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...
Language
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...
Ebullient, unembarrassable and the model for Rat in The Wind in the Willows - Mr Slang introduces the remarkable lexicographer Frederick Furnivall... Fink, Frith, what next? asked John Halliwell. Two F-words, we must have another. So here he is: Frederick Furnivall (1825-1910), bearded, pink-tied, vegetarian, oarsman, controversialist, muscular Christian socialist, midwife ... Read More...
The latest in Jonathon's irregular (and irregularly numbered) Heroes of Slang series is actually a heroine... I took Maths O Level in late 1962 and passed. It was my last encounter with the subject. Only geography from which I was removed having managed to claim the wooden spoon three terms in ... Read More...
This week Susan witnesses some top-class profanity at the West End's hottest new musical... If my father were still alive, he would certainly have walked out after only a few minutes. After all, he banned me from watching Till Death Us Do Part and Steptoe and Son because of the swearing. Despite ... Read More...
... and also bunyips, whangdoodles and snollygosters - it's Mr Slang's guide to monsters... The usual taxonomy of slang is derived from searching themes and is, like much else, dependant on what one did at some earlier, quite possibly ill-worked out and at all too premature a stage. The childhood, as ... Read More...
Jonathon is amongst the dreaming spires this week, as he considers Oxfordian slang... I was in Oxford yesterday. Waiting for my train home I noticed that the marketing boys and girls have been in and that the old place is now labelled the city of ‘learning and culture’ which is I ... Read More...
The internet has revolutionised the lexicographer's ability to find authoritative information, says Jonathon Green. So why do so many still reject authority...? It is a truth universally acknowledged that the ever-expanding aggregation of digitized information that we shorthand as ‘the Net’ has changed the game. All the games. Being no doubt ... Read More...
This list of perfect rhymes might come in handy next time you need to complete a limerick... Perfect rhymes, which are also called exact, full, or true rhymes, occur when two words sound absolutely identical from the point in which each word's stressed vowel occurs to the end of the word. Also, ... Read More...
The snow is falling in Paris and Jonathon's thoughts turn to cocaine and laundry-theft... The snow has reached Paris and up by the fountain round which the office workers parade their flat-imprisoned chiens morning and night Fifi’s owner is wielding her caninette for which I thank her since the white may ... Read More...
