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Roger’s Profanisaurus: Magna Farta

July 16, 2009 by Roy Johnson

hilarious dictionary of slang, smut, indecency, and filth

Do you know the difference between an air biscuit and a trouser cough, or the relationship between a pearl necklace and mammary dandruff? Do you know what an art pamphlet and a bongo periodical have in common? Welcome to the world of Viz, linguistic invention, and ribald scatology. Roger’s Profanisaurus is what I would call an ‘advanced’ and deliberately rude dictionary of slang.

The entries are compiled from contributions to the monthly comic magazine. It assumes as a starting point the lowest and most wide-ranging street language for sexual matters, body functions, and gender preference. And it is blisteringly funny, mainly because each expression is defined by the use of further slang terms which are provocatively allusive, offered in a cod serious tone, and take every opportunity to introduce further vulgarity.

You have to be deep into the laddish frame of reference to know what’s going on. But if you’re interested in the connections between slang and linguistic imagination the effort is well worth it, believe me.

Stanky n. The glaze that is left on the shaft of the choad after a bout of kipper splitting. May be zuffled on curtains or wiped on a stankey-chief.

Even the spoof cross-referencing is funny, because one obscure term is often defined by others which themselves need explanation, or are cloaked in comic metaphor – as in

rear gunner n. In aviation terms, a gunner who shoots one of his own side by firing his lamb cannon (qv) into their bomb bay (qv).

snookered behind the red Unable to sink the pink due to the time of month. The only pot on is a difficult brown.

Some of them are clearly comic inventions, such as

Snogging water; a male grooming lotion that smells like Joan Collins’ knickers. After shave.

but the majority are explanations of common terms, such as horizontal jogging, rear admiral, and tradesman’s entrance, and there’s also lots of rhyming slang and examples of street language ‘shown’ in the work of famous writers.

You’ll need a strong stomach to take in all the lavatory terms, but essentially it’s kind-hearted smut and self-consciously outrageous sexism – not at all vicious. And there are also, en passant, some interesting sociological details:

Sports bag n. A handy cottaging accessory in which one partner stands to conceal his feet and avoid detection by lavatory attendants looking under the door.

The latest and hugely enlarged edition has just appeared which the publisher describes as “an exhaustive lexicon of four letter filth which contains over 10,000 useful words and phrases to turn the air bluer than a baboon’s arse.”

For those who may not know, the Roger in the title is ‘Roger Mellie, the Man on the Telly’ – one of the regular characters in Viz who specialises in vulgarity. This book is filthy, extremely funny, and very well informed. Since its first appearance it has gone through many new editions. Make sure you get the latest and biggest.

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Roger’s Profanisaurus Rex IV: The Magna Farta, London: Dennis Publishing, 2007, pp.480, ISBN: 095485778X

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Shakespeare’s Bawdy

July 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

all the Bard’s smut, indecency, and suggestiveness

Eric Partridge was a maverick, self-taught Australian lexicographer. In addition to scholarly work on grammar and linguistics, he specialised in slang, swearing, and the colourful language of everyday life. In this classic work from 1941 he combines a study of ‘rude language’ with a scholarly reading of Shakespeare. The result in Shakespeare’s Bawdy is a marvellous compilation of Shakespeare’s linguistic inventiveness and an in-depth study of imagery, allusion, innuendo, and metaphor. Structurally, the book is composed in its first part of introductory essays on sexual, homosexual, and general bawdy; and then in its second part a major glossary of terms, with quoted examples from the plays and poetry.

Partridge assumes that all the opinion, references, and allusions represent Shakespeare’s own personal opinion, rather than that of the characters who express them. This is an approach which many today would take to be critically naive. But I don’t think this matters too much. Most people reading the book will be delighted with Partridge’s learned swashbuckling style, grateful for his scholarship, and amused by the plethora of examples he explores. Here’s a typical example which illustrates both the scholarly detail and the amazing density of the sexual reference he uncovers:

boat hath a leak, her. To Edgar’s Come o’er the bourne, Bessy, to me’, the Fool adds, ‘Her boat hath a leak And she must not speak Why she doth not come over to thee’ (Lear, III vi 25-28). Perhaps, ‘she is having her period’, but probably ‘she is suffering from gonorrhoea’. (Cf. leaky.)
The boat may be the female body (cf. carrack), a rich prize that a man is ready to board; or it may, by a shape-allusion, be the female pudend.

This is a linguistic register in which innocent words such as ‘neck’ and ‘nose’ are used to imply sexual body parts, and even the pronunciation of the single letter ‘n’ may be used suggestively. What the majority of these entries reveal however is not simply the sauciness and ribaldry of Shakespeare’s language, but his amazing power of coining metaphors and the spectacular profundity of his imagination.

