To borrow or not to borrow:

the use of English loanwords as

slang on websites in Brazilian
Portuguese
E D UA R D O H . D I N I Z D E F I G U E I R E D O

How English loanwords are used for creative slang in

Brazilian Portugese

Introduction now awaits further approval by the Chamber

1 of Deputies before a final decision is made.
The use of English loanwords in different lan-
One possible way of investigating whether
guages has been discussed from various per-
loanwords are offensive to BP is to approach it
spectives by several scholars (e.g. Takashi,
from a linguistic perspective. Hence, in the pre-
1990; Kay, 1995; Takashi Wilkerson, 1997;
sent study, I explore the issue of borrowing by
Smead, 1998; Friedrich, 2002). Although this
BP speakers through a linguistic analysis of
phenomenon has been regarded as enriching
loanwords from English that are currently used
and/or creative by some (e.g. Crystal, 2003;
as slang in Brazil. The definition of slang used
Friedrich, 2002), it has encountered opposi-
here is that proposed by Eble (1996: 11): ‘an
tion in many parts of the world. Phillipson
ever changing set of colloquial words and
(1992: 7), for instance, views it ‘as a phenome-
phrases that speakers use to establish or rein-
non that has offended users of other languages
force social identity or cohesiveness within a
for more than a century.’ He explains how
group or with a trend or fashion in society at
some governments (in France and Slovenia,
large.’
for example) have adopted measures to pre-
vent the use of loanwords from English.
This issue of whether or not the incorpora-
tion of loanwords is offensive to the borrowing EDUARDO HENRIQUE DINIZ
language became a topic of much debate in DE FIGUEIREDO is a Ph.D.
Brazil after Projected Law #1676/1999, which student in Applied Linguistics
aims to limit the use of foreign words (mainly at Arizona State University.
He holds an M.A. in English
from English) in Brazilian Portuguese (here-
Language and Literature from
after, BP). As Rajagopalan (2005) explains, the Federal University of
many popular movements, politicians, and Santa Catarina (UFSC) in
traditional grammarians have expressed con- Brazil. His interests lie in the
cern that BP is ‘under an imminent threat from areas of Critical Applied
English’ (101). Linguistics, ESL education, Language Policy,
Several linguists (e.g. Faraco, 2001) have Language Ideology, and English as an International
opposed the proposition, based on issues such Language. His current research has focused on how
as linguistic prejudice and the lack of language ideologies about language have influenced policies
expertise of the proponents and supporters and practices in regard to the use and the teaching
of English as a second/foreign language.
of the projected law. Still, the proposition was
Email: eduardo.dinizdefigueiredo@asu.edu
approved by the Brazilian Senate in 2003. It

doi:10.1017/S0266078410000301
English Today 104, Vol. 26, No. 4 (December 2010). Printed in the United Kingdom © 2010 Cambridge University Press 5

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078410000301 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 The use of loanwords as slang is particularly
important to the current debate of linguistic
borrowing in Brazil for two reasons. First, Eng-
lish-origin slang is used by websites, electronic
magazines and other media in that country,
which means that if the Projected Law is even-
tually approved, it will bring imposed changes
to the discourses of these media. Second,
'Speakers use slang when they want to be cre-
ative, clear and acceptable to a select group'
(Eble, 1996: 119).Based on this social and
inventive character of slang, my objective is to
understand the linguistic and creative
processes that English-origin slang loanwords
go through when they are borrowed by BP
speakers. This analysis should bring a picture
of authentic usage of English loanwords in
Brazil and an insight into whether such prac-
tice is either offensive or threatening to BP.
In order to address my objective, I pursue the
following research questions:
1 How do the meanings of the loanwords ana-
lyzed differ from their original meanings in
English when they are used as slang in BP?
2 What morphological processes (if any) take
place when these words are borrowed by
BP?
3 How do the lexical categories of the loan-
words in BP differ from those in English?
