Verbs with post-positional adverbs are also numer­ous among colloquialisms: put up, put over, make up, make out, do away, turn up, turn in, etc.

Literary colloquial words are to be distinguished from familiar colloquial and low colloquial.

The borderline between the literary and familiar col­loquial is not always clearly marked. Yet the circle of speakers using familiar colloquial is more limited: these words are used mostly by the young and the semi-educated. This vocabulary group closely verges on slang and has something of its coarse flavour.

E. g. doc (for doctor), hi (for how do you do), ta-ta (for good-bye), goings-on (for behaviour, usually with a negative connotation), to kid smb. (for tease, banter), to pick up smb. (for make a quick and easy acquain­tance), go on with you (for let me alone), shut up (for keep silent), beat it (for go away).

Low colloquial is defined by G. P. Krapp as uses "characteristic of the speech of persons who may be broadly described as uncultivated". [31] This group is stocked with words of illiterate English which do not present much interest for our purposes.

The problem of functional styles is not one of purely theoretical interest, but represents a particularly im­portant aspect of the language-learning process. Stu­dents of English should be taught how to choose stylis­tically suitable words for each particular speech situa­tion.

So far as colloquialisms are concerned, most stu­dents' mistakes originate from the ambiguousness of the term itself. Some students misunderstand the term "colloquial" and accept it as a recommendation for wid^ usage (obviously mistaking "colloquial" for "conversa­tional"). This misconception may lead to most embar­rassing errors unless it is taken care of in the early stages of language study.

As soon as the first words marked "colloquial" ap­pear in the students' functional vocabulary, it should be explained to them that the marker "colloquial" (as, indeed, any other stylistic marker) is not a recommen­dation for unlimited usage but, on the contrary, a sign of restricted usage. It is most important that the teach­er should carefully describe the typical situations to which colloquialisms are restricted and warn the stu­dents against using them under formal circumstances or in their compositions and reports.

Literary colloquial words should not only be includ­ed in the students' functional and recognition vocabu­laries, but also presented and drilled in suitable con­texts and situations, mainly in dialogues. It is impor­tant that students should be trained to associate these words with informal, relaxed situations.

Slang

Much has been written on the subject of slang that is contradictory and at the same time very interesting.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines slang as "lan­guage of a highly colloquial style, considered as below the level of standard educated speech, and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in some special sense." [33]

This definition is inadequate because it equates slang with colloquial style. The qualification "highly" can hardly serve as the criterion for distinguishing be­tween colloquial style and slang.

Yet, the last line of the definition "current words in some special sense" is important and we shall have to return to this a little later.

Here is another definition of slang by the famous English writer G. K. Chesterton:

"The one stream of poetry which in constantly flow­ing is slang. Every day some nameless poet weaves some fairy tracery of popular language. ...All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry. ...The world of slang is a kind of topsy-turvydom of poetry, full of blue moons and white elephants, of men losing their heads, and men whose tongues run away with them — a whole chaos of fairy tales." [10]

The first thing that attracts attention in this enthu­siastic statement is that the idioms which the author quotes have long since ceased being associated with slang: neither once in a blue moon, nor the white ele­phant, nor your tongue has run away with you are in­dicated as slang in modern dictionaries. This is not surprising, for slang words and idioms are short-lived and very soon either disappear or lose their peculiar colouring and become either colloquial or stylistically neutral lexical units.

As to the author's words "all slang is metaphor", it is a true observation, though the second part of the statement "all metaphor is poetry" is difficult to ac­cept, especially if we consider the following examples: mug (for face), saucers, blinkers (for eyes), trap (for mouth, e. g. Keep your trap shut), dogs (for feet), to teg (it) (for to walk).

All these meanings are certainly based on metaphor, yet they strike р"» ^ «тпуц^Иу nnp^fipal