Hi Cool Breeze,

Are all slang offensive? Or just like everything else under the Sun, they ying-yang across the language landscape? In my own language, Vietnamese, slang often (if not always) carry bad connotation.

From afar or in a neutral position, slang help enrich and rejuvenate the language. If slang are created for offensive purposes, I would consider them as language potholes. A movie that shows a vehicle swinging side-to-side or bouncing up-and-down on a road among the grandeur of a mountain range might be a scene to remember, but I sure want to be on a smooth highway myself whether I am the driver or a passenger.

Definitely, I would paint a picture with potholes but certainly would not create them (mainly due to my inability!)

Cheers,
Hoa Thai

Forbes wrote:

Hoa Thai wrote:  In my own language, Vietnamese, slang often (if not always) carry bad connotation. It is my experience that in SE Asia a high premium is placed on using correct* language. I suspect that this is because "correct speech" is one of the elements of the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism. * "Correct" here implies "conforming to social norms" and not "grammatical".

I am not quite sure! In any society, there always be ying versus yang in all aspects of life. For people, however, besides those who firmly take side, there are those who can blend in and adapt easily to whom they deal with.

That said, in Vietnam, regardless of the group of people that one identifies with, when it comes to superstition, parents might chose a slang word or even a non-slang ugly term to nickname / label a baby hoping to prevent evil spirits from taking the children away.

Regards,
Hoa Thai