The term argot is also used to refer to the informal specialized vocabulary from a particular field of study, occupation, or hobby, in which sense it overlaps with jargon.
[8] While many of these colloquialisms may prove impenetrable to most lay people, few seem to be specifically designed to conceal meaning from patients (perhaps because standard medical terminology would usually suffice anyway).
[8] The concept of the anti-language was first defined and studied by the linguist Michael Halliday, who used the term to describe the lingua franca of an anti-society.
[9] These societies develop anti-languages as a means to prevent outsiders from understanding their communication and as a manner of establishing a subculture that meets the needs of their alternative social structure.
[10] Anti-languages differ from slang and jargon in that they are used solely among ostracized social groups, including prisoners,[11] criminals, homosexuals,[10] and teenagers.
Anti-languages may also change words using metathesis, reversal of sounds or letters (e.g., apple to elppa), or substituting their consonants.
These anti-languages do not have complete lexicons, cannot be observed in use for linguistic description, and therefore cannot be studied in the same way a language spoken by an existing anti-society would.
[16] A Clockwork Orange is a popular example of a novel where the main character is a teenage boy who speaks an anti-language called Nadsat.
[12] In parts of Connacht, in Ireland, cant mainly refers to an auction, typically on fair day ("Cantmen and Cantwomen, some from as far away as Dublin, would converge on Mohill on a Fair Day, ... set up their stalls ... and immediately start auctioning off their merchandise") and secondly means talk ("very entertaining conversation was often described as 'great cant'" or "crosstalk").