ARGOT (AHR-goh)
The
expressions or slang of a particular group
Common clues:
Shoptalk; Jargon; Slang;
Patois; Idiom; Insider's vocabulary; Lingo; Specialized
vocabulary; Vernacular; Dialect; Trade talk; Computerese,
e.g.
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
once a year
Frequency
in English language:
64213 / 86800
News: OMG!
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Video: The
New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English
Argot (French for "slang") is primarily slang used by various groups, including but not limited to thieves and other criminals, to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. For example: "He philosophized and recited baseball statistics in a Brooklyn argot that was fast-fading." Bruce Sterling defines argot as "the deliberately hermetic language of a small knowledge clique.... a super-specialized geek cult language that has no traction in the real world."
The
vocabulary of baseball, probably more than that of any other
sport, is as popular in figurative use throughout the society as
is the argot of the theater and other entertainments or the cant
of the underworld. To
strike out, to be a bush leaguer
[or just to
be bush],
to
balk, to bat three hundred
[or, hyperbolically, a
thousand],
to
give
[or] get
an assist, to pinch hit, to score, to shut out, to begin a whole
new ball game,
or to
be off base, to be in left field,
or to
be a screwball, to have somebody throw you a curve,
and many, many more words and phrases have come into the general
vocabulary from baseball’s slang and argot. – Kenneth
Wilson, The Columbia Guide to Standard American English.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Argot".
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