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I will do an actual write up shortly, but first I had to quote this. The context is that the character is having trouble walking.
It seemed like at any moment his knees were going to take a vacation and he was going to yard sale like an idiot. - J. R. Ward, Lover Unbound.
I can tell from context that "yard sale" means "fall down."
...How in the world does "yard sale" get to mean "fall down?"
This made me think of how difficult it is to invent slang. Actual slang tends to have properties which makes it more-or-less comprehensible:
People use words and phrases in a natural context, so you can usually figure them out from that context.
Slang is usually not isolated, but part of a whole slang culture, from Valley-speak to doge. If you know some of the slang from that culture, you know its rules and can use them to figure out new-to-you slang. For instance, all the "bad = good" slang. If you know that law, you can figure out that someone being enthusiastic about something while calling it "trash" probably means that "trash = good."
Slang usually has some sort of internal logic - words that don't make sense to people don't get repeated, while the ones that make sense to lots of people get used and thus become common coin. It's not totally random. If you've been exposed to the "bad = good" slang culture, you might be able to get "puketastic = good" to catch on. But fetch will never happen.
One author can't replicate the wisdom of crowds. So they need to have a good ear and make good use of context. Ward is generally pretty good at context - it was obvious what "yard sale" meant - but not so much on the ear.
Anyway, reading her books reminded me of one of the worst failures of context for invented slang I've ever encountered, the only movie I've ever walked out on, Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead. I saw it with a friend in an advance screening. It's a gangster movie full of totally incomprehensible invented slang. The point at which we walked out went something like this:
Gangster 1 bursts into a solemn meeting of gangsters.
Gangster 1: Guys, guys! Capelli bought a boat drink!!!
This is obviously deeply meaningful to the gangsters.
Gangsters: Mmm, ahhh. That changes everything.
Me, Friend: [WTF looks.]
Gangster 2: And we all know what this means, right?
Gangsters: [Nod.]
Friend (whispers): I don't know what this means!
Me (whispers): He got whacked?
Friend (whispers): He ratted them out to the feds?
Me (whispers): He came out of the closet?
Friend (whispers): He moved to Miami?
Gangster 3: Yeah. We gotta tarantula.
Friend (whispers): Let's go get boat drinks.
We left.
(Actual reviews to come!)
ETA: I looked up "boat drinks" in that movie. When you go to Heaven, you lounge on a boat drinking, so boat drinks = dead. However, I may have misremembered the actual slang in that context, because "buckwheat" = "killed horribly." So the dialogue I remember might have actually been "Capelli's buckwheat."
I leave it to you, my imaginative readers, to figure out why buckwheat means killed horribly. A derivation of "pushing up daisies," minus the "pushing up" part that makes it make sense?
It seemed like at any moment his knees were going to take a vacation and he was going to yard sale like an idiot. - J. R. Ward, Lover Unbound.
I can tell from context that "yard sale" means "fall down."
...How in the world does "yard sale" get to mean "fall down?"
This made me think of how difficult it is to invent slang. Actual slang tends to have properties which makes it more-or-less comprehensible:
People use words and phrases in a natural context, so you can usually figure them out from that context.
Slang is usually not isolated, but part of a whole slang culture, from Valley-speak to doge. If you know some of the slang from that culture, you know its rules and can use them to figure out new-to-you slang. For instance, all the "bad = good" slang. If you know that law, you can figure out that someone being enthusiastic about something while calling it "trash" probably means that "trash = good."
Slang usually has some sort of internal logic - words that don't make sense to people don't get repeated, while the ones that make sense to lots of people get used and thus become common coin. It's not totally random. If you've been exposed to the "bad = good" slang culture, you might be able to get "puketastic = good" to catch on. But fetch will never happen.
One author can't replicate the wisdom of crowds. So they need to have a good ear and make good use of context. Ward is generally pretty good at context - it was obvious what "yard sale" meant - but not so much on the ear.
Anyway, reading her books reminded me of one of the worst failures of context for invented slang I've ever encountered, the only movie I've ever walked out on, Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead. I saw it with a friend in an advance screening. It's a gangster movie full of totally incomprehensible invented slang. The point at which we walked out went something like this:
Gangster 1 bursts into a solemn meeting of gangsters.
Gangster 1: Guys, guys! Capelli bought a boat drink!!!
This is obviously deeply meaningful to the gangsters.
Gangsters: Mmm, ahhh. That changes everything.
Me, Friend: [WTF looks.]
Gangster 2: And we all know what this means, right?
Gangsters: [Nod.]
Friend (whispers): I don't know what this means!
Me (whispers): He got whacked?
Friend (whispers): He ratted them out to the feds?
Me (whispers): He came out of the closet?
Friend (whispers): He moved to Miami?
Gangster 3: Yeah. We gotta tarantula.
Friend (whispers): Let's go get boat drinks.
We left.
(Actual reviews to come!)
ETA: I looked up "boat drinks" in that movie. When you go to Heaven, you lounge on a boat drinking, so boat drinks = dead. However, I may have misremembered the actual slang in that context, because "buckwheat" = "killed horribly." So the dialogue I remember might have actually been "Capelli's buckwheat."
I leave it to you, my imaginative readers, to figure out why buckwheat means killed horribly. A derivation of "pushing up daisies," minus the "pushing up" part that makes it make sense?