[The Rustbelt] Slang collection project
Marshall Burns:
I think my main influence in this is the work of William S. Burroughs. Particularly Junky -- I mean, he's always big on the slang thing, but it's part of the central effect of Junky, and more focused because he played Junky straight. It doesn't feature any of the crazy experimental stuff of his later work (and is hugely underrated because of that; it's easily one of his three best books).
See, Junky presents some shady, underworldly stuff, but it does it very straight, and looking straight into your eye. It brings you in and makes you complicit, a co-conspirator -- for the reader, it's not just prurience and voyeurism into the life of an unredeemed drug addict, it's being right there with him and sharing a needle. And the way that it uses slang is part of this effect.
But, then, it has a glossary. Would it have the same effect without the glossary? I don't have any way of knowing, because I can't unread what I've read.
But my point is, that's where I'm coming from. Rustbelt needs slang as part of its goal to bring players into the world and make them share their characters' space, so that we're looking at real identification and connection rather than tourism of the pain and hardship and desperation. Does that make any sense?
Eero Tuovinen:
I suppose it does.
How about this: choose one slang term that you think is really important to the setting. Explain it in the early parts of the game text, use it throughout. Tell the players to make sure to work it into the game. Heck, give some bonus for the first use or something. Help them make this one weird word or turn of phrase a distinguished part of their game lingo. Sort of like some games call the GM with funny alternate names, except directed at the fiction instead of procedures. Then see if you're happy with just one word or if you should have half a dozen scattered here and there in the game text.
(I'm judging the Lil'Game Chef competition games just now, and one of those games insists that heroin is called Horse in that game, and nothing else - other words are not allowed. I found this pretty amusing, even if it was just to emphasize the mandatory ingredient. I could easily imagine a similar exhortation in your game.)
I'd feel that something like this would go much farther in actually making the slang a functional part of play. I know that I myself would glance at a list of slang words, but I wouldn't use them in the game if the text didn't make it a big deal and explain why this word is important to the game. Even with the above technique I might not (and I shouldn't) stress about it too much, but if I liked the game and settled down to play more than one session, I'd be sure to read the book and integrate those selected, heavy words into my play over time.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Marshall,
Presentation methods aside, here are some more terms that I for one would anticipate when I play The Rustbelt again.
Bughouse: (adj.) crazy, (n.) asylum
Horse, H: heroin
Juice: alcoholic drink, Juicer: alcholic person, heavy drinker
Headlights, hooters: breasts
Inside / Outside: in prison / out of prison
Johnson: penis
The Life: prostitution
Looker: attractive woman
Poon tang: vagina/sex (extremely crude)
Working girl: prostitute
Best, Ron
ejh:
I was kind of amused to find that amongst all that down-and-dirty, street and criminal subculture slang on the initial list, the first one -- "beater" for "car in really bad shape" -- is absolutely ordinary working-class-to-middle-class slang in West Michigan, nothing shady about it.
Here's your story, Eero, since you wanted stories for slang: Because of the heavy lake-effect snow and the copious amounts of salt used to clear the streets, cars used in Michigan in winter rust out ridiculously fast, especially so a decade or two ago when much less plastic was used in cars than is nowadays.
So anybody who could afford it would have a regular car and a "winter beater," a car so cheap, old and nasty that the additional damage from the salt spray from the roads wouldn't even be noticeable.
I think cars today are less rustable, and people are less able to afford an extra car, so the "winter beater" phenomenon may already be a historical relic.
I imagine the same story holds in any Midwestern area with heavy snow and street salt, not just West Michigan....
Apologies for this tangentially topical digression, but at least it was about rust and a dying Midwestern industry....
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