Method
Examples of English loanwords were collected
from Brazilian websites. I chose to use material
from the Internet due to the wide availability
of access to it, and to the fact that it represents
authentic language use. The selection of the
websites was based on at least one of the fol-
lowing criteria: (1) whether the website is
from a Brazilian domain (such as .com.br);
and/or (2) whether there is another way to
confirm that the website is indeed from Brazil
(e.g. references to places, people, language).
Therefore, the search started in weblogs, pho-
tologs, forums, and personal webpages that
are hosted in 4 of the most popular websites in
Brazil: Universo Online (UOL), Terra, Internet
Grátis (IG), and Globo. This choice to start in
more personal websites was based on the
expectation that more spontaneous language
use would be found in them.
Terms that were already expected (such as
‘night’, ‘fight’, ‘boy’, ‘brother’ and ‘fashion’)
were the first ones to be sought and examined.
This initial search led to other websites and
6 ENGLISH TODAY 104
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other terms that were not necessarily antici-
pated, such as ‘fake’, ‘floater’, ‘lip’, ‘swell’, and
‘streeteiro’. A total of 58 loanwords that could
be considered for the study were found in 250
websites. Pseudo-loans, defined here as ‘loan-
words which have been combined to produce
unique combinations that are not found in
English, and would not usually be understood
by native speakers’ (Rebuck, 2002: 63), were
discarded (for instance, cybermano).
In order to determine whether the words
found could be considered slang, I consulted
three of the most important dictionaries of
contemporary BP (Borba, 2004; Ferreira,
2009; Houaiss & Vilar, 2009). These 3 dictio-
naries were selected due to the high respect
and reliability that is generally attributed to
them and their authors (Welker, 2006). My
choice of dictionary use to determine slang was
based on Eble’s claim that dictionaries ‘are ill
equipped to record slang’ (Eble, 1996: 22).
According to Eble, the characteristics of slang
‘militate against slang’s showing up frequently
and consistently in the files on which dictio-
naries are based’ (22). Therefore, if a word is
being used by a certain social group but its def-
inition is not found in a dictionary, it may be
argued that this particular word is slang.
To be considered for data analysis, a word
had to fit into one of the following categories:
(1) it has not been defined by any of the three
main contemporary dictionaries of standard
BP used in this study; or (2) if it is defined by
one, two or all of the dictionaries, at least one
of the definitions specifies it as slang, colloqui-
alism, informal language, or pertaining to a
particular social group (e.g. surfers).2 Also, if a
term was found in a dictionary, but its defini-
tion was completely different from the mean-
ing the word has in BP slang, then this term
was still considered for the study. For instance,
the words up and down were defined by one of
the dictionaries as types of quark, which has
nothing to do with how the words are used in
BP slang.
The process of data analysis followed the
steps below:
1 Examination of the meanings of the slang
items, based on their use in discourse, and
analysis of how their meanings differ from
the definitions of the same words in English
(based on the American Heritage Dictionary
of the English Language, or Collins English
Dictionary, or both);
December 2010
 2 Analysis of what morphological processes
may have taken place when the original
words were borrowed by BP;
3 Syntactic analysis of the sentences in which
the slang vocabulary appears, focusing on
the lexical categories of these words, and
how they differ from those of the original
words in English.
Analysis
Thirty-two of the fifty-eight words considered
for analysis were classified as slang based on
the criteria established in this study. The other
words appeared in at least one of the dictio-
naries and did not have any specification in
their definitions that qualified them as slang,
colloquialism, informal language, or language
that pertained to a specific social group. Table
1 shows exactly what all words were and how
they were categorized.
In what follows, I present the linguistic
analysis of the 32 words that were categorized
as slang. The analysis is subdivided into 3 sub-
headings: meanings, morphological processes,
and lexical categories.
Meanings
Twenty-three words have meanings that are
similar to at least one of the dictionary defini-
tions of those same words in English. One of
those 23 words does not actually exist in Eng-
lish (‘streeteiro’), but its meaning in BP slang
still relates to the meaning of the English word
that originated it (‘street’). Two cases that are
interesting are those of the words ‘vibe’ and
‘dread’ (‘dread’ meaning Rastafarian, as in
‘Proud to be a dread’), which are slang words
in English as well. Therefore, BP slang has
borrowed these words directly from English
slang.
