From Nazi Germany to 9/11, Jonathon Green explains why true believers don't use slang... ‘Before [the Al Qaeda training camp] they were joking around and using slang. After the camp the guys were talking jihad, praying and quoting the Koran.’ British jihadist, quoted in Jason Burke The 9/11 Wars (2011) Humankind, as ... Read More...
About Author Profile: Jonathon Green
Mr Slang is away this week, but this corker from the archives explains why he finds one particular word to be the most offensive in the English language... Occasionally, when I toss some new offering onto the great heap of the unsold that is publishing (for if every birth is a ... Read More...
Jonathon Green celebrates the golden age of hardboiled, noir US sports journalism... It’s a funny thing about people. People will hate a guy all his life for what he is, but the minute he dies for it they make him out a hero and they go around saying that maybe he ... Read More...
Rub-a-dub-dub, this week Mr Slang is talking butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers... Rub-a-dub-dub means a pub in rhyming slang, or certainly so in Australia, where it can be abbreviated as rubby or phoneticized as rubbidy. Like a percentage of the type it stems from ascertainable origins, in this case the nursery rhyme ... Read More...
The 'swivel-eyed loons' are back! But have you ever wondered where that fine old description of shire Tories comes from? Allow Mr Slang to enlighten you... My apologies to those who find such things of world-shattering, albeit momentary import, but I am at a loss to see quite where we are ... Read More...
If you're looking for a double entendre, Mr Slang is just the man to give you one... Those who, gazing at last week’s cab-referrent illustration, could tear their eyes from what Joyce, a connoisseur of such things, would have termed Judy Geeson’s ‘frillies’, would have noticed the strapline: ‘He gets more ... Read More...
Gantville cowboys, Butterboys and Sandy McNabs - Jonathon takes a ride through the world of taxi jargon (but doesn't, of course, go sarf of the river)... I am in a cab. The cabbie asks what lies in store. I explain that he is taking me home, which in my case is ... Read More...
Introducing the philosophising cab driver seen by the British wartime establishment as 'the ideal representative of the working man', and sent off on propaganda tours... The DNB fails to take note and he exists in Wikipedia merely among the listings of those who appeared on Desert Island Discs (1943, playlist includes: ... Read More...
Jonathon's latest Hero of Slang is a highly influential poet who wrote 'more frankly about sex than anyone in English before the 20th century'. Be warned, by clicking Continue on this post you'll be unleashing a fair torrent of 17th Century filth... ‘Rouse stately Tarse And lett thy 31165 ... Read More...
Mr Slang has a new toy, and he intends to play with it... I have a new toy. Given that my imminent birthday (Saturday) will bring me a scant five years from the Biblical prescription, this worries me. The idea, that is, of a toy. Or, were I not still wondering ... Read More...
