Comments on: Tempus, Fug it!

By: Mr Slang

Mr Slang — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 11:03:18 +0000

Gaw: splodger = codger, as in old ditto. Splodger also meant a country bumpkin and (or so says Partridge, though without evidence) a grave-robber.

Susan: Bonne année to you too. Slang’s words for old women? I think the simplest advice is: don’t go there. As for arrestable terminology, slang, being a man-made language, may offer 3000 terms for the female – old or young, attractive or otherwise, ‘hot’ or not – but none are what one might term ‘without sin’, even the congratulatory ones. Fortunately (or otherwise) the courts have other priorities.

By: Susan

Susan — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:03:22 +0000

A ‘bit of kyfer’ – the mere mention of such a term surely warrants arrest in this day and age? And I hope the slang terms for old women aren’t nearly as deprecating as those for old codgers?

Happy New Year, Jonathon!

By: Worm

Worm — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:01:28 +0000

yep I think people are going off them, mostly due to competition from all the other events going on in run up to chrimbo. NYE is a pretty naf these days isn’t it?

By: Gaw

Gaw — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:57:12 +0000

‘Splodger’ is wonderful and I shall seek to use it whenever I can.

I was wondering whether you could let us know more about how you get to it in rhyming slang?

Re NYE celebrations, is it just a matter of my getting older or is everyone going off them?

By: Brit

Brit — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:21:28 +0000

I don’t really know why we ‘celebrate’ new year. Surely we should gather for a collective mourning of the old one, plus plentiful weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth at, as you put it, time’s ‘horrid advance’?

Putting a brave face on things, I suppose.

By: Mr Slang

Mr Slang — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:07:14 +0000

Worm: Like so much of slang, ambidexter, as you say, quite positive at first sight, is grabbed, brutally reversed, and tossed back reeking of lawyerly double-dealing. Nice tweet this a.m. in which someone noted that their spell-checked changes ‘lawyer’ to ‘liar’.

Daniel: as a lawyer? or as a woman? Or indeed both?

John: Bad reviews are easy: the red mist descends. Kind ones are much harder and involve pinkness of the cheeks

By: John Halliwell

John Halliwell — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:52:11 +0000

Happy New Year, Jonathon, and thanks for some of the finest blog pieces available anywhere in 2012, the best of which, for me, was ‘Mr Slang’s Diary’ from July. I have read it again today and it still leaves me breathless as I try to keep up with the increasing length and pace of your stride. I usually end up feeling like a street urchin clinging to Boswell’s cloak and shouting “Slow down mister you’re makin’ me bleedin’ feet ache!”

By: Daniel K

Daniel K — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:10:48 +0000

“Kaif” has made its way into Russian too, curiously enough.

By: Worm

Worm — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 11:20:55 +0000

Happy new year Jonathon! I must say that i like the word ambidexter, it sounds almost complimentary