hings and actions," suggesting that slang emerges out of social interplay:
[S]ome invent new words, or mutilate or misapply the old, for the pleasure of novelty, and others catch up with words for the pleasure of being in the fashion; many slang words and phrases perish, a few establish themselves; in either case, during probation they are accounted unfit for literary [formal] use (Fowler, 1950, p. 308).
The circle out of which slang emerges is necessarily exclusive and restricted. Slang bars outgroups from meanings and referents shared by the ingroup. According to Dumas and Lighter (1978), "true" slang can be identified if it fits two of the following four criteria:
It challenges, or lowers, the dignity of formal or serious speech or writing.
Those who use it are familiar either with the referent or with people who use the term.
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