Slang

big ben - ten pounds (£10) the sum, and a ten pound note - cockney rhyming slang.

boodle = money.

bunce = money, usually unexpected gain and extra to an agreed or predicted payment, typically not realised by the payer.

cabbage = money in banknotes,

carpet = three pounds (£3) or three hundred pounds (£300), or sometimes thirty pounds (£30). This has confusing and convoluted origins, from as early as the late 1800s: It seems originally to have been a slang term for a three month prison sentence, based on the following: that 'carpet bag' was cockney rhyming slang for a 'drag', which was generally used to describe a three month sentence; also that in the prison workshops it supposedly took ninety days to produce a certain regulation-size piece of carpet; and there is also a belief that prisoners used to be awarded the luxury of a piece of carpet for their cell after three year's incarceration. The term has since the early 1900s been used by bookmakers and horse-racing, where carpet refers to odds of three-to-one, and in car dealing, where it refers to an amount of £300.

chip = a shilling (1/-) and earlier, mid-late 1800s a pound or a sovereign. According to Cassells chip meaning a shilling is from horse-racing and betting. The association with a gambling chip is logical. Chip and chipping also have more general associations with money and particularly money-related crime, where the derivations become blurred with other underworld meanings of chip relating to sex and women (perhaps from the French 'chipie' meaning a vivacious woman) and narcotics (in which chip refers to diluting or skimming from a consignment, as in chipping off a small piece - of the drug or the profit).

clod = a penny (1d). Clod was also used for other old copper coins. From cockney rhyming slang clodhopper (= copper).

coal = a penny (1d). Also referred to money generally, from the late 1600s, when the slang was based simply on a metaphor of coal being an essential commodity for life. The spelling cole was also used.

cock and hen = ten pounds. The ten pound meaning of cock and hen is 20th century rhyming slang. Cock and hen - also cockerel and hen - has carried the rhyming slang meaning for the number ten for longer. Its transfer to ten pounds logically grew more popular through the inflationary 1900s as the ten pound amount and banknote became more common currency in people's wages and wallets, and therefore language. Cock and hen also gave raise to the variations cockeren, cockeren and hen, hen, and the natural rhyming slang short version, cock - all meaning ten pounds.

commodore = fifteen pounds (£15). The origin is almost certainly London, and the clever and amusing derivation reflects the wit of Londoners: Cockney rhyming slang for five pounds is a 'lady', (from Lady Godiva = fiver); fifteen pounds is three-times five pounds (3x£5=£15); 'Three Times a Lady' is a song recorded by the group The Commodores; and there you have it: Three Times a Lady = fifteen pounds = a commodore. (Thanks Simon Ladd, Jun 2007)

cows = a pound, 1930s, from the rhyming slang 'cow's licker' = nicker (nicker means a pound). The word cows means a single pound since technically the word is cow's, from cow's licker.

deep sea diver = fiver (£5), heard in use Oxfordshire late 1990s, this is rhyming slang dating from the 1940s.

dosh = slang for a reasonable amount of spending money, for instance enough for a 'night-out'. Almost certainly and logically derived from the slang 'doss-house', meaning a very cheap hostel or room, from Elizabethan England when 'doss' was a straw bed, from 'dossel' meaning bundle of straw, in turn from the French 'dossier' meaning bundle.

dough = money. From the cockney rhyming slang and metaphoric use of 'bread'.

dunop/doonup = pound, backslang from the mid-1800s, in which the slang is created from a reversal of the word sound, rather than the spelling, hence the loose correlation to the source word.

flag = five pound note (£5), UK, notably in Manchester.The word flag has been used since the 1500s as a slang expression for various types of money, and more recently for certain notes. Originally (16th-19thC) the slang word flag was used for an English fourpenny groat coin, derived possibly from Middle Low German word 'Vleger' meaning a coin worth 'more than a Bremer groat' (Cassells).

flim/flimsy = five pounds (£5), early 1900s, so called because of the thin and flimsy paper on which five pound notes of the time were printed.

folding/folding stuff/folding money/folding green = banknotes, especially to differentiate or emphasise an amount of money as would be impractical to carry or pay in coins, typically for a night out or to settle a bill. Folding, folding stuff and folding money are all popular slang in London.

foont/funt = a pound (£1), from the mid-1900s, derived from the German word 'pfund' for the UK pound.

french/french loaf = four pounds, most likely from the second half of the 1900s, cockney rhyming slang for rofe (french loaf = rofe), which is backslang for four, also meaning four pounds. Easy when you know how..