Five other borrowings also have usages that
relate to similar meanings of the words in Eng-
lish, but exclusively in the case of surfing:3 ‘lip’,
‘floater’, ‘dropar’ (from the English ‘to drop’),
‘lineup’ and ‘point-break’. These are terms that
have very specific definitions in the language
of surfers in English, and these meanings are
also adopted by surfers in Brazil. This case is
interesting for two reasons. First of all, the
usage of those terms by the Brazilian surfing
community creates an approximation of
surfers in Brazil to those in other parts of the
world (in Hawaii and California, for example).
Second, it establishes the uniqueness of that
specific group in Brazil. Therefore, at the same
time as Brazilian surfers are showing an identi-
fication with English-speaking surfers, they are
also affirming their exclusive identities as
surfers in their own country.4
The remaining four loanwords have mean-
ings that deviate substantially from their origi-
nal definitions in English. This is what Harmon
(1994: 468) calls ‘considerable semantic
change’ [my translation]. Below, I present
these words, an attempt to define them in BP
slang, and a few examples of their use taken
from the websites.

Table 1: Classification of words based on dictionary definitions

SLANG NON-SLANG
Bike Fight Point-break Approach Light Teen
Boy Floater Relax Brunch Net Teenager
Brother Hype Roots Bus Piercing Upgrade
Cliff Lineup Streeteiro Cash Playboy Upload
Crowd Link Style Checkup Offline
Cult Lip Swell Cool Online
Dark Nerd Trip Download Rush
Down Nick Trash Drag-queen Show
Dread Night Up Fashion Standard
Dropar Pink Vibe Insight Standby
Fake Point Lady States

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 Boy – also boyzinho (male), boyzinha
(female): This word is usually associated
with a boy (or sometimes even a girl, as in
the case of ‘boyzinha’, which will be
discussed later) that is wealthy or better off
than most (financially), wears nice clothes,
and/or is spoiled by his/her parents.
Examples: ‘Eu me sentia um boy’ [I felt like a
‘boy’]; ‘Eu odeio paty e boyzinho’ [I hate
Barbie girls and ‘boyzinho’]; ‘A pessoa ser
boyzinha é ridículo né?’ [To be a ‘boyzinha’ is
ridiculous, isn’t it?].
Night: This word is usually associated with
‘party’ or ‘partying’. Examples: ‘Eu tava na
night’ [I was in the night]; ‘Ontem a night foi
massa’ [Yesterday, the ‘night’ was great].
Point: Refers to the coolest place in a certain
area (physical or virtual), the place to be.
Examples: ‘Bar do Zeca, o point rock de
Caxias’ [Zeca’s Bar, the rock’ n’ roll ‘point’ in
the city of Caxias]. ‘Bem vindo ao Apoteose, o
point do samba na net’ [Welcome to
Apoteose, the samba ‘point’ on the net].
Up: Generally used in the sense of improving
something. Examples: ‘Quer dar um up no
seu quarto, colega?’ [Do you want to improve
your bedroom, friend?]. ‘Para dar um up no
emocional.’ [To improve your emotions].
Although the exact meanings of these words
(in BP slang) deviate from their English defini-
tions, it is clear that there is still a relation to
their original meanings. This actually makes
sense; it would seem strange to observe many
loanwords that meant something completely
different from (or unrelated to) what they
mean in English. Still, it is not surprising to see
that some of the words gained a somewhat
new meaning in their new context, a fact that
supports the idea of creativity being associated
with the borrowings (Stanlaw, 1987;
Friedrich, 2002).
