For the past three decades Professor Connie Eble has been pursuing a unique project: Tracking the slang of her students. The in-house linguist of the University of North Carolina's English Department, she polls her students every semester about their non-standard language. This long-term research has given Professor Eble a singular window into the function of language in society, which she discusses in her book Slang and Sociability. Professor Eble recently gathered the latest crop of slang from her students, so we called her to find out what she found, and what it means.
Not a Subscriber Yet?
Try it RISK FREE! When you subscribe you get:
Full access to the Visual Thesaurus, including:
- Easy-to-use interactive thesaurus and dictionary to explore words and language
- Over 145,000 English words and 115,000 meanings to find the right word and discover related meanings
- 39,000 proper nouns, including historical figures, phrases and trademarks
- Intuitive word maps - free associate, brainstorm and use words precisely
- Definitions and example sentences to master word usage
- Meanings color-coded to indicate parts of speech and improve your grammar
- Five additional languages: Spanish, German, Italian, French and Dutch (beta)
- Two and three-dimensional views - rotate word maps to reveal complex relationships
- Audio pronunciation in American and British accents
- Printing and emailing word maps
And exclusive access to our online magazine dedicated to language and the creative process:
- Access to great articles like this one.
- Features and interviews with writers, ad and marketing creatives, lexicographers, teachers and more.
- Join a community passionate about words, language and creativity.