garden/garden gate = eight pounds (£8), cockney rhyming slang for eight, naturally extended to eight pounds. In spoken use 'a garden' is eight pounds. Incidentally garden gate is also rhyming slang for magistrate, and the plural garden gates is rhyming slang for rates. The word garden features strongly in London, in famous place names such as Hatton Garden, the diamond quarter in the central City of London, and Covent Garden, the site of the old vegetable market in West London, and also the term appears in sexual euphemisms, such as 'sitting in the garden with the gate unlocked', which refers to a careless pregnancy.

generalise/generalize = a shilling (1/-), from the mid 1800s, thought to be backslang. Also meant to lend a shilling, apparently used by the middle classes, presumably to avoid embarrassment. Given that backslang is based on phonetic word sound not spelling, the conversion of shilling to generalize is just about understandable, if somewhat tenuous, and in the absence of other explanation is the only known possible derivation of this odd slang.

gen net/net gen = ten shillings (1/-), backslang from the 1800s (from 'ten gen').

grand = a thousand pounds (£1,000 or $1,000) Not pluralised in full form. Shortened to 'G' (usually plural form also) or less commonly 'G's'. Originated in the USA in the 1920s, logically an association with the literal meaning - full or large.

greens = money, usually old-style green coloured pound notes, but actully applying to all money or cash-earnings since the slang derives from the cockney rhyming slang: 'greengages' (= wages).

 

 

1.3 Phonetic peculiarities of slang

 

While many slang words introduce new concepts, some of the most effective slang provides new expressions--fresh, satirical, shocking--for established concepts, often very respectable ones. Sound is sometimes used as a basis for this type of slang, as, for example, in various phonetic distortions (e.g., pig Latin terms). It is also used in rhyming slang, which employs a fortunate combination of both sound and imagery. Thus, gloves are "turtledoves" (the gloved hands suggesting a pair of billing doves), a girl is a "twist and twirl" (the movement suggesting a girl walking), and an insulting imitation of flatus, produced by blowing air between the tip of the protruded tongue and the upper lip, is the "raspberry," cut back from "raspberry tart." Most slang, however, depends upon incongruity of imagery, conveyed by the lively connotations of a novel term applied to an established concept. Slang is not all of equal quality, a considerable body of it reflecting a simple need to find new terms for common ones, such as the hands, feet, head, and other parts of the body. Food, drink, and sex also involve extensive slang vocabulary. Strained or synthetically invented slang lacks verve, as can be seen in the desperate efforts of some sportswriters to avoid mentioning the word baseball--e.g., a batter does not hit a baseball but rather "swats the horsehide," "plasters the pill," "hefts the old apple over the fence," and so on.[31]

If we try to characterize rhyming slang in particular, we can find such phonetic features:

1.Monophthongization

This affects the lexical set mouth vowel. Wells believes that it is widely agreed that the "mouth" vowel is a "touchstone for distinguishing between "true Cockney" and popular London" and other more standard accents. Cockney usage would include monophthongization of the word.

Example:

mouth = mauf rather than mouth

2. Glottal stop

Wells describes the glottal stop as also particularly characteristic of Cockney and can be manifested in different ways such as "t" glottalling in final position. A 1970s study of schoolchildren living in the East End found /p,t,k/ "almost invariably glottalized" in final position.

Examples:

cat = up = sock =

It can also manifest itself as a bare as the realization of word internal intervocalic /t/

Examples:

Waterloo = Waerloo City = Ciy A drink of water = A drin' a wa'er A little bit of bread with a bit of butter on it = A li'le bi' of breab wiv a bi' of bu'er on i'.

As would be expected, a Cockney speaker uses fewer glottal stops for t or d than a "London" speaker. However, there are some words where the omission of t has become very accepted.

Examples:

Gatwick = Gawick

Scotland = Sco'land

statement = Sta'emen

network = Ne work

3. Dropped h at beginning of words (Voiceless glottal fricative)

In the working-class ("common") accents throughout England,h dropping at the beginning of certain words is heard often, but it`s certainly heard more in Cockney, and in accents closer to Cockney. The usage is strongly stigmatized by teachers and many other standard speakers.

Examples:

house = `ouse

hammer = `ammer

4. TH fronting

Another very well known characteristic of Cockney is th fronting which involves the replacement of the dental fricatives, and by labiodentals [f] and [v] respectively.

