Yesterday I talked about snark and how it isn't a portmanteau of "snide remark."
Well, one of the dumbest things I've come across about false derivations is that slang derives from "shortened language." No, of course it doesn't. Not only is this not how sounds get elided and corrupted, slang itself isn't even necessarily shorter than other phrases. It would surely only take a few seconds of thought to realize how silly this idea is.
In almost all cases, words derive from older words.
Slang may come from an Old Danish word meaning to throw, as in to throw around some words, tossing out your special language. Or, it may come from a related word in Middle English meaning a delineated piece of land, as in the turf used by thieves and scoundrels who talk in their special argot, or slang. Etymology Online as always has a good summary of this evolution of the word.
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