Mr Slang looks at the nominations for 'Word of the Year' and wonders why they bother... What are words worth? Tom Tom Club ‘Wordyrappinghood’ (1981) Let us assume, why not, that it’s me. Let us assume, nothing new here, that I’m wrong. Let us assume, hardly a first in self-denial, that everyone else ... Read More...
Language
Mr Slang examines the lexicography of 'specialist' book titles, and uncovers a "grim commentary on the tropes of male excitement..." This is it, I promise. The last one. But pondering the verbose titles of the 19th century pornography, I could but compare them with modernity, or nearly so: the mass-produced paperback equivalents ... Read More...
Jonathon Green continues his slang tour of London with a trip to the 'specialist' bookshops of The Backside of St Clements... All gone now. What you’re looking at above is the Australian High Commission (though didn’t that get knocked down too a year ago or so?). Like Fred and Rose’s lair at ... Read More...
Jonathon Green introduces the great slang lexicographer, spiritualist and possible pornographer, John Stephen Farmer... In 1890, just as what was still known as the New English Dictionary was getting properly into its stride in Oxford, there was published the first of the seven volumes of what could reasonably be called its ... Read More...
The Dabbler's Hallowe'en visit to the woods was a surprise too far for some of our readers, but not, of course, for Mr Slang. Here Jonathon Green provides the last word on 'dogging'. Clicking 'continue' is not for the easily offended - you have been warned... In the days – some 28 ... Read More...
After being summoned to national radio to adjudicate on the recent Twitter scrap over Ricky Gervais' use of the word 'mong', Jonathon Green considers the nature of 'offensive' language... Were this a more convenient world radio’s breakfast shows would be all-day affairs, as are the breakfasts offered in many caffs. But ... Read More...
Capitalism for and against. There's a lot of it about, mostly against. But, this thing 'capitalism' - it doesn't really describe anything in particular, does it? Capitalism, at its most basic, is an arrangement where there are property rights and market relations governed, to some degree of effectiveness, by the rule ... Read More...
Jonathon Green reveals the original character behind the myth of the chirpy cockney sparrer... Once upon a time there was a rat. My rat. I mourn her still and sometimes I told her story: such as here. She was called Mord Em’ly (above, left). Once upon a time there was a ... Read More...
Jonathon Green salutes that great Australian stereotype and master of slang, the 'larrikin'... Let us first describe the captain, bottle-shouldered, pale and thin, For he was the beau-ideal of a Sydney larrikin; E'en his hat was most suggestive of the city where we live, With a gallows-tilt that no one, save a larrikin, can ... Read More...
The classics have virtually vanished from our state schools. Dr Peter Jones MBE, who writes the regular Ancient and Modern column in The Spectator and is now advising the Classics for All campaign, explains why we need to save Latin from educational oblivion... Bettany Hughes was recently filming in a small village in Syria. The ... Read More...
