eye-dialecta type of respelling of a word so that it appears to have
been spoken with a regional accent, as with sezfor says.
folksyin the manner of country people; rustic and quaint.
function codean indication of the grammatical or syntactic potential
of a particular sense of an expression. Go to exclam., in., interj.,
interrog., mod., n., phr., pro., sent., and tv.in this section.Go toGo to the entry indicated.
in.intransitive. Expressions that are intransitive verbs or intransitive
verb phrases (an intransitive verb, its auxiliaries, and modifiers) are
marked in.interj.interjection.
interrog.interrogative.
initialisman abbreviation consisting of the initial letters of the words
being shortened. The letters are pronounced one by one, as with IBM.
jargonthe specialized terminology of an occupation; shoptalk.
journalisticas used in popular journalism—newspapers and maga-
zines.
juvenileas might be said by a child.
mod.modifier. Expressions serving to modify, restrict, or qualify (adjec-
tives, adjective phrases, adverbs, adverb phrases, etc.) are marked
mod.n.nominal. Expressions functioning as nominals (nouns, noun phrases,
etc.) are marked n.
onomatopoetichaving to do with a word with a sound suggesting the
meaning of the word, as with vroom, the sound of an engine.
phr.phrase.
Pig Latina form of wordplay where the second part of a word is placed
before the initial sound, which then ends in ay, as with unk-jayfor
junk.NTC’s Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
xii