In considering these facts, a direct answer to
the first research question is that overall the
meanings of the loanwords used as slang in BP
do not differ much from their meanings in Eng-
lish. It is important to observe, however, that
in most cases, the meanings of the borrowings
can only be associated with one of the multiple
definitions that the words have in their original
language. Harmon (1994) also observed this
fact in his data, and he refers to it as ‘semantic
restriction’ (468). Examples taken from my
own data include the loanwords ‘roots’ and
‘cult’. In BP slang, ‘roots’ only relates to some-
thing that goes back to the origins of a style
(for instance, ‘um estilo bem roots de reggae’ –
a very rootsy reggae style), and ‘cult’ only
8 ENGLISH TODAY 104
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refers to something or someone regarded as
fashionable, artistic or intellectual (e.g.
‘homens cult’ – cult men).
It is also possible to argue that the meanings
given to the borrowings are (at least some-
times) chosen based on social considerations,
such as group identity, uniqueness, member-
ship, and inter-group association. The case of
surfers presented previously serves as support
for such a claim, and it reinforces the idea that
the use of loanwords particularly as slang is
not only a creative process, but also a social
and integrative one. Moreover, it may even
suggest (to say the least) that the choice of
loanwords and meanings attributed to them is
a very conscious one in some cases.
Morphological processes
My second research question asked what mor-
phological processes take place when the Eng-
lish words are borrowed by BP. The only
morphological process observed in the data
analyzed was that of suffixation. In fact, only
two of the loanwords actually suffered suffixa-
tion at the time of borrowing: ‘streeteiro’5 (a
slang term that defines those who practice
skateboarding on the streets – -eiro, in Por-
tuguese, is a suffix that means ‘the one who
performs something’, like -er in English), and
‘dropar’6 (slang term that is used by Brazilian
surfers in the same sense as the English surf
term ‘to drop’).
However, it is evident from the data that BP
speakers consistently add suffixes to some of
the other loanwords analyzed after they have
already been borrowed. This specific morpho-
logical process was observed consistently in
nine of the loanwords found (not including
‘streeteiro’ and ‘dropar’, which were already
discussed above). Table 2 shows what these
loanwords are, some of the suffixes that may
be added to them, and what the new words
(after the process of suffixation) mean.
Therefore, the answer to my second
research question is that only two of the
words suffered any type of morphological
process at the time of borrowing, but that
users of BP slang may add suffixes to loan-
words depending on their own linguistic
needs and creativity. As Harmon (1994: 467)
explains, ‘derivation, a dynamic phenomenon
essential to the evolution of every language,
remains strict in Portuguese, also in the case
of borrowings. These borrowings, when incor-
porated to this language, become as available
December 2010
 Table 2: Loanwords that receive suffixation
Loanword Example of suffix that may be added to it
Bike -a (thematic vowel) + r (verbal suffix –
indicates infinitive)
Nerd -ear (verbal suffix)
Brother -zinho (diminutive – masculine)
-zinha (diminutive – feminine)
Crowd -ear (verbal suffix)
Fake -aço (suffix that indicates augmentative)
Hype -a (thematic vowel) + r (verbal suffix –
indicates infinitive)
Up -a (thematic vowel) + r (verbal suffix –
indicates infinitive)
Boy -zinho (diminutive – masculine)
-zinha (diminutive – feminine)
Link -a (thematic vowel) + r (verbal
inflectional suffix)
and subject to the process of derivation as any
other word’ [my translation].
It is also important to observe that the suf-
fixes themselves are all from Portuguese, and
follow Portuguese rules of suffixation. Again,
this was similar to what Harmon (1994)
observed. ‘The loanword is not allowed to
receive an original morpheme to its syntactic
role, and Portuguese morphemes are added to
it based on the derivational requisites of this
language’ (468).
Two cases from my own data that deserve
some specific attention are those of the words
‘boy’ and ‘brother’. Both of these words in Eng-
lish are masculine, but in BP slang they can
receive the morpheme -zinha, which is femi-
nine. In the case of the first word (‘boy’), this
may be explained by the new semantic feature
(+rich or +spoiled) that the word receives in
BP (previously discussed in this paper). There-
fore, rather than borrowing a feminine word
(e.g. ‘girl’) that would also receive this new
semantic characteristic, BP users simply trans-
form the masculine word already available to
them to feminine using their own linguistic
rules.
