Term of Art: Argot

“Argot (noun): The special idiom used by a particular class or group, especially an underworld jargon; distinctive parlance.

‘She smoked cigarettes one right after the other, and did not care who knew it; and she was never more than five minutes out of the office before she was talking in newspaper argot, not all of it quite accurate.’ John O’Hara, Appointment in Samarra“

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.