Words From The Streets

I know, its been a few weeks. I started a new more detailed format talking about colonies, which has been good fun to write. Problem is it’s still not done yet. As it’s not done I’ll keep working on it, revise my formula going forward, and put in smaller more reasonable Worldbuild Wednesdays until it’s finished. Announcement done on to the proper article.

I’ve been thinking a lot about slang as of lately. A handful of my friends and I have hopped into Eve Online. Some of us for the first time others are returning. All in all it’s been good fun. However those of us who used to play years ago ran into an interesting problem with the new guys. They couldn’t understand us. Now Eve is known for having a lot of terms and one of the worst learning curves of all time. To the point it’s called the learning cliff. But if you play with people who’ve been bouncing around New Eden for a while you’ll find that communication can be one of the first hurdles.

For example if one were to ask “What are you doing?” I may reply with, “Sisters at apple pancake.” Or to translate into more understandable English, “I am running missions for the Sisters of Eve in Apanake.” How many of you would write the former over the latter? I find the latter is more common, which makes sense as most people don’t have the time to learn the slang of your story. Likewise unless one is writing a notably long story will there be enough space to teach people the slang that would be used?

I can’t say I rightfully know which way on that last one. I tend to develop and the use slang, and example could be pulled form my short story Saturday Night where I used slang in the dialog.

“What is he? A rebody but for cooking?” Annika said entering the shop.

I don’t explain what a rebody is. Yet with the interstellar cyberpunk future shown in Saturday Night I think most people will be able to figure out what it is she’s expecting. Shortly after it’s raveled that George is a robot. A sentient surgery robot that’s decided he should operate a hole in the wall restaurant.

Yet that’s but a singular small example. Look a cross older media and you will find it everywhere. From derogatory names solders call their enemies, to the cultural euphemisms used for certain topics. Some of these terms may not be the most politically correct these days; they added to the depth of the world.

Thus the question: What should go into creating slang of any description? I think there are three ingredients that are required: A reason to not use the official term, it coming up enough to warrant a term, and the term being to hard to understand.

Taking them in order, why wouldn’t people use the official term? It could be a matter of time. Think of any time sensitive event: could be a kitchen could be combat, could be an auction. What needs to be said fast and can’t be. Likewise are there two things that cannot be confused for each other yet sound the same? Maybe the official term is unwieldly, and hard for people to say. Perhaps the people who invented the term didn’t know the official term. Each and everyone could be the base for slang terms.

This has to pair with the second part, how often does this term come up. If once a month you have to deal with the electrocyclonic phase emission array. One may not need to shorten it. However if every time the ship jumps into phase space the electrocyclonic phase emission array needs to be hit with a concerningly live salmon the engineers may come up with a call out for when the bridge has to trigger FTL without the normal preparations. Add in a ship that tends to get in trouble and suddenly there’s an amusing connection between the position of Fish Boy and the name Phoebe. I’ll leave the comedy as an exercise for the reader.

Lastly if the official term is either too wordy or so descriptive it’s become unintelligent. Chemical engineering is a font of examples. From Basketane, Bowtiedine, and Barrelene to Godnose. Those are just some of the ones pulled from Wikipedia. Yet since we are inventing the world we can apply this to anything. Science fiction enjoys its technobabble yet creating a set of ‘friendly’ terms to use in pace of the technical ones may be better. These terms could be the commonly used ones. This could help both the characters and the audience keep track of these rather complex words.

I would pick two of these as the root cause of the slang term. From there it’s a case of finding ‘enough’ for the story. The more technical the environment the more I can suggest. Similarly enlisted men will likely nickname everything that is within line of sight. Those who are masters in their field may not use much yet there is going to be one or two things, although they may be inside jokes rather than proper slang. With that I will leave you for a fortnight.