Radicalism of reading

[David Casseres]

[I wrote, regarding "argot," "cant," and "patois"]
>>But all of these -- well, at least the first two -- are derogatory, and
>>none of them is used by people who actually study the variations of
>>language.

Joshua Fruhlinger sez
>Gee...I seem to remember learning the word "argot" in my linguistics and
>sociology texts at the University of Chicago.

And did they say it was a word for any form of English?  I may be wrong 
about the usage of these words by linguists and sociologists, but all the 
Net traffic I've seen lately from linguists about the "Ebonics" question 
has stuck to terms like "language subclass."

In common usage, I've never heard "patois" for much of anything except 
the French-based language spoken in vaious parts of the Caribbean.  
"Argot" and "cant" I have never heard used except as derogatory terms, 
e.g. "thieves' argot" or "politicians' cant."

In any case, what the linguists are calling Ebonics is "a language 
system."



Cheers,
David