The case of the word ‘brother’ is not differ-
ent. In BP, this loanword is usually associated
with friendship (a meaning that is also possi-
ble in English), rather than family ties. Again,
as in the case of ‘boy’, instead of borrowing a
THE USE OF ENGLIS H L O AN- W O RDS AS S L ANG ON W E B S I T E S I N B R A Z I L I A N P O R T U G U E S E
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078410000301 Published online by Cambridge University Press
New words and their meanings
Bikear – to ride a bike
Nerdear – to surf the net
Brotherzinho – little brother, little
friend, good friend (with –zinho
indicating affection)
Crowdear – crowd, used as a verb
Fakezaço – very fake7
Hypear – hype, used as a verb
Upar – upload
Boyzinho – spoiled (or rich) boy;
Boyzinha – spoiled (or rich) girl
Linkar – link, used as a verb
feminine word that would mean the same
thing (e.g. ‘sister’), BP users simply change the
word to feminine. This linguistic adaptation of
those two words (‘boy’ and ‘brother’) supports
the claim that creativity plays an important
role in how loanwords are used by those who
borrow them.
Lexical categories
Out of the 32 slang loanwords analyzed, only 4
actually differ from the original words in Eng-
lish in terms of lexical category. These words
are ‘trash’, ‘style’, ‘relax’ and ‘brother’. In Eng-
lish, trash is either a noun or a verb, whereas in
BP slang it is used as an adjective, as in the
question ‘Qual o programa mais trash da TV
aberta?’ [What is the trashiest program on
TV?], taken from one of the websites. Simi-
larly, style can be either a verb or a noun. In
BP, as in the case of trash, it is used as an adjec-
tive, as in ‘Cabelos style’ [Stylish hair]. Finally,
relax in English is a verb, but in BP slang it is
used as an adjective, as in the question ‘Quem
é mais relax’ [Who is more relaxed?].
One word that deserves special attention in
terms of lexical category is brother. In BP, this
word may be a noun (just as it is used in Eng-
lish), as in the sentence ‘Eu e meu broth-
erzasso, DJ Smile’ [Me and my big brother, DJ
Smile]. However, it may also be an adjective,
as in ‘Nossa, eu sou brother demais’ [Wow, I
9
 am very ‘brother’]. It is interesting to observe
that the meaning of the word is associated with
friendship in both cases, so the only change
that actually happens to the word is regarding
its lexical category.
Thus, the answer to my third research ques-
tion (‘How do the lexical categories of the
loanwords in BP differ from those in Eng-
lish?’) is that the lexical categories of the loan-
words used as slang in BP are usually the
same as those in English. However, variation
is possible, as it happens in the cases of the
words ‘trash’, ‘relax’, ‘style’, and ‘brother’.
Once again, this is in accordance with what
Harmon (1994) found. Examples from his
data include words such as ‘shoot’ (whose ver-
sion in BP chute is a noun) and ‘snob’ (esnobe
in BP may be a noun or adjective). This may
be another argument in favor of the creativity
that borrowers have when using the loan-
words in their new cultural contexts.
Discussion
The main objective of the present study was to
bring a linguistic understanding of loanwords
from English that are used in BP as slang.
Based on the analysis presented, and on the
social and creative character of slang (Eble,
1996), there are at least three questions to con-
sider in this discussion: 1) how the borrowings
fit into their new linguistic environment; 2)
how the loanwords are used to mark group
identification and affiliation; and 3) what this
process has to say in regard to the current
political-linguistic debate over borrowing in
Brazil.
Linguistic environment
The data presented and analyzed in this inves-
tigation suggest that BP speakers treat slang
loanwords in a similar way to how they would
treat any other loanword. That is to say, slang
loanwords may go through the same morpho-
logical, syntactic and semantic adaptations
and transformations in BP as any other bor-
rowing (and in fact any other lexical item in
Portuguese). As suggested by Harmon (1994:
468), ‘the borrowing already is an integral part
of the Portuguese language and becomes alive
within the linguistic structures of Portuguese,
adapting, growing, changing and creating new
vocabulary, as it is expected of the evolution-
ary nature of a modern language.’
