I think being colloquial doesn’t in and of itself make something wrong, but a colloquialism is often a very set expression, so it runs the risk also of seeming stale. “She’s sitting pretty.” “He’s a nut case.” “That pisses me off.” All those strike me as things I would say quite readily and easily, but might think twice about in writing.
They do have the effect of seeming relaxed and colorful and spontaneous and down-to-earth. Maybe “down-to-earth” was colloquial at one time.
Do you want to seem like Mark Twain or would you prefer William Buckley? Twain is colloquial; Buckley painstakingly avoids it.
Craig
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carol Morrison
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2011 6:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Colloquialisms/Slang/Dialect
Thank you, Bill! I looked up a few definitions of "colloquialism," but your explanation was much better.
Carol
--- On Mon, 9/12/11, Spruiell, William C <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
From: Spruiell, William C <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Re: Coloquialisms/Slang/Dialect
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Date: Monday, September 12, 2011, 5:38 PM
Carol --
Dialects usually let you pin down a person's region of origin, ethnicity, or socioeconomic class. Slang lets you identify what social group they're identifying with, is frequently tied to age group, and can be very "volatile" over time. Colloquialisms, I think, are more generally defined on the basis of their "not sounding like the kind of thing you use in formal written English" and so can include a lot of different types of expressions.
For example, the "really" of "It was really impressive" strikes me as colloquial, but it's definitely not slang, and it's in probably the majority of AmE dialects. The use of "sick" to mean "impressively good," on the other hand, is slang, while modal-stacking ("might should" ) is a dialectal feature. But someone could refer to "sick" or "might should" as sounding colloquial, in a general sense.
I suspect that in traditional essay-marking, "coll." has frequently meant "sounds too informal, but is something I'd use in daily speech" while "dial." and "slang" have meant "sounds too informal, and is something other people say in daily speech."
--- Bill Spruiell
On Sep 12, 2011, at 3:19 PM, Carol Morrison wrote:
Dear ATEG Members:
Can someone explain and give examples of what a colloquialism is and how that differs from "slang" or "dialect" in speech and communication? One of my composition students wrote in her response paragraph regarding the various roles she is required to play the following: "As long as I communicate with my mother respectfully and refrain from the use of any colloquialisms, she’s fine."
Thank you.
Carol
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