For reasons I have no clue about, my mind went wandering to the days of family road trips (always with a theme), and why Sib and I started calling the original utility 4-wheel drive thing a Geep [hard g sound]. It probably stemmed from the same place as referring to a large flock of brown and orange birds in the yard as a robination, or describing a bird that got caught by a hawk as “having experienced the raptor.” We play with words, and an in-house dialect develops over time.
Professions and working groups do the same. A shorthand develops over time, sometimes impermeable to outsiders. At Day Job, everyone knows which device “monster copier” refers to. When I was in grad school, if the department chair said, “I need the usual suspects,” it referred to the five unofficial leaders of the graduate student herd. Aviation likewise, and military units have in-house slang and shorthand that can seem like a totally different language. I’ve joked that some teenagers speak a different dialect of English.
The point is that when you write about a team of characters, be it military, work group, buddies, a group on pilgrimage, or other set of characters that spend a lot of time together, especially working on a shared project or mission, they will develop an in-house language. This can help with world-building and character development, as well as differentiation. One person always uses perfect, complete sentences, even under stress. Another likes to toss in gaming slang, much to the mild irritation of others who are not into that particular activity. “The Boss,” might not refer to their supervisor, but to an unofficial person, or to a piece of equipment that is necessary for things to get done (“The Boss says no.” “When will it be fixed?” “Two days, if HQ sends the right stuff this time.”)
However, like other languages in fiction, it can be overdone. I use made up languages and non-English vocabulary in most of my stories (bad habit, I know), and try to keep the usage limited, or stick with words that the reader will grow used to seeing – yes, no, hello, good-bye, certain prayers perhaps, “swear words,” but not too many. When I tried to show dialect and language shift in one of the Colplatschkie books, I did a short passage in dialect, had the MC comment to herself about trying to understand the man, and then shifted back to standard English for the sake of readers (and the writer). Ditto in-group language and slang. Too much drives the reader out, unless you are introducing a new character to the group/place (as Karen talked about last week), and you want your reader to feel as at-sea as the character is.
Some world building techniques and tricks only work in certain genres, because you have so much more world to build – high fantasy, for example. In-group language appears all over, especially in thrillers, techno-thrillers, military-related genres, and the like, because of the universality of teams, and how humans play with language, or use shorthand for speed (or to baffle outsiders, including the boss).
Mad Genius Club 
7 responses to “Words, Language, Names, and In-House Terms”
Reading this, I thought of Dorothy Sayers, who used quite a bit of non-English in her characters’ dialogue: Latin, ancient Greek, French. Much of this is impenetrable to the average reader (well, me) today.
That is a problem. Cultures change, although I suspect no one in the 1920s-40s assumed that Greek, Latin, and other things that “all educated people know” would vanish from schools so quickly.
Her editor put his foot down on the letter that formed the climax of Clouds of Witness being given only in French.
I also don’t know if she worried that much about whether Future Generations read her mysteries or not. She cared enough about mysteries to read and review them and help run a club about them, but a lot of the people who were into them saw them as disposable entertainment.
I would also like to remind everyone that it was Christie, not Sayers, who wrote two whole mysteries where being up on your Bulfinch’s Mythology gives the game away. Sayers’s erudition is mostly “local color” specific to the types of people she’s talking about.
Agreed on this. I can remember reading a 1940’s yearbook for our local high school (which was a dump when I attended it in the 80’s) and being shocked at the subjects mentioned. College-level studies in the sciences, in math, Greek and Latin? I had a hard time believing this was the same school I’d attended.
My high school friends and I used to say “too deep for me, Stevie” when somebody was talking too much and saying too little. I thought it was the slang of the times but finally realized how entirely it was confined to my little circle. (We got it out of James Joyce.)
I’ve written an ESL character who occasionally uses a word from her first language when she can’t think of the English equivalent, and who reverts to her first language when under stress. I think it works OK in that particular context.