10
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In fact, it may even be argued that BP speak-
ers play with the borrowed terms based on
their own needs and creativity; sometimes giv-
ing them new meanings and functions, some-
times creating new vocabulary out of them,
and, more importantly, always adapting them
to their own linguistic necessities and realities.
Moreover, as it has been previously stated, this
supposed play does not deviate from the gram-
mar of Portuguese; it actually follows it.
Group identification and ownership
Gee (2005: 1) suggests two primary functions
of human language: ‘to support the perfor-
mance of social activities and social identities
and to support human affiliation within cul-
tures, social groups, and institutions.’ The use
of slang seems of extreme importance for these
functions, and English-origin slang in BP seems
to be used (consciously or not) with the pur-
pose of fulfilling them.
Based on the websites that were analyzed, it
is possible to observe a number of groups that
seem to use some of the loanwords examined
more predominantly than others. Some of
these groups includes (but are not limited to)
female consumers (who use terms like ‘pink’
and ‘dar um up’), videogame players and blog
users (who adopt loanwords like ‘nerd’, ‘link’,
‘nick’ and ‘upar’), and skateboarders (whose
vocabulary includes ‘dropar’ and ‘streeteiro’).
It is possible to argue that the use of these bor-
rowings in many cases helps the users mark
their social affiliation with these groups, even
when the terms are not exclusively used by
them. For example, the word ‘nerd’ is not used
only by videogame players and blog users, but
when members of these groups use this word,
they are marking social membership, as it is a
term that is common in the discourse of these
particular social communities.
What is more important, however, is that the
loanwords serve the needs of the members
who belong to these social communities within
Brazilian culture. A native speaker of English
who goes to Brazil, for instance, may recognize
the word ‘up’ in the expression ‘dar um up’
when s/he hears it, but s/he will not under-
stand the social and cultural meaning that it
has in that particular linguistic, sociocultural
environment unless s/he is familiar with it.
The case of surfers previously discussed is
particularly interesting and slightly different in
this sense. Out of the 32 loanwords analyzed,
ENGLISH TODAY 104 December 2010
 at least 8 seem to be used predominantly by
members of this group (‘crowd’, ‘dropar’,
‘floater’, ‘lineup’, ‘lip’, ‘point-break’, ‘swell’ and
‘trip’). As I argued before, the meanings of
these terms in Brazilian surf culture are similar
to those in English-speaking surf cultures.
Therefore, the use of these borrowings serves
to both reinforce and mark exclusive group
identity within Brazilian culture, and at the
same time create inter-group association with
communities of surfers from places other than
Brazil. In this case, English is serving both as a
global and local code at the same time, even in
a country where it is not the predominant lan-
guage.
What is interesting to highlight in the exam-
ples presented above (and in fact in the use of
every one of the loanwords observed in this
study) is that their users claim ownership of
the terms to serve their own linguistic, social,
and cultural necessities and realities. Once the
words are borrowed, they no longer belong
exclusively to English, but become part of BP.
This view is reinforced by the fact that many
words originally borrowed from the English
language are now part of a ‘standard’ vocabu-
lary of BP (such as many of the words pre-
sented in Kennedy, 1971).
To borrow or not to borrow
The discussion of whether or not to prohibit
borrowing in Brazil is still very complicated. As
previously stated, the argument of those who
defend Projected Law #1676/1999 is that BP
needs to be defended from a threatening and
offensive use of loanwords. The case presented
in this investigation, on the other hand, sug-
gests that BP users, when using their own
native language and making this language
widely available to the public on the Internet,
feel very comfortable about borrowing vocabu-
lary from English, and that such borrowing is
neither imposed nor threatening. This is in
accordance to what Bagno (2000: 61) claims:
‘A language does not need to be “defended”,
much less defended from its own speakers,
who are its legitimate users and as such ought
to have the liberty to do with it what it best
pleases them to do’ [as translated by
Rajagopalan, 2005].
