Stylistically-marked words

There are stylistically marked groups of words which can roughly be divided into
literary (formal) and colloquial (informal).

 INFORMAL STYLE

Informal vocabulary is used in one's immediate circle: family, relatives or friends.

Consequently, the choice of words is determined in each particular case not only by an
informal (or formal) situation, but also by the speaker's educational and cultural
background, age group, and his occupational and regional characteristics.

Informal words and word-groups are traditionally divided into three types: colloquial, slang
and dialect words and word-groups.

1. COLLOQUIAL WORDS

Colloquial words are characteristic of the informal style of spoken English.

Literary colloquial words are used in everyday conversations both by cultivated and
uneducated people and are also met in written literary texts.

As for their etymology and syllabic structure, literary colloquial words are closer to neutral
words than to literary-bookish units, but, as a rule, have stronger emotional colouring. They
are formed on standard word-formative patterns, some of them (for instance, contraction,
phrasal verbs and nouns, sub- stantivation) being particularly frequent: granny, birdie,
latish, touchy, perm, disco, baby-sit, chopper, put up, do away, turn in, let-down, make-up,
hand- in-glove, daily (n.), constitutional (n.), etc.

The informal style of spoken English is also characterized by extensive use of occasional
and potential words, qualifiers, responsives, pragmatic phraseological units, evaluative
attributes and predicatives, e.g. Reaganomics /ˌreɪɡəˈnɒmɪks/, Oscarish, awfully glad,
terribly sweet, dead right, you bet, there you are, what next?, it's no go, smart kid, lousy
/ˈlaʊ.zi/ weather, too New-York, etc.

Slang comprises highly informal words not accepted for dignified use. Such words are
expressive sub-standard substitutes for current words of standard vocabulary. As a rule, their
meanings are based on metaphor and have a jocular or ironic colouring, e.g. attic ("head"),
beans ("money"), governor ("father"), saucers ("eyes"), soaked ("drunk"), to leg /it/ ("to
walk"), to rag ("to tease"), etc. Slang words are easily understood by all native speakers,
because they are not specific for any social or professional group (cf. with Ukrai- nian
просторіччя, e.g. баньки /"очі"/, макітра /"голова"/, поцупити / "вкрасти"/ etc.).

Informal words peculiar for a certain social or professional group should be considered as
jargonisms. Such words are usually motivated and, like slang words, have metaphoric
character, e.g. bird ("rocket", "spacecraft"); garment ("pressure space suit") /astronauts'
jargon/; to grab ("to make an impression on smb.")/newspaper jargon/; Mae West
("pneumatic /nuːˈmæt̬.ɪk/ vest") /military jargon/; grass, tea, weed ("narcotic") /drug
addicts' jargon/, etc.
Professionalisms are sub-standard colloquial words used by people of a definite trade or
profession. Such words are informal substitutes for corresponding terms, e.g. nuke
("nuclear"), identikit ("photorobot"), Hi-Fi ("high fidelity"), anchors ("brakes"), smash-up
("accident"), ack-ack gun ("anti-aircraft gun"), and the like.

Vulgarisms include: a/ expletives and swear words of abusive character. like damn,
goddam, bloody, etc.;.

The circle of users of slang is more narrow than that of colloquialisms. It is mainly used by
the young and uneducated. Yet, slang's colourful and humorous quality makes it catching, so
that a considerable part of slang may become accepted by nearly all the groups of speakers.

Dialects. There are certain regional forms of the English language in which dialect
words appear. The British dialects are Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western,
Southern; the American dialects are Northern, Midland, Southern. For the United
Kingdom received pronunciation (RP) is considered to be the standard, for the USA it
is Uniform American English (Californian English).

 FORMAL STYLE

Formal style is restricted to formal situations. In general, formal words fall into two main
groups: words associated with professional communication and a less exclusive group of so-
called learned words.

LEARNED WORDS

These words are mainly associated with the printed page. The term learned is not precise
and does not adequately describe the exact characteristics of these words. A somewht out-
of-date term for the same category of words is bookish.

The term learned includes several heterogeneous subdivisions of words. We find here
numerous words that are used in scientific prose and can be identified by their dry, matter-
of-fact flavour, e.g. comprise, compile, experimental, heterogeneous /ˌhet̬.ə.roʊˈdʒiː.ni.əs/,
homogeneous /ˌhɑː.məˈdʒiː.ni.əs/, conclusive, divergent /dɪˈvɝː.dʒənt/, etc.

To this group also belongs so-called officialese (cf. with the Rus. kaниеляризмы). These are
the words of the official, bureaucratic language: assist (for help), endeavour (for try),
proceed (for go), approximately (for about), sufficient (for enough), attired (for dressed),
inquire (for ask).

Archaic and obsolete words

These words are already partly or fully out of circulation, rejected by the living language.

Thou /ðaʊ/ and thy, aye (yes) and nay /neɪ/ (no) are certainly archaic and long since rejected
by common usage, yet poets use them even today. We also find the same four words and
many other archaisms among dialectisms, which is quite natural, as dialects are also
conservative and retain archaic words and structures.

Further examples of archaisms are: morn (for morning), eve (for evening), moon (for
month), damsel (for girl), errant (for wandering, e. g. errant knights), etc.

Sometimes, an archaic word may undergo a sudden revival. So, the formerly archaic kin (for
relatives; one's family) is now current in American usage.

Poetic words with elevated, "lofty" colouring are traditionally used only in poetry. Most of
them are archaic and have stylistically neutral synonyms, e.g. lone ("lonely"), brow
("forehead"), gore ("blood"), woe ("sorrow"), array ("clothes"), hearken ("hear"), behold
("see"), oft ("often"), ere ("before"), etc.

Obsolete words – very rare, cannot be understood without special explanation