This is one of the first volumes in Routledge’s re-issue of books which have established themselves as classics. They are now available for those who missed them first time round, and for a younger generation for whom the authors are just frequently-cited names in bibliographies.

Because they have now acquired the status of ‘set texts’, the current editions have been given introductions, prefaces, and notes which place them in historical context and offer a scholarly apparatus which make them even more valuable than their original editions.

All Partridge’s books are a joy to read, and this is no exception. This is a handsomely produced book – well designed and printed, and very good value at the price. It’s a series which deserves to prosper.

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Eric Partridge, Shakespeare’s Bawdy, London: Routledge Classics, 2001, pp.291, ISBN: 0415254000

Slang – how to understand it

September 13, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Slang – definition

Slang is sometimes described as ‘the language of sub-cultures’ or ‘the language of the streets’.

It is a term for words or expressions used by small groups of people.

It tends to be vivid and colourful, and holds a delicate position between the colloquial and the vulgar.

Examples

MONEY	dough, lolly, spondulicks
FOOD	grub, nosh, scoff
DRINK	sloshed, smashed, plastered
SEX	nookey, the other, crumpet

Use

Slang is used in everyday informal speech amongst members of the same group.

It can often act as a ‘code’ which excludes outsiders.

Linguistically, it can be usefully seen as a sub-dialect.

It is hardly used at all in writing — except for stylistic effect.

Today’s slang can be tomorrow’s Standard English.

NB! Slang may also date very quickly, like fashion in clothes. Yesterday’s slang can become today’s cliché.

Eric Partridge [an authority on the subject] identifies a number of reasons for the creation and use of slang:

to be different, startling, or original
to display one’s membership of a group or club
to be secretive or to exclude others
to enrich the stock of language
to establish a friendly rapport with others
to be irreverant or humorous

Cockney rhyming slang is well known throughout the English speaking population. It is a very stylised form of slang which consists of two main elements:

the item being referred to — ‘tea’ for instance
a pair of words of which the latter rhymes with the referent — ‘Rosie Lee’

Thus ‘tea’ becomes ‘Rosie Lee’ [names are often used].

To make matters more complex, the rhyming word is often omitted. Thus the Cockney slang utterance is abbreviated, so that the listener may hear ‘Make us a cup of Rosie.’

This practice of omitting the rhyming word creates more interest in the usage, making it into a kind of conundrum or a word game.

Here are some examples of well-known rhyming slang.

‘Time to go up the apples to bed.’
[Apples and pears = stairs]

‘How do you like my new whistle?’
[Whistle and flute = suit]

‘Let’s have a butcher’s.’
[Butcher’s hook = look]

It was once thought that rhyming slang was dying out, but the recent fashion for using celebrity names has proved this not to be true – as in Garry Glitter = ‘pint of bitter’, abbreviated to a Garry of course. The alternative might be to order a couple of Britneys (Spears).

Some forms of slang change very rapidly, for various reasons.

Teenage slang changes rapidly because people are teenagers for a short period of time. For example, in the early 1990s the term used to express enthusiastic approval was ‘Ace’. Now this would be considered rather dated. It has been replaced by ‘Sound’ — which itself will soon be supplanted by whatever the current teenage culture decides is appropriate.

‘Smashing!’ and ‘Super!’ the teenage slang of Enid Blyton stories of the 1930s and 1940s is now used to parody the period and the attitudes from which they sprang. Intrinsically however, it is no different from today’s terms.

One important function of teenage slang is to create an identity which is distinct from the general adult world. Teenagers for this reason do not generally approve of parents or teachers using their slang terms. This defeats the object of what is essentially a group ‘code’.

Thus new terms are generated every couple of years. It is interesting that the main slang items are adjectives for extreme approval or extreme disapproval.

The criminal culture has even more reason to refer in slang terms to the key elements of its activities. This is why there are so many terms for illegal substances. ‘Weed’, ‘draw’, and ‘whacky backy’ are just some of the slang terms for marijuana.

‘Exstasy’ is a slang term which has now been adopted into Standard English. This is probably because the chemical term is too complex or difficult to pronounce.

This process can also occur in reverse. For instance the term ‘muck’ is now slang, but it used to be a Standard English word meaning mud or outdoor dirt.

The most important lesson regarding the concept of slang is that like all other parts of the language, it is in process. Cockney rhyming slang has stayed with us probably because of its creative and almost poetic element. Also, because of its formulaic nature, Cockney slang can continue to be generated according to the formula, suiting a variety of linguistic purposes.