Examples:

thin = fin

brother = bruvver

three = free

bath = barf

5. Vowel lowering

Examples:

dinner = dinna

marrow= marra

6. Prosody

The voice quality of Cockney has been described as typically involving "chest tone" rather than "head tone" and being equated with "rough and harsh" sounds versus the velvety smoothness of the Kensington or Mayfair accents spoken by those in other more upscale areas of London.

7. Rhyme

Cockney English is also characterized by its own special vocabulary and usage in the form of "cockney rhyming slang". The way it works is that you take a pair of associated words where the second word rhymes with the word you intend to say, then use the first word of the associated pair to indicate the word you originally intended to say. Some rhymes have been in use for years and are very well recognized, if not used, among speakers of other accents.

Examples:

"apples and pears" -stairs

"plates of meat" -feet

There are others, however, that become established with the changing culture.

Example:

"John Cleese" - cheese

"John Major" - pager

 

 

1.4 Morphological characteristics of slang

 

Slang comes to be a very numerous part of the English language. It is considered to be one of the main representatives of the nation itself. The birth of new words results from the order of the modern society. Slang arises due to our propensity for replacing old denominations by expressive ones. And yet the growing popularity of every new creation prevents it from remaining fresh and impressive. What was felt as strikingly witty yesterday becomes dull and stale today, since everybody knows it and uses it. So how do the slang words come to life? There are several ways of slang words formation:

1. Various figures of speech participate in slang formation.

For example: upperstorey-head (metaphor)

skirt-girl (metonymy)

killing-astonishing (hyperbole)

 some-excellent or bad (understatement)

 clear as mud (irony)

Slang items usually arise by the same means in which new words enter the general vocabulary.

2. The slang word can appear thanks to the recycling of the words and parts of words, which are already in the language.

Expressions may take form as metaphors, similes, and other figures of speech (dead as a doornail).Some slang formation follow the rules of Standard English. F.e., slang behaves regularly in the forming of denominal adjectives by –y suffixation (e.g. cbordy- moody, cbord-a bad mood, gobby-mouthy, slang gob-mouth) and deverbal adjectives by – able suffixation (shaggable- slang to shag –to fornicate). It uses the suffix –ette to denote female sex as in punkette (a female punk). It uses the verbal prefix de- to convey a sense of removal or deprivation to the base as in de-bag –to remove trousers. [8;12]

Words may acquire new meanings (cool, cat). A narrow meaning may become generalized (fink, originally a strikebreaker, later a betrayer or disappointer) or vice-versa (heap, a run-down car). Most affixation tend to belong to extragrammatical morphology, though they exhibit a certain regularity and stability.

Slang has some productive suffixes which are either novel (eg. -o/oo, -eroo, -ers) or used differently from Standard English. The slang suffix –o means either ``a stupid unintelligent person``(dumbo, thicko) or a person with a particular habbit or characteristic (eg. Saddo, sicko). This suffix seems to be productive in the making of forms of address (kiddo, yobbo)

A cumulation of the suffix – er with –o/oo produces –eroo in slang as in smackeroo, meaning the same as smacker but with a more light – hearted slant.

Another profilic slang cumulation is –ers as in some pair nouns (cobblers, conkers, knackers), plural nouns (choppers-teeth, trousers) and uncountable nouns (ackers-money, uppers- amphetamine). The slang suffix –ers often occurs after abbreviation as in bathers (bathing costumes), brekkers (breakfast), taters (potatoes).

The suffix –s lost its inflectional meaning in slang and conveys new meaning to the base: afters- dessert, flicks- cinema, messages- groceries.

The use of – ed is also noteworthy in slang. It is added to noun to obtain adjectives: boxed, brained, hammered, ratted. –er in slang gives unpredictable sense as in belter- excellent thing or event, bottler-person who easily gives up.

3. Compounding makes one word from two. Initial and final combination have intensifying function: butt naked- fully naked, butt ugly- completely ugly; earache- a talkative person, faceache – a miserable looking person, airhead-someone out of touch with reality, homeboy-a person from the same hometown

Infixes are unknown in standard English being a peculiarity of slang. Bloody, fucking are used to provide information about speaker`s attitude (as in abso-bloody-lutely, or in fan-fuckin`-tastic).

Conversion is anomalous in slang in case of adjective-noun as in high- pleasantly intoxicated state, massive- a group of people.[8;15]

4. In slang, frequently used words are likely to be abbreviated. For example: OTL-out to lunch-out of touch with reality. VJ-video jock-an announcer for televised music videos

Words may be clipped, or abbreviated (mike, microphone), and acronyms may gain currency (VIP, awol, snafu).

