Questions:

1. Colloquial expression
2. Ambiguity and register
INTRODUCTION
The word “colloquialism” comes from the Latin colloquium, which means a
“conference” or “conversation.” As a literary device, colloquialism refers to the
usage of informal or everyday language in literature. Colloquialisms are generally
geographic in nature, in that a colloquial expression often belongs to a regional or
local dialect. They can be words, phrases, or aphorisms (see below for examples).
Native speakers of a language understand and use colloquialisms without realizing
it, while non-native speakers may find colloquial expressions hard to translate.
This is because many colloquialisms are not literal usages of words, but instead
idiomatic or metaphorical sayings.
DEFINITION.OF.COLLOQUIAL.EXPRESSION
A colloquial expression is an informal expression used to communicate with other
people. An expression is a group of words that form a particular meaning. It is an
incomplete sentence and more than a word. Another name for an expression is a
phrase.
Examples of Colloquialism from Common Speech
As stated above, there are three different types of colloquialisms that we can
distinguish: words, phrases, and aphorisms. Words can be colloquialism examples
if they demonstrate the regional dialect of the speaker, or it they are contractions or
examples of profanity. Phrases and aphorisms are colloquialisms if they aren’t
literal usages, yet are widely understand within a geographical boundary.
Regional differences: One famous colloquial difference in the United States is the
way a person refers to a carbonated beverage. There are regional borders that
separate the usage of the words “soda”, “pop”, “soft drink”, and “Coke” (used as a
generic term and not just to refer to the brand). There are numerous differences
between American English and British English, such as “truck”/“lorry”,
“soccer”/“football”, and “parakeet”/“budgie”.
Contractions: Words such as “ain’t” and “gonna” are examples of colloquialism,
as they are not used widely throughout English-speaking populations.
Profanity: Some words are considered profane in some dialects of English where
they are not at all bad in other dialects. A good example is the word “bloody”
which is a simple adjective in American English, but is a curse word in British
English.
Phrases:
Old as the hills
Penny-pincher
She’ll be right (Australian English, meaning everything will be all right)
Pass the buck
Eat my dust
Aphorisms:
I wasn’t born yesterday.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Put your money where your mouth is.
You’re driving me up the wall.

Examples of British English Colloquialisms

Great Britain has some unique colloquialisms and regional expressions that can

lend a region-specific and less formal touch to any piece of writing. These are a
few notable ones, including many British slang words:

 Ace - word to describe something excellent

 Anorak - someone who is a little bit of a geek with expertise usually in an
obscure niche
 Blimey - exclamation of surprise
 Bloke - a regular man or "guy"
 Boot - the trunk of a car

American English Colloquial Expressions

Americans have a few unique words and phrases of their own, especially when it
comes to casual conversation. Add these colloquialisms and American slang
expressions to your writing or speech if you want to sound less formal:

 Ballpark - used to describe something that is close to accurate

 Bomb - to do terribly on a test
 Cattywampus - a crooked thing
 Flake - a person who cancels plans regularly or the act of regularly canceling
plans
 Lemon - a purchase that is unreliable and has many problems
Canadian English Colloquialisms

Canadians also have expressions that are unique, and there's quite a bit of variation
in Canadian slang by region. If you want to sound casual, try these words and
phrases:

 Chirping - making fun of or taunting someone

 Click - a kilometer
 Eh or Hey - used at the end of a sentence to signal a check for agreement
 Gong show - an event that gets out of control
 Keener - someone who tries too hard to win favor

Australian Colloquial Expressions

You'll also find many English colloquialisms in Australia. While some are shared
with other English-speaking countries, some are unique to this area:

 Arvo - afternoon
 Bottle-o - a liquor store
 Bludger - a lazy person
 Cobber - a good friend
 Deadset - something that is true

Colloquialisms are region-specific words and phrases that add color and a casual
tone to your writing or speech, but they aren't the only way to accomplish this goal.
You can also learn about other similar terms that can make your writing more
interesting. Several of these overlap with colloquialisms.

 SLANG - Slang is informal speech, but it isn't necessarily used by everyone

in an area. For instance, young people may use slang that their grandparents
don't understand.
 IDIOM - An idiom is a phrase that has meaning only understood by people
who know the language and culture well. It can be a colloquialism, but it's
often more involved. English idiom examples include "hold your horses" or
"let the cat out of the bag."
 JARGON - Jargon words tend to be more formal and not used by common
people. They are often associated with specific industries or areas of
expertise. For example, there are many types of political jargon or corporate
buzzwords that are only understood by people in those fields.
  APHORISM - Like colloquialisms, aphorisms are used by common people.
However, they tend to be a truism or piece of wisdom, rather than a region-
specific method of expression. "Actions speak louder than words" is a
common example.

