Poetry Forum

Dear Answer Man,

I'm trying to distinguish slang from idiom.

Is this right?

'Pick-up'

If I say, "I'll pick up your check at the mine,"
that's idiom.

If I say, "I go to Vegas to pick up girls.' that's
slang.

Because in the one you do pick up the cherk-- if it's
on a desk or just there atop a file cabinet. You reach
down and use your fingers. Now if the girl in the mine
office 'hands' you the check, all bets are off.

In the other you don't pick up the girl as you would a
check.l This is for the reason maybe she picked you up
and just pretended to be picked up.

In the office, the office of National Electric and Coal,
no chance the girl is picking up a check you made out to
the company-- for, say, breaking a pick axe or shovel.

I ask this because I'm going to Vegas after I pick up
my check at the mine.

Thanks for your answer
rh

down the drain

There are all sorts of slang.However, apart from rhyming-slang. back-slang and that sort of thing, I think it is best seen as a kind of proto-idiom. If it survives long enough, it merges into the language. There is a nameless stage before slang, when newly invented locutions are kicked around a bit, and very often fade away. That may also happen to slang, as a look at books written in the 19th century, up to, perhaps the 20s, will attest. In the days of Oscar Wilde, one might say ''Is he So?'', to enquire whether a man was gay. I doubt it would mean that to anyone now.

Good luck in Las Vegas.

i think "going to vegas to pick up girls" and phrases like it have become too main stream to be slang, for me they're idiom
in the uk it used to be "going to the dam for some brass" or "to do some brass" brass being the window girls, aka prostitutes.

maybe proto-idiom is good way of explaining it as abu points out. but for how long, pretty soon it evolves into full blown usage once enough people make it common speak.

I do get serious!

Just a thought, though: 'pick' on its own may mean 'choose, a sense it acquired in the 1300s. 'pick up' is recorded in 1690. I am afraid Roy is less racy and in the moment than he supposes.