Informal language is usually defined as the language of ordinary or casual conversation, that is, a conversation between people who know each other and feel relatively unconstrained so that they do not have to be on their best behavior, linguistically speaking. In such circumstances, it is perfectly natural and right to use colloquial words and expressions and contractions and to take occasional liberties with grammar. Let us briefly consider these, before we look at the place of informal English in writing.ColloquialismsColloquial words and expressions are informal synonyms for terms in the standard language. If you say that someone is stupid, you are using a standard term. If you call that same person dim, dopey, thick, chuckleheaded, or even dumb, you are using a term that would usually be labeled informal. The same applies to clever and intelligent on the one hand and brainy, bright, or cute on the other. The formal dollar becomes an informal buck; a darling becomes a sweetie; champagne, bubbly; and so on. If you say that somebody has no chance, you are using a standard expression, if you say that person doesn't have a prayer, you are saying the same thing in a more vivid but also more informal way. Informally a person may carry the can or pick up the tab; more formally that person would take the blame or pay the bill.Informal language—the same can also be said of slang—is often more colorful than standard language. It is often shorter, too. In conversation, people frequently want to put their ideas across in the shortest possible time, so longer words and phrases are abbreviated. A telephone becomes a phone; a rhinoceros, a rhino; and a hippopotamus, a hippo. Pick up the telephone becomes pick up the phone, which becomes simple pick up. In the case of the three nouns phone, rhino, and hippo—particularly the first of these—many people would argue that they no longer count as colloquialisms but are part of the standard language.Shortened forms of words are known technically as "contractions." The contractions that are most typical of informal language, however, are not contractions of nouns but of verbs.ContractionsExcept when speaking formally, almost all users of English will say I'm more often than they say I am and I don't more often than they say I do not. We tend to use he's, she'd, we're, you've, can't, won't, didn't, haven't, and the rest as staples in ordinary conversation and only revert to the full forms when we wish to be especially emphatic:You cannot be serious! I am going to marry her. They are not yours, they are mine. Most experts suggest that these contracted forms are the hallmark of informal English. We could as truthfully say that their use is the main factor that distinguishes spoken from written English. In written English you should, as a rule, use I do not, not I don't; she has, not she's; we would go, not we'd go, and so on. Only when the rest of your piece is written in an informal style should you use the contractions.It should be noted, however, that there is a difference between the everyday contractions referred to above, which are characteristic of the speech of careful and educated speakers, and slang contractions such as gotta, kinda, sorta, helluva. These are expressions that people often say, but they have no place in writing, except on occasions when you are trying to reproduce what a person says in a quotation or in a dialogue.Liberties with GrammarThe first point that must be made here is that informal English, whether spoken or written, is not non–Standard English. Nowadays snuck, used as the past tense of sneak, is accepted as standard in American (but not British) English by many people, and even those who do not consider it to be a proper equivalent of sneaked are unlikely to object to it in conversation. The same cannot be said, however, of brung for brought or he don't for he doesn't or must of for must have. Informal English uses essentially the same forms and follows the same grammatical rules as any other variety of the language.That said, some liberties may be taken. The use of never as an emphatic negative may just about pass in spoken or informal English:I never laid a finger on him. He never said that. Likewise, the use of adjectives in place of adverbs (real sorry, mighty well) is sometimes acceptable in informal English. With respect to the word poor, for example, the American Heritage Dictionary, third edition, says: "In informal speech poor is sometimes used as an adverb, as in They never played poorer. In formal usage more poorly would be required in this example." The same dictionary, however, does not sanction the use of good as an adverb in place of well and would classify He did good or The engine runs pretty good as nonstandard.How Do You Distinguish between Informal and Standard Language?Dictionaries and thesauri often label words and expressions that are considered to be informal. Even so, their labeling seems far from exhaustive, and you may often be less concerned to know whether a single word or phrase is informal than to judge whether a whole passage falls into that category.As your awareness of and feeling for language develops, you will probably acquire an instinctive grasp of what is formal, informal, and so on. While you are waiting for that sense to mature, or in cases of doubt, probably the best test is to examine the verbs that you are using or, in the case of a particular word or phrase, to see what kind of verb form the term in question best suits.The hallmarks of the informal style, remember, are contracted forms of common auxiliary verbs—isn't, wouldn't, etc. If what you are writing sounds more natural when you use the contracted forms, or if a particular word or phrase sounds more "at home" in combination with such a form, then the chances are that it belongs in the informal category. You might write down, for example,I would say that he does not have a prayer. But if you said that sentence over to yourself, you would probably find that it sounds rather stilted, whereasI'd say he doesn't have a prayer. sounds much more natural. On that basis, you can conclude, fairly safely, that not to have a prayer is an expression that is more at home in spoken or informal language.Let us take another example. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition) does not label the verb bust in the sense of "to break or smash," thus leading the user to conclude that it is standard. The American Heritage Dictionary (third edition), on the other hand, labels the same word in the same sense as slang. If you had no personal opinion on the matter, how could you work out whereabouts in the hierarchy the word belongs except by considering it in context—either in contexts provided by other writers and speakers (an Internet search engine can be useful in this respect) or by trying the word out in contexts of your own creation?I informed the manager that one of his salespeople had busted my watch while attempting to change the battery. You can drop an extremely heavy weight on this watch, but you will not succeed in busting it. Honey, can you lend me a watch? I just bust mine. I'd busted my watch the day before and was looking around the store to find a new one. In the more formal context of the first two examples, break would work better than bust. But the closer we get to what people normally say, rather than what you might normally find written, the more in place the word feels. The dictionaries can argue the point about where precisely the word belongs, but the ordinary writer would reserve it for informal use.Other Aspects of InformalityInformality, like the other categories in the hierarchy of language, is not restricted to vocabulary. It extends to the other elements of writing as well. The test suggested above relies on your being able to construct an informal sentence in which to place the word you are investigating. Informal sentences tend to be short and simply constructed. They are preeminently the sort of sentences that people say, and when they speak, people generally start with the main clause and add on any subordinate clauses afterward. People do not tend to say,Having finished this job, I'll now start on another one. They say,I've finished this job, so I'll start another. Similarly, you might well write,Because we had run out of milk and there was none in the refrigerator, I went down to the store to buy some more. but you would probably say,I went down to the store to get some milk, because we'd run out and there was none in the fridge. Informal writing imitates speech in the patterns and rhythms of its sentences as well as in its vocabulary, and its punctuation, too, tends to be "lighter." People, by and large, do not talk in constructions that require semicolons and colons. But commas, periods, and question marks are indispensable however informally you are writing. The dash often features prominently too, along with the exclamation point, and sometimes other typographical devices, which can help to give the flavor of ordinary speech but are generally out of place in more formal writing:And do you know what the man said? He said, I was too young to wear a hat like that! TOO YOUNG!!! I didn't know whether to kiss him or slap him—actually, I did. But I'm not going to start kissing strangers in the middle of the hat department at this point in my life! The Place for Informal LanguageInformal language, as was mentioned earlier, is usually defined as the language used between people who know each other well. Consequently, if you are writing for a person whom you do not know—or, indeed to anyone who could be classified as a nonpeer on the terms set out in the previous chapter—you should be wary about using an informal tone and style. To be informal in writing at the wrong time and in the wrong circumstances is like being too friendly toward someone before that person has, through words, gestures, and general behavior, invited you to treat him or her as a friend. This can apply even to such texts as chatty newsletters of a club or association. What may seem to you at the time of writing to be good-humored and a little waggish may come across as forcedly or even falsely cheerful and, if you happen to strike the wrong note, could offend someone who is particularly sensitive. The ability to write informally is a gift or a skill, like an ability to write in any other kind of style. Until you know that you possess it and that informality is welcome in the context in which you intend to deploy it, your best course is to keep to a neutral style.This may seem unduly restrictive, as if you were being forced into a straitjacket of formality. But, as has been said before and will be explained in more detail below, this book does not advocate formal English as the norm. Instead, it suggests a writer's normal style should be a neutral one, neither formal nor informal and based on the standard vocabulary of English.
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