Colloquial refers to the level language is used in everyday speech.

This presents a neutral tone, not so much informal or formal. This is the level used in ordinary conversation. Familiar is a level of language that reflects the close relationship of the people speaking. The intimacy is observed in the use of details and personal references in speech. Colloquial (adjective) means pertaining to common/ordinary/everyday or familiar conversation, not formal, academic or literary. It can be used to describe terms used in normal discourse between people of a particular language group. In many languages there are colloquial phrases and expressions, and many of these may not be listed in standard dictionaries. However, they are often used, and everyone knows what they mean. [Etymology: Colloquial is from colluquy, Latin colloquium, from con, with, + loquor, to speak] Examples of colloquial language: 'We must get someone in to help us balance the books. Do you know a good accountant?" "It's no good leaving her a message to phone you back. You can wait until the
Ain't, alright, a lot, big, large, great, cows come home and she'll never call!"

Slang (noun) refers to words, phrases and uses of language that are considered to be very informal and the usage is often restricted to special contexts or is only used by a particular class, profession, social group, etc. e.g. prison slang, or in speech by people who know each other well. Some slang includes abusive, offensive or vulgar langauge and 'taboo' words. Most slang expressions are spoken, not written and would be considered inappropriate in formal types of communication. Examples of slang "We get smashed (drunk) every Friday night." "We've all had this bug (illness) for a week." Colloquialisms are the broad category of informal speech which includes slang. Slang is a sub-category of Colloquial expressions. No, there is a slight difference. Colloquialism is when a word is used in informal or relaxed use. Most native speakers will know what a colloquial word means. Slang is when a word is used by a small group of people, e.g. teenagers, which is not used by most people. A common example of colloquialism is the word "cool''. Cool can be found in the dictionary and everyone knows what it means. However, a person would not use "cool" when writing an article or a paper. The ironic thing is that in the 1960's, cool was slang only hippies knew what the word meant.

10 Colloquial Terms and Their Meanings

by Mark Nichol

Why is there a taint surroundingaint? Why do editors get ornery or riled, or have conniptions or raise a ruckus, if writers try to use these and other words? The ebb and flow of the English languages vocabulary is caused by competing crosscurrents. Neologisms come in with each tide, some of them washing ashore and others drifting back out to sea. But pronouncements from self-appointed experts and tacit disapproval by the self-selected better classes can also result in the relegation of certain terms and idioms to the realm of substandard or nonstandard usage. Here are ten words that, at least in terms of one sense, have been demoted by an association with rural dialect. 1. Aint: Once a fully legitimate contraction of am not employed at least in familiar conversation by speakers of all social classes, aint came to be identified with less welleducated people, and in the United States specifically with poor rural dwellers. Its unfortunate that in writing, its use is restricted to humorous emphasis or idiomatic expressions (Say it aint so!). 2. Allow: The sense of allow meaning concede or recognize has been relegated to obscurity; seldom is this usage employed except in faux-rural contexts. 3. Conniption: This word for an emotional fit, usually appearing in plural form (having conniptions), is still employed occasionally in a jocular sense. It was first attested almost two hundred years ago, but its origin is obscure, though its possibly a corruption of corruption, which once had a connotation of anger, or might be derived from a dialectal form of captious (fallacious). 4. Fetch: Fetch has a colloquial air about it, and its unfortunate that the word lacks respectability, because it is more vivid and thorough a term than get(Could you fetch that for me?), and more compact than, for example, Could you go over there and bring that back for me? It survives in one formal sense, however: farfetched (originally, brought from afar, but used figuratively for most of its centurieslong life span). 5. Ornery: This contraction of ordinary, influenced by the latter words less common senses of coarse and ugly, developed a connotation of cantankerous or mean behavior. Today, its used only in a humorous or scornful sense. 6. Reckon: The sense of reckon that means suppose (I reckon I ought to get home) is one of the most high-profile examples of stereotypical rural dialect, but its absent from formal usage. 7. Rile: This dialectal variant of roil, in the sense of stir up, is used informally to describe irritation or anger. 8. Ruckus: Ruckus, probably a mash-up of ruction (disturbance) and rumpus(boisterous activity) themselves both dialectal terms is now used only light-heartedly.

9. Spell: The sense of spell that means an indefinite period of time, related to the use of the word to mean substitute, is confined to rural dialect or affectation of such usage. 10. Yonder: This formerly standard term meaning over there is now known only in rural dialect (or spoofing of it) or in a poetic sense.