Today's hero of slang is "a literary, literate fat man" who loved food and French girls' legs... I can write better than anybody who can write faster than me; and I can write faster than anybody who can write better than me. He should have lived hereafter, but instead, born in that annus ... Read More...
Language
This week Mr Slang is banished to Gobbler's Knob... We moved last week. Approximately 50 m. One side of the block to the other. So not far but still we moved and it meant a change of address – possibly harder for the recipient to absorb since all that has altered ... Read More...
Wallowing once again in humanity's darkest places (in this case France, and a Robert Crumb exhibition), Mr Slang suffers a bout of troubled introspection... Forgive me: I’m pondering work again. I went to an exhibition at Paris’ Musée de l’Art Moderne last week. It was dedicated to the work of Robert Crumb, ... Read More...
This week Mr Slang salutes the man who gave us such terms as Tom, Dick and Harry, tub-thumper and, ahem, buttered bun... ‘I do not love thee Dr Fell The reason why I cannot tell; But this I know and know full well, I do not love thee, Dr Fell.’ The verse we know. The author, probably ... Read More...
This week Mr Slang writes in praise of Simenon's great detective: "a very French policeman, compounded of French characteristics and set among the most clichéd of French backgrounds"... I am reading Maigret. Tout Maigret, since it is (a) Maigret in his entirety, and (b) in French. I am not showing off, ... Read More...
Jonathon Green continues his series on English linguistic xenophobia with a crack at the Germans - and finds that slang hasn't been quite as unkind to them as you might think... Has anyone seen a Germin band, Germin Band, Germin Band? I want my Fritz, What plays tiddley bits On the big trombone! Robert Tressell ... Read More...
This week, a hero of slang who showed that size does matter - in this case, the size of your list of terms for the you-know-what... Of the many canards that assail the object of my life’s toil and linguistic affections is that of verbal inadequacy, the mockery by the loquaciously ... Read More...
Jonathon Green continues his series looking at how English slang has treated those funny foreigners. This week, 'frogs' - but it's not the French... Let us consider the frog. Not as an amphibian but in terms of nationality. This is not, however, the traditional frog, whose consumption by the eponymously nicknamed ... Read More...
'The Pitcher' - Arthur Binstead This week Mr Slang recalls a weekly sporting rag with a strong sideline in the music-halls and tittle-tattle... ‘For Galahad in his day had been a notable lad about town. A beau sabreur of Romano’s, A Pink ‘Un. A Pelican. A crony of Hughie Drummond and Fatty ... Read More...
Today's hero of slang is the peerless P.G., whose contribution to the language, especially the language of alcohol consumption, cannot be overestimated... Setting aside, now I check, the small matter of two no. 10s in the series, this is the thirteenth Hero of Slang. I find it almost inconceivable that Wodehouse ... Read More...
