3 Examples of Slang in Journalistic Content

3 Examples of Slang in Journalistic Content 3 Examples of Slang in Journalistic Content 3 Examples of Slang in Journalistic Content By Mark Nichol There is always a tension in language usage about achieving a balance between sesquipedalian obfuscation and, um, like, you know, overly casual language. Ultimately, clarity on the writer’s part and fluency on the part of the readership are the key criteria for whether content succeeds in communicating ideas, knowledge, and information, and writers can be flexible about linguistic register based on context. However, it can be unsettling for older readers and those for whom English is not their first language when they read journalistic content online; there is a trend among some news outlets to make content both more accessible and more potent by using slang. Note the following examples, all of which involve vivid verbs: 1. The twenty-year veteran anchor of Today was abruptly canned. Canned, slang for â€Å"discharged from employment† (perhaps from the analogy of putting the terminated employee in a garbage can), can also, in the form can, mean â€Å"score,† as when a scoring attempt in basketball or golf is successful (from comparison of the basket or hole to a can), or â€Å"put a stop to,† as in the dated command â€Å"Can the chatter† (â€Å"Stop talking†), from the notion of containing one’s speech in a can. (As an adjective, canned means â€Å"lacking originality† or â€Å"prepared in advance,† with the notion that a canned speech or canned music, for example, was retrieved ready-made from a can.) 2. The motocross rider must soar over the train and then stick a landing on the hillside across the tracks. Stick, originally employed in reference to executing a flawless landing in a gymnastics competition,  apparently comes from the comparison of the gymnast’s contact with the floor with piercing or stabbing something. Stick may also refer to tricking someone into paying a bill, or overcharging someone, or to baffling or cheating someone, as well as to remaining in place or being halted. 3. They decided to spike the draft when the agency released its guidance in 2014. Similarly, here, spike alludes to the previous practice in clerical routines of impaling a document on a spike when done with it; the term also refers to submitted content that is rejected for publication or to blocking or suppressing information. As a noun, spike is used informally to refer to a sudden sharp increase, as in temperature or power consumption, or prices or rates; this usage is based on the shape of marks made on a graph to represent such a change. In verb form, spike might also pertain to a stimulant added to a substance, or to an analogous figurative addition (as in spiking a speech with jokes). Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:12 Types of LanguageThe Many Forms of the Verb TO BEShow, Don't Tell

Hurricane Etymology and Word Facts

Hurricane Etymology and Word Facts The word hurricane is widely known and recognized by all people, but its etymology is lesser-known. How old is the word hurricane and where does it come from? Hurricanes AreNamed for the Mayan God "Huracan" Our English word hurricane comes from the Taino (the indigenous people of the Caribbean and Florida) word huricn, who was the Carib Indian god of evil. Their huricn was derived from the  Mayan god of wind, storm, and fire, huracn. When the Spanish explorers passed through the Caribbean, they picked it up and it turned into huracn, which remains the Spanish word for hurricane still today.  By the 16th century, the word was  modified once again  to our present-day hurricane.   (Hurricane isnt the only weather word with roots in the Spanish language. The word tornado is an altered form of the Spanish words tronado, which means thunderstorm, and tornar, to turn.)  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hurricanes Aren't Hurricanes Until Winds Reach 74mph+ We tend to call any swirling storm in the tropical ocean a hurricane, but this isnt really true. Only when a tropical cyclones maximum sustained winds reach 74  miles per hour or more do meteorologists classify it as a hurricane.  Ã‚   They're Not Called Hurricanes Everywhere in the World Tropical cyclones have different titles depending on where in the world they are located. Mature tropical cyclones  with winds of 74 mph or more that exist anywhere in the North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, or in the eastern or central North Pacific Ocean east of the International Date Line are called hurricanes. Mature tropical cyclones that form in the Northwest Pacific basin the  western part of the North Pacific Ocean, between 180 °Ã‚  (the International Date Line)  and 100 ° East longitude are called typhoons.  Such tempests  within the North  Indian Ocean  between 100 ° E and 45 ° E are simply called  cyclones. Hurricanes Get PersonalizedNames to Better Track Them Since storms can last for weeks and more than one storm can be occurring at a time in the same body of water, theyre given male and female  names to reduce confusion about which storm forecasters are communicating about to the public.   Hurricane Names Are BorrowedFrom Names of the People They Impact Many storm names are unique to the basin they exist in and regions they impact. This is because names are lifted from those popular in the nations and territories of the lands within that basin. For example, tropical cyclones in the northwest Pacific (near China, Japan, and the Philippines) receive names common to the Asian culture as well as names taken from those of flowers and trees.  Ã‚   Updated by Tiffany Means