bone is to boil a black cat and place each of its bones on one’s tongue until one of the bones makes the tongue’s owner invisible (Devi 21). Slang, rolling off the tongue of its speaker, has a similar, magical way of making one invisible to mainstream culture and frees him to honor and practice his own beliefs with like-minded persons.
Works Cited
Coleman, Julie. Life of Slang. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.
“Crossing Signals.” Time 106.10 (1975): 57. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Jan. 2013.
Devi, Debra. The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu. New York: Billboard, 2006. Print.
“Dextromethorphan.” Drug Enforcement Administration Diversion Control Program. U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration, July 2012. Web. 01 Jan. 2013. < http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drugs_concern/dextro_m/dextro_m.pdf />.
Estes, John Adam. “The Girl I Love, She Got Long Curly Hair.” Perf. Johnny Hardge and James Rachell. Rec. 24 Sept. 1929. Victor V-38549-B. Sleepy John Estes. Victor Talking Machine Co., 1929. Orthophonic recording.
Gordon, David Paul. “Hospital Slang for Patients: Crocks, Gomers, Groks, and Others.” Language in Society 12.02 (1983): 173-85. Print.
Greco, Patricia. “Say What? A Glossary Of Teen Slang.” Good Housekeeping 242.5 (2006): 158-160. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Jan. 2013.
Hanley, Delinda C. “Trayvon Martin And “The Talk” No American Child Should Have To Hear.” Washington Report On Middle East Affairs 31.3 (2012): 34-37. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Jan. 2013.
Kerouac, Jack. “I.13.2.” On the Road. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin, 1991. Print.
Scaruffi, Piero. A History of Popular Music before Rock Music. Scaruffi, 2002. Web. 1 Jan. 2013
Stanley, Julia P. “Homosexual Slang.” American Speech. Spring-Summer (1970): 47. Print.
Verlyn, Klinkenborg. “Editorial Observer; Collecting Three Centuries of American Slang.” New York Times Dec. 1997: 20. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Jan. 2013.