<doc.id=2034.b3>
<title> To put on a wooden suit and other slang expressions meaning "to die" </title>
All languages have different dialects spoken in different geographical areas, the regional variation. There is also what we call the social variation of a language, which is a more interesting issue for sociolinguists today. (Wardhaugh 1992:132) Social variation is the different types of language that is used in different social contexts, registers. Nobody would choose the same words and style when speaking to friends and family as in a formal situation such as a job interview, in court, or in a bank. Social variation in language is a means of showing that you belong to a certain group and have accepted the language and style of this group.

The most informal variety is known as slang. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English gives the following explanation: very informal language that includes new and sometimes rude words, especially words used only by particular groups of people, such as criminals, schoolchildren or people who take drugs

The term "slang" is very difficult to define. One definition can comprise all the informal language used in modern English. Call it a day, for example, is not listed in the NTC's Dictionary of American Slang, but it is not commonly accepted language in formal situations. On the other hand one might define slang as expressions used within different limited social groups; like there's someone on the dog, for "there's someone on the phone" which has its origin in the rhyming Cockney slang dog and bone - telephone.

When looking in a slang dictionary, most entries found concern taboo areas such as sex, drugs, illness and death. People seem to have difficulties talking about these taboo areas and that is probably why they have so many entries. Therefore we found it interesting to do an investigation on slang phrases meaning "to die". We chose eight Swedish expressions from Gibson's Svensk Slangordbok (1969) with the intention to find their English counterparts. Using The American Thesaurus of Slang (1961), we found the following:

Swedish (1969)			English (1961)
 kila/tassa vidare			pass on, cross over, depart, go on
 ta på sig träfracken			put on a wooden suit/coat/kimono
 lämna in				hand in one's checks, cash it
 kasta in handduken			give in
 gå under jorden			go under
 plocka in skylten			shut up shop, call it a day
 smälla av				kick off, knock off, slam/pop off, 
 tuppa av				pass out

Here we find that English has many more counterparts for one single Swedish expression. Some are literally the same like ta på sig träfracken - put on a wooden suit, whereas others simply mean the same: plocka in skylten - shut up shop. Using metaphors is a common way of creating slang. As we can see, a phrase for one particular action comes to denote a completely different one. Almost all of the expressions above are metaphors for something final, and that is probably why they are used as slang for "to die". 

Since we found these expressions in a dictionary from the 1960s, we thought it would be interesting to see if they were still in use as slang in modern English and Swedish. Below we can see the result of comparing the eight phrases from Gibson with Norstedts Svenska Slangordbok from 1998. Slang is known as a constantly changing style of language. New expressions are coined and others are abolished. This would make one think that at least a few of these expressions would have fallen out of use 30 years later, but this was obviously not the case.

Swedish (1969)		Still in use (1998)
 kila/tassa vidare		YES
 ta på sig träfracken		YES
 lämna in			YES
 kasta in handduken		YES
 gå under jorden		YES
 plocka in skylten		YES
 smälla av			YES
 tuppa av			YES

The same investigation concerning the English expressions gave a much more interesting result. The dictionary used here was NTC's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions (R.A. Spears 1993).

English (1961)	Still in use	Modern meaning/usage
 pass on		NO		
 cross over		NO
 depart		NO
 go on		NO
 put on a wooden suit/ coat/kimono	NO
 hand in one's checks	YES
 cash in one's checks 	exists
 cash it		NO
 give in		NO
 go under		NO
 shut up shop	NO
 call it a day	NO
 kick off		YES
In modern slang it also has a secondary meaning: to sleep off the effects of drugs
 knock off		NO
 slam off		NO
 pop off		YES
The meaning of the expression has been altered to: to make an unnecessary remark, to interrupt with a remark.
 pass out		NO

Here one can see that a large number of English expressions have fallen out of use as slang, according to the 1993 dictionary. Those that were still in use had a somewhat altered meaning in comparison with their meaning in the 1961 dictionary. Since we recognized many of the expressions listed as "no longer in use" from modern English (e.g. give in, go under) and some of the words (e.g. depart) are even very common words in English today, we found it appropriate to investigate what had happened to them. Had they been completely abolished, or were they now part of accepted everyday English? In order to find an answer to our question, we looked the words up in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995).

English (1961)

Modern meaning/usage (1995)

 pass on
1) to tell someone a piece of information that someone else has told you
2a) to give something, especially a disease, to your children through your
	 genes 
 b) to give a slight illness to someone else

 cross over
1) if an entertainer crosses over from one area of entertainment to
	 another, they become successful in the second one as well as in the
	 first
2) BrE old use to die

 depart
1) to leave, especially when you are starting a journey
2) depart this life formal to die

 go on
1) to continue without stopping or changing3

 put on a wooden suit/coat/kimono
 Does not exist

 cash it
 Does not exist

 give in
1) to unwillingly agree to someone's demands after they have spent a lot of time arguing with you, trying to persuade you etc.
2) to stop playing, fighting etc and accept that you will be defeated

 go under
1) if a business goes under, it has serious problems and fails
2) if a ship or something that is floating goes under, it sinks beneath the surface

 shut up shop
1) informal BrE to close a business or stop working, at the end of the day
	 or permanently

 call it a day
 Informal to decide to stop working, especially because you have done
	 enough or you are tired

 knock off
1) Informalto stop working at the end of the day, before lunch etc.
2) knock sb off BrE slang to have sex with someone

 slam off
 Does not exist

 pass out
1) to faint 
2) to give something to each one of a group of people
3) esp. BrE to finish a course of study at a military school or police
4) college

There are several points worth commenting on here. First we see that most of the slang expressions have lost their metaphorical meaning and now just denote their original meaning. This may be why they are no longer listed in a slang dictionary. Secondly there are three expressions not listed at all in Longman, and this indicates that they are simply slang that have fallen completely out of use. One should also notice that three of the expressions in the table (cross over, depart, knock off) still have slang status. Finally the expression knock off is an example of a slang word which has come to have a different meaning.

When carrying out this investigation we have used a limited amount of sources, and if we had had access to a larger number of Swedish and English slang dictionaries the outcome might have been different. We have based our results on the information found in five dictionaries, which makes this a limited and somewhat hypothetical investigation. Our first intention was to compare Swedish and English expressions from the same period, but as we went along we found new possibilities to examine the words and phrases. When looking at slang we discovered that Swedish and English had developed at different rates. All the Swedish expessions from the 1960s still existed 30 years later whereas almost none of the English ones did.

References

Wardhaugh, Ronald. 1992. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Second Edition. Oxford: Blackwell publishers

Berrey, Lester V. & van den Bark, Melvin. 1961. The American Thesaurus of Slang. A Complete Reference Book of Colloquial Speech. London: Constable and Company LTD.

Gibson, Haldo. 1969. Svensk Slangordbok. Nacka:Esselte 

Kotsinas, Ulla-Britt. 1998. Norstedts svenska slangordbok. Smedjebacken: Fälth & Hässler

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Third Edition 1995. London: Longman

Spears, Richard A. 1993. NTC's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions. Chicago: NTC Publishing Group.

1 The main meaning is "to faint" and the secondary meaning is "to die"
2 See 1)
3 There are several entries on go on, all with a similar meaning. Only the first entry is listed in the table.
</doc>