Avoiding the Use of Slang in Professional Writing

            Avoiding the Use of Slang in Professional Writing.
             Slang is defined as an informal nonstandard vocabulary composed typically of coinages, .
             arbitrarily changed words, and extravagant, forced, or facetious figures of speech (Merriam-Webster). Cultures have developed slang deliberately to exclude people outside their group. And because of this there can be no understanding of the true meanings outside each group. Types of slang include swearing, local or dialect expressions, and words with a specialized meaning for a group of people, none of which should be used in any type of professional writing. Because, Professional writing is meant to communicate to large audiences, slang adds nothing more than confusion to the paper. Slang should be avoided in professional writing because it is unclear, distractive, and culturally biased.
             The use of slang in modern speech is apparent by listening to any conversation; phrases like "I could eat a horse" or "Jamie is a fox" are easily understood by everybody. Right? To the average American these two phrases mean "I am very hungry" and "Jamie is very attractive"; but to people of other cultures, these two phrases are very confusing. Looking at the phrases themselves and not their meanings it becomes easier to understand where the confusion might come from; by saying "I could eat a horse" the speaker might mean "I like horse meat"; and many cultures would be offended by someone wanting to eat a horse. The phrase "Jamie is a fox" can also be misinterpreted to "Jamie is an animal", which has the exact opposite affect, it means she is a member of the canine species. Looking at these misinterpretations, do they still hold their same meanings? If professional writing is meant have a large audience, then these slang phrases would cause quite a problem.
             It seems that today's writers are going more toward the "for dummies" approach, meaning that the writers believe that their audience is not intelligent enough to understand complex thoughts or feelings.