Mr Slang’s Complete Guide to Nicknames

From the Big Apple to a 'Bob Marley and the Wailers' (a BMW), Jonathon looks at man's mania for nicknaming... Nicknames, eh? You gotta laugh. ‘Ali’ Barber, ‘Blanco’ White, ‘Shiner’ Bright, ‘Lackery’ Wood, ‘Queeny’ King, ‘Bodger’ Lees, ‘Ned’ Kelly, ‘Dusty’ Miller, ‘Bogey’ Harris, ‘Happy’ Day, ‘Hooky’ Walker, ‘Tug’ Wilson, ‘Wiggy’ Bennett ... Read More...

Heroes of Slang 18: Eric Partridge

The leading lexicographer of slang salutes his predecessor... How embarrassing. There he is. Always has been. Right under my nose. Or at least right behind me. And I never noticed. My very own predecessor: without whom and all that stuff. Really. I had better make amends. Eric Honeywood Partridge was born in ... Read More...

Twixt Wind and Water

Hurricane Sandy batters the east coast of America, but back here in Blighty slang has a rather down-to-earth relationship with wind... Slang is urban and its lexis draws thereupon, but the elements, linked to nature and thus the world beyond town, are too powerful to be ignored. So slang undoubtedly uses ... Read More...

Poor Show

The poor, as we know, are always with us - and consequently slang is rich indeed when it comes to poverty... Slang, as we should expect, is democratic. It fears not neither does it favour. An equal opportunity employer with the unalloyed fervour of a local council job ad it extends ... Read More...

Pompey and Circumstances – Some Nautical Slang

Right you landlubbers, hoist up your shack-painters and stow away your skillagalee, Mr Slang is setting sail with the King's Navy... Gazing at the illustrations in Emily Brand’s Georgian Bawdyhouse the other week, I came across Rowlandson’s picture ‘Portsmouth Point’ (1814), cropped and captioned with allusions to Jack’s propensity for carousal ... Read More...

Urban Dictionary: The Folly of Crowds

An encounter with the man behind the web's 'go-to lexicon' leads Jonathon to wonder whether the very nature of dictionary-making is under threat... Other than in his own adopted third persona, and the occasional reference to Mr Meades who is a friend as well as a minor deity (a fact currently ... Read More...

Heroes of Slang 18: John Cleland

This week Jonathon Green salutes the author of Fanny Hill, a book with a single aim: 'to write about a whore without using the language that was seen as part of her stock in trade'... It is my intention to review, perhaps next week, Emily Brand’s new study of the Georgian ... Read More...

Don’t Trust Me, I’m a Lexicographer

We are programmed to trust a dictionary, but should we? Jonathon Green - the leading lexicographer of English slang - advises that dictionaries should carry a lexical health warning... Lexicography is about demystifying, of cutting out the fanciful crap and aiming for some kind of truth. This is usually done on ... Read More...