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The Life of Slang

March 9, 2012 by Roy Johnson

where slang comes from, and what it’s used for

The Life of Slang is a study of linguistic creation. We know that when a slang word is introduced into the language, it can become Standard English if it is adopted by enough people and put into general use. And of course the reverse can happen when a Standard English term is used in a new way and thereby becomes slang – which is what’s happened to the term gay since the end of the nineteenth century. In fact the process can continue, and by re-adoption the slang word is taken back into Standard English as a legitimate and additional meaning of the term.

People commonly object to slang when it is first introduced – particularly if it comes from another country such as Australia or the United States. But then resistance weakens (among some groups) and people become late adopters and start to embarrass their children by employing slang which is not a natural part of their verbal register – which is why the elderly Duchess of Cornwall made herself ridiculous by describing the engagement of her stepson (and future king of England) as ‘wicked’.

Another popular misconception is that the English language is somehow ‘infected’ by slang from other languages. This is simply not true. Some terms are found useful and adopted, others are not. You don’t hear English people using ditzy, which is a perfectly normal American term for silly or scatterbrained. And Americans refer slightingly to their own lower-class as ‘trailer trash’ not ‘chavs’. Both countries are selective about the terms they wish to borrow and use.

There’s also a longstanding belief that the use of slang impoverishes somebody’s verbal skills or their range of diction. Once again, there is no evidence to support this belief. Slang is simply an additional tool for communication which is used to mark attitudes to a topic or membership of a group. In fact all speakers can switch in and out of a variety of linguistic registers with no trouble. This is an endemic feature of language use.

In this very readable study of slang, Julie Coleman examines the way in which slang is formed – which turns out to be the same way as Standard English, through word-combination, back formation, and borrowings.

How it’s imported from other countries is a different matter. She puts a great deal of store on cross fertilization between British and American troops during the first world war – but this doesn’t seem altogether convincing, given the brevity of contact between the two forces.

There’s an analysis of literary texts from Chaucer onwards that seeks to provide evidence for her claim that the use of slang increases as time goes on. In fact she claims that slang was not commonly used before the renaissance, but admits that she has no evidence to prove it. She also covers slang from other English-speaking countries – Australia, New Zealand Canada, and even India

A great deal of her exposition is a historical account of underworld cant taken to Australia by transported British felons – and despite Australian national pride, developed from the early nineteenth century onwards. Australia is particularly rich in slang since it receives its linguistic influences from two English-speaking sources – both Britain and the United States.

There is a blurred distinction between slang and colloquialism or idiom which is not always easy to disentangle. Words such as wonga and moolah are not used for anything other than slang terms for money, whereas words such as knob and beef can be used in their conventional senses of handle and meat, as well as their common use as slang terms.

She covers terms generated by the press, the music hall, cinema, pop music, television, and radio – with a generous nod to Round the Horne which ‘preserved one form of slang [Polari] that might otherwise have fallen from use altogether’.

She finishes with a survey of the most rapidly developing field of new terms of all – computer technology and its users. The Internet is the ultimate democratic medium and also the most immediate. Events on one side of the world may now be made known on the other as they are happening – via Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and video depositories such as YouTube.

Online dictionaries of slang compiled in the form of Wikis are known to vary greatly in their reliability and quality. Nevertheless, she gives a very respectful account of the user-generated Urban Dictionary. Then, after this fairly exhaustive survey she concludes by re-examining what is required in order to define slang – and it’s not easy.

It’s not necessarily new, or linguistically unusual, or associated with uneducated people, or necessarily vulgar. It’s not just colloquial language taken to an extreme. It doesn’t include dialect or jargon, although local and professional slang do occur. It doesn’t include swearing, though some swearing is slang. Neither is it restricted to the spoken language to the extent that it once was. It isn’t necessarily used for deliberate effect. Slanginess isn’t a quality of words or meanings: what’s slang in one context wouldn’t be slang in another.

In the end she opts to describe it as an attitude to language use which is recognised by fellow users in certain groups. This might seem disappointing to those seeking the reassurance of a quasi-scientific definition. But it strikes me as a step forward, a clearing of the decks from what was once thought to be a simple matter of making word lists and labelling the contents ‘slang’.

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&copy Roy Johnson 2012

Julie Coleman, The Life of Slang, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp.354, ISBN: 0199571996

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hilarious dictionary of slang, smut, indecency, and filth

all the Bard’s smut, indecency, and suggestiveness

free pages from our English Language software program

Slang – definition

Examples

Use

where slang comes from, and what it’s used for

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