Slang and Jargon, the Tricky Twins

Many are the joys, and many the horrors, of slang and jargon in writing. Knowing when and how to apply them can elevate or doom the work.

The two are kissing cousins but are not the same. Slang (such as “kissing cousins”) is informal language used more in everyday speech than in formal writing and is  associated with particular groups. Jargon refers to the technical terminology of a given profession or activity. Both can be your friends. Most likely, they’ll be your enemies.

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses slang dripping in backwoods honey and questionable grammar throughout, and works brilliantly. Most of us get the slang, even if it may be some particular phrase or word we’ve never heard. Heck, it’s the usage that makes it a classic.

Jargon is the bear we should avoid poking often. Every profession develops its own internal language and shorthand. We spew acronyms and half-words like there’s no tomorrow, and sometimes slip up and let the sacred words out in public. In fiction and creative nonfiction, jargon should be used in small amounts if at all. Still, we accept jargon in profession-related fiction like police procedurals, medical dramas, and technothrillers, even if we don’t know what it means. I suspect that’s because we’ve been bombarded with it in TV and movies.

A lot of jargon has become cliché. Bottom line, at the end of the day, we’re talking apples and oranges. Kill those phrases without hesitation or mercy.

But jargon is often necessary. It’s impossible to write about baseball without jargon. How do you pull it off without “pinch hitter,” “closer,” and “rbi?” Do it. The jargon is the sport. If you don’t know it and don’t want to learn it, find another topic.

The greatest dangers lurk when we invent our own jargon and slang, usually in connection with a science fiction or fantasy world-building exercise. In the right dosage, invented terms add color and originality. J.K. Rowling gives us “horcrux ” and “muggle” and they fit and make sense and please us. We don’t stumble over them and the story sails along.

In A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess invents a future slang. It too fits, and make logical sense. Many of the words are a mashup of Russian and English, hinting that the world order has endured upheaval. A great idea. But, man, the prose is difficult to read, each paragraph an obstacle course of unknown terms.

At the moment, I’m reading a novel set in a near future. No, I’m not going to give you the title. I looked forward to this book. The novel sold tons and received rave reviews. The story is intriguing and thoughtful, the characters real. And I’m struggling through and I keep tossing it aside. An avalanche of jargon and slang rains down upon my fevered brain in every paragraph. Not even jargon and slang of our time, which can be painful enough, but future, as-yet-uncoined words. To make matters worse, the prose is littered with future brand names of products. A cigarette is called by a Japanese brand name that doesn’t exist yet, so it’s unclear to me until rereading the sentence several times it’s a cigarette.

I get the total immersion idea. Build a better world and they will come. A better world should be fully realized. It should take into account the evolution of language.

But there seems to be a fine line between what enriches the story and what bogs it in mud. J.R.R. Tolkien constructed an intricate world in The Lord of the Rings but knew where to draw that line. It works (even though I know readers who admit skimming the backstory parts). Rowling folds lingo into Harry Potter seamlessly. Maybe it’s a matter of taste. I eventually slogged through A Clockwork Orange and got something out of it because Burgess had a profound point to make. But I didn’t enjoy the journey.

Slang and jargon can help or hurt. Proceed with caution when considering either.

And that’s the bottom line.