5. A currently productive process is the addition of a particle like OUT, OFF or ON to a noun, adjective or verb, to form a phrasal verb.

For example: blimp out-to overeat

blow off-to ignore

hit on-to make sexual overtures to

6. Unlike the general vocabulary of the language, English slang has not borrowed heavily from foreign languages, although it does borrow from dialects, especially from such ethnic or special interest groups which make an impact on the dominant culture .

7. Sometimes new words are just invented. shenanigans-tricks, pranks

So we can see that slang depart from what is generally regarded as grammatical or predictable and is likely to pioneer original word-formation processes which pave the way for further morphological process.

 

 

1.5Slang at the Millennium

 

The traditional breeding grounds of slang have always been secretive, often disenfranchised social groups and closed institutions with their rituals and codes. This has not changed, although the users in question have. Where once it was the armed forces, the public schools and Oxbridge that in Britain dominated socially and linguistically, now it is the media, the comprehensive playground and the new universities which exercise most influence on popular language: the office, the trading-floor and the computer-room have replaced the workshop, the factory and the street-market as nurturing environments for slang. The street gang and the prison, whence came nearly all the ‘cant’ that filled the early glossaries, still provide a great volume of slang, as do the subcultures of rave, techno and jungle music, crusties and new agers, skaters and snowboarders. Football metaphors and in-jokes have long since ousted the cricketing imagery of yesteryear. Some special types of slang including pig-latin (infixing)and backslang (reversal, as in yob )seem virtually to have disappeared in the last few years, while the rhyming slang which arose in the early Victorian age continues to flourish in Britain and Australia, replenished by succeeding generations, and the even older parlyaree (a romance/romany/yiddish lingua franca) lingers on in corners of London’s theatre-land and gay community. The effect of the media and more recently of the Internet means that slang in English can no longer be seen as a set of discrete localised dialects, but as a continuum or a bundle of overlapping vocabularies stretching from North America and the Caribbean through Ireland and the UK on to South Africa, South and East Asia and Australasia. Each of these communities has its own peculiarities of speech, but instantaneous communications and the effect of English language movies, TV soaps and music means that there is a core of slang that is common to all of them and into which they can feed. The feeding in still comes mainly from the US, and to a lesser extent Britain and Australia; slang from other areas and the slang of minorities in the larger communities has yet to make much impression on global English, with one significant exception. That is the black slang which buzzes between Brooklyn, Trenchtown, Brixton and Soweto before, in many cases, crossing over to pervade the language of the underworld, teenagers ( - it is the single largest source for current adolescent slang in both the UK and US), the music industry and showbusiness. Within one country previously obscure local slang can become nationally known, whether spread by the bush telegraph that has always linked schools and colleges or by the media: Brookside, Coronation Street, Rab C. Nesbitt and Viz magazine have all helped in disseminating British regionalisms. This mixing-up of national and local means that past assumptions about usage may no longer hold true: the earnest English traveller, having learned that fag and bum mean something else in North America, now finds that in fashionable US campus-speak they can actually mean cigarette and backside. In the meantime the alert American in Britain learns that cigarettes have become tabs or biffs and backside is now often rendered by the Jamaican batty . 

Speakers of English everywhere seem to have become more liberal, admitting more and more slang into their unselfconscious everyday speech; gobsmacked , O.T.T ., wimp and sorted can now be heard among the respectable British middle-aged; terms such as horny and bullshit which were not so long ago considered vulgar in the extreme are now heard regularly on radio and television, while former taboo terms, notably the ubiquitous British shag , occur even in the conversation of young ladies. In Oakland, California, the liberalising process reached new extremes late in 1996 with the promotion of so-called Ebonics : black street speech given equal status with the language of the dominant white culture. 

 

 

1.6 Youthspeak

 

The greatest number of new terms appearing in the new edition of the dictionary are used by adolescents and children, the group in society most given to celebrating heightened sensations, new experiences and to renaming the features of their world, as well as mocking anyone less interesting or younger or older than themselves. But the rigid generation gap which used to operate in the family and school has to some extent disappeared. Children still distance themselves from their parents and other authority figures by their use of a secret code, but the boomers - the baby boom generation - grew up identifying themselves with subversion and liberalism and, now that they are parents in their turn, many of them are unwilling either to disapprove of or to give up the use of slang, picking up their children's words (often much to the latters' embarrassment) and evolving their own family-based language ( helicopters, velcroids, howlers, chap-esses are examples).