Colloquialisms

Those of you who have read my past posts, you probably think I am going to complain about slang. The title is "colloquialisms", not slang. I am okay with colloquialisms, Slang is okay, just use correct grammar, unless if you are drawing attention to bad grammar as a joke. Instead, I will talk about origins of colloquialisms. For those of you who are complaining, read the posts with the "Random" tag at your own risk.

Anyway, colloquialisms are "expressions not used in formal speech, writing or paralinguistics." Some of you may wonder how this is different from slang. I have found a response by linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann, "slang refers to informal (and often transient) lexical items used by a specific social group, for instance teenagers, soldiers, prisoners, or thieves. Slang is not considered the same as colloquial (speech), which is informal, relaxed speech used on occasion by any speaker; this might include contractions such as you’re, as well as colloquialisms. A colloquialism is a lexical item used in informal speech; whilst the broadest sense of the term ‘colloquialism’ might include slangism, its narrow sense does not. Slangisms are often used in colloquial speech but not all colloquialisms are slangisms. One method of distinguishing between a slangism and a colloquialism is to ask whether most native speakers know the word (and use it); if they do, it is a colloquialism. However, the problem is that this is not a discrete, quantized system but a continuum. Although the majority of slangisms are ephemeral and often supplanted by new ones, some gain non-slang colloquial status (e.g. English silly – cf. German selig ‘blessed’, Middle High German sælde ‘bliss, luck’ and Zelda, a Jewish female first name) and even formal status (e.g. English mob)."
There's your answer. Anyway, Colloquialisms form when somebody says a phrase, other people like it and start peppering their language with it. Depending on whether it is used by a certain group or most speakers, it is considered either colloquial or slang.

Unfortunately, that is all for this post. I know I used a lot of words to express a two sentence idea and will probably do more in my more meaningful posts, but I couldn't think of a better topic. I will try and do better next time.

P.S. An example of using this to make fun of grammar is the phrase, "Ich bin ein Berliner." You may know this quote, but it is grammatically incorrect for the intended message. If you know enough German, you understand why one word completely messes it up.