Jonathon fibs you right in the claret-spout with his fambler, as he examines slang's obsession with fisticuffs... Unlike slang's women, slang's men do not scold. And nag? heaven forfend. Men shout. Loud, vain, futile. All that stuff. Gobshites, basically. But men also hit. How do I wallop thee, let me count the ... Read More...
Brit's Dabbler Diary is taking an August break. So here, by popular demand, is a repeat of the one of the most memorable posts ever to appear on The Dabbler: the anti-diary, in which Mr Slang takes stroll through Great Wen and calls for Armageddon... Some Lord’s day. I know not ... Read More...
It's holiday time, and Mr Slang is spending his summer constructing interactive timelines of popular terms for the penis. You ain't seen nothing like this before... It’s August. Holiday time, I gather. I had mine in June but no matter. My short-lived tan has faded and my mind is blank. Slang ... Read More...
Anyone fancy a 'curry te Kanawa'? Mr Slang enjoys a new lexicography of New Zealand words, even though it is a little clean for his tastes... Once upon a time there was the dictionary. It survives, of course, but not as we knew it, and those thick and squarish books are ... Read More...
Even crème fraîche can be described as 'edgy' these days - has the term lost all meaning?... Words have to multi-task. It comes with their territory. One dictionary entry, several, even many definitions; some nuanced others seemingly oppositional though there, perhaps, one may have a homonym. The bulk of slang is ... Read More...
In honour of the new Princeling, Mr Slang is talking kids... I love children, as Nancy Mitford put it so well, especially when they cry: for then someone takes them away. Mitford of course lived in Paris where they have a more robust attitude to those who have yet to acquire ... Read More...
Jonathon Green introduces a 16th century printer and 'compiler of cant' who arguably produced the very first dictionary of slang... Bokes be not set by: there tymes is past, I gesse; The dyse and cardes, in drynkynge wyne and ale, Tables, cayles[1], and balles, they be now sette a sale Men lete theyr chyldren ... Read More...
Jonathon Green reviews a new edition of a groundbreaking work of Anglo-Indian lexicography... Hobson Jobson A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive was published in 1886. Its name comes from an Englished pronunciation of ‘Ya Hassan! Ya Hossein!’ as cried at ... Read More...
He was the bard of Chicago and he tried to steal Simone de Beauvoir from Satre... Mr Slang introduces the man behind The Man with the Golden Arm... As Hamlet put it, look here upon this picture. And see before you, dare I attest, a proper writer: specs, work-shirt, hair a little ... Read More...
Italy has given the world delicious food, beautiful people and boring football. But what has it gifted to slang? Jonathon Green investigates... I have been in Italy enjoying the kindness of friends. I, or such parts as were exposed, am now a pleasing light brown, patched pallid[1] only where shaded by ... Read More...