From NPR News this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel. MELISSA BLOCK, host: And I'm Melissa Block. And I'm going to try and keep this next intro short so we can hit the post, fit in the web ...

When Tony Thorne first started researching slang, he was largely on his own. This was in the ’80s, when, according to Thorne, the academic community “virtually ignored” slang as a part of linguistics.

With so many ways to connect in our communication-obsessed world, the casual kickiness of slang creeps into daily life via many avenues. Laid-back lingo fills text messages, blog posts, Tweets and ...