AMBIGUITY
Ambiguity is a type of meaning in which a phrase, statement or resolution is not
explicitly defined, making several interpretations plausible. A common aspect of
ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement
whose intended meaning cannot be definitively resolved according to a rule or
process with a finite number of steps. (The ambi- part of the term reflects an idea
of "two", as in "two meanings".)
The concept of ambiguity is generally contrasted with vagueness. In ambiguity,
specific and distinct interpretations are permitted (although some may not be
immediately obvious), whereas with information that is vague, it is difficult to
form any interpretation at the desired level of specificity.
MEANING
Ambiguity is when the meaning of a word, phrase, or sentence is uncertain. There
could be more than one meaning. Typically, it is best to avoid ambiguity in your
writing. When you make statements that are ambiguous, you confuse the reader
and hinder the meaning of the text. However, sometimes ambiguity is used
deliberately to add humor to a text.
Examples of Ambiguity:
1. Sarah gave a bath to her dog wearing a pink t-shirt.
Ambiguity: Is the dog wearing the pink t-shirt?
2. I have never tasted a cake quite like that one before!
Ambiguity: Was the cake good or bad?
3. Did you see her dress?
Ambiguity: Is she getting dressed or are they talking about her clothes?
Examples of Ambiguity in Literature and Speech
In "The Rose" by William Blake, there is enough ambiguity about what is meant
by "rose," "sick," "bed of joy," and "worm," that the poem is open to many
interpretations:
 "O Rose thou art sick.
 The invisible worm,
  That flies in the night
 In the howling storm:
 Has found out thy bed
TYPES OF AMBIGUITY
- LEXICAL AMBIGUITY

Lexical ambiguity is the most commonly known form of ambiguity (Reilly 1991;
Walton 1996).  It occurs when words have more than one meaning as commonly
defined and understood.  Considerable potential ambiguity arises when a word
with various meanings is used in a statement of information request.  For example,
"bank" may variously mean the "bank" of a river (noun), to "bank" as related to
aeroplane or a roller-coaster (verb), a savings "bank" (noun), to "bank" money
(verb), or a "bank" of computer terminals (noun) (Turner 1987).  Lexical ambiguity
is often reduced or mitigated by the context of the sentence. 

- SYNTACTICAL AMBIGUITY

Syntactical ambiguity is a structural or grammatical ambiguity of a whole sentence

that occurs in a sub-part of a sentence (Reilly 1991; Walton 1996).  Syntactical
ambiguity is a grammatical construct, and results from the difficulty of applying
universal grammatical laws to sentence structure.  An example of syntactical
ambiguity is "Bob hit the man with the stick".  This phrasing is unclear as to
whether a man was hit with a stick, or whether a man with a stick was struck by
Bob.  The context can substantially reduce syntactical ambiguity.  For example,
knowing that either Bob, or the man, but not both, had a stick resolves the
syntactical ambiguity. 

- INFLECTIVE AMBIGUITY

As Walton (1996) notes, inflective ambiguity is a composite ambiguity, containing

elements of both lexical and syntactical ambiguity.  Like syntactical ambiguity,
inflective ambiguity is grammatical in nature.  Inflection arises where a word is
used more than once in a sentence or paragraph, but with different meanings each
time (Walton 1996).  An example of inflective ambiguity is to use the word
"scheme" with two different meanings in the fallacious argument, "Bob has
devised a scheme to save costs by recycling paper.  Therefore, Bob is a schemer,
and should not be trusted" (Ryle 1971; Walton 1996). 

REGISTER
the register is defined as the way a speaker uses language differently in different
circumstances. Think about the words you choose, your tone of voice, even your
body language. Register is a variety of language used for a particular purpose or in
a particular communicative situation. For example, when speaking officially or in a
public setting, an English speaker may be more likely to follow prescriptive
norms for formal usage than in a casual setting, for example, by pronouncing
words ending in -ing with a velar nasal instead of an alveolar nasal (e.g., "walking"
rather than "walkin'"), choosing words that are considered more "formal" (such
as father vs. dad or child vs. kid), and refraining from using words
considered nonstandard, such as ain't.