Moreover, it seems unlikely that the phe-
nomenon of borrowing from English by BP
users will stop. The case of slang is particularly
interesting in this sense, given its innovative,
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ephemeral, creative and social character (Eble,
1996). It seems unreasonable (to say the least)
to prevent language users from engaging in the
processes of spontaneous creation and group
identification that are involved in the use of
slang, and restricting the use of loanwords
would impose a limit to the choices users have
of what terms best fit the meanings that they
want to convey. This would particularly affect
specialized media (e.g. surfing magazines and
electronic websites) that use these loanwords
to communicate with their target audiences.
My view is similar to that proposed by
Friedrich (2002), who claims that instead of
creating laws to prohibit the use of loanwords,
policymakers ‘should look at ways in which
people can be prepared for their encounter
with this phenomenon’ (28). The truth is that
the contact with words from English tends to
only grow, especially in a world that is now
dominated by powerful communication tools
such as the Internet. Making people aware of
the new kinds of language that they might
encounter and educating them about their own
language uses seems more reasonable than to
deny them their linguistic right to adapt lan-
guage based on their own needs, spontaneity
and creativity. This, in my view, requires poli-
cymakers and linguists alike to engage in con-
stant dialogue with language users, and the
issue of slang (being an authentic way of using
language created by the speakers themselves)
cannot be disregarded.
Conclusion
It is possible to say that loanwords from Eng-
lish are being used consistently as slang by
many Brazilian speakers of Portuguese who
are part of different social groups. In the
majority of the cases presented here, these
words are used to mark group identity and
affiliation. In all cases, it may be claimed that
linguistic creativity, spontaneity and choice are
key parts of the borrowing process. Moreover,
it seems clear that Brazilian users of slang are
claiming ownership of the loanwords, and
using them to best fit their own linguistic needs
and desires. A law that restricts such creative
usage would, therefore, not only be aggressive
but also naïve. 䡵
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Professors Aya Matsuda and
Patricia Friedrich from Arizona State University
11
 for their valuable comments on this piece. I would
also like to thank Aline Sanfelici for help with
editing, and Camila Camilotti and Flavio
Figueiredo for assistance with data collection.
Any errors or omissions that remain in this study
are my responsibility.
Notes
1 The terms loanword and borrowing are used
interchangeably throughout the present study.
They refer specifically to what Eble (1996: 74) calls
‘cultural borrowing’, which is the borrowing that
takes place between different languages (from one
language to another), as opposed to borrowings
that occur within the same language (‘dialect bor-
rowing’).
2 I acknowledge that not all colloquialisms and
informal expressions are necessarily slang (Eble,
1996), but the distinction between these terms is
not clear-cut and not uniform across the 3 dictio-
naries used. Therefore I decided to consider all 3
categories when filtering which words pertained to
this investigation.
3 For specific definitions of these words in the con-
text of surfing, you may refer to surfing dictionar-
ies, widely available online, such as the Official
Surfing Dictionary.
4 The words ‘swell’, ‘trip’ and ‘crowdear’ (from the
English word ‘to crowd’) are also used mostly by
surfers in BP; in English, however, they do not have
a meaning that is exclusive to the surfing commu-
nity.
5 The word ‘street’ itself was usually found only in
brand names or names of videogames, and not
really used as slang. That is why it did not fit the
purpose of the present study, whereas ‘streeteiro’
did.
6 The term ‘drop’ itself was also found in some
websites in BP, but it appeared less common than
‘dropar’. Therefore, it may be argued that ‘dropar’
is the original borrowed term in BP slang, and
‘drop’ was originated from it through back-forma-
tion.
7 Most websites used the spelling ‘fakezasso’ with
–ss instead of -ç. Also, note the addition of the con-
sonant -z, which is not an actual part of the suffix or
the word in question.
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