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Volume 2
 Elisa Mattiello

An Introduction to English Slang

A Description of its Morphology, Semantics and Sociology

Polimetrica
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To Luca
Acknowledgements

I would like to address special thanks to Prof. Lavinia Merlini

Barbaresi for her patient guidance and endless discussions on the
topic of this study. Her intellectual and moral support has been
fundamental in the course of my work.
I would also like to thank Prof. Marcella Bertuccelli Papi whose
ideas have left unmistakable marks in this study and whose
precious comments gave me encouragement and advice.
I would like to express my gratitude to my department
colleagues Dr. Gloria Cappelli, Dr. Daniele Franceschi and Dr.
Silvia Masi, who gave me useful suggestions and feedback, and to
the many anonymous native speakers who provided me with
genuine material to work on: I thank all of them for their generous
gift of time.
Thanks are also due to Dr. Ronald A. Packham for his careful
reading of the whole manuscript and for his insightful and
constructive suggestions.
A very special note of gratitude goes to the series editor, Prof.
Giovanni Iamartino, for offering me the opportunity to write this
monograph.
Abbreviations

abbrev. abbreviation
adj adjective, adjectival
adv adverb(ial)
Amer. American (English)
arch. archaic
attrib. attributive(ly)
Austral. Australian
BNC British National Corpus
Brit. British (English)
Canad. Canadian
cent. century
chap. chapter
colloq. colloquial
COLT Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language
deprec. depreciatory
derog. derogatory
dial. dialect
E. English
EMOs Extra-grammatical Morphological Operations
esp. especially
euphem. euphemistic
F. French
fig. figuratively
Fig. Figure
freq. frequently
G. German
gen. generally
Gr. Greek
int interjection
Ir. Irish
It. Italian
L. Latin
lit. literally
10 Abbreviations

ME Middle English
MRs Morphological Rules
n noun, nominal
N. Amer. North American (from U.S. and Canada)
NM Natural Morphology
N.Z. New Zealand
obs. obsolete
occas. occasionally
ODMS Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang
OE Old English
OED Oxford English Dictionary
offens. offensive
orig. origin(ally)
perh. perhaps
phr phrase
pl. plural
Portug. Portuguese
ppl participle, participial
pred predicative
prep preposition
prob. probably
pron pronoun
R.A.F. Royal Air Force
RHR Righthand Head Rule
rhym. rhyming
S. Afr. South African
Sc. Scottish, Scots
Sp. Spanish
spec. specifically
St. E. standard English
U.K. United Kingdom
U.S. United States
usu. usually
v verb
vbl verbal
WFRs Word-formation Rules
Table of Contents

Foreword ................................................................................................. 15

1. Introduction ........................................................................................ 19
1.1. Basic assumptions and aims .......................................................... 19
1.2. The theoretical framework............................................................. 22
1.2.1. Generative morphology .............................................................. 23
1.2.2. Natural morphology.................................................................... 23
1.2.3. Extra-grammatical, marginal and expressive morphology ......... 24
1.2.4. Lexical complexity ..................................................................... 25
1.3. Provisional observations ................................................................ 26
1.4. The data ......................................................................................... 27
1.5. The organization of the study ........................................................ 29

2. Previous Studies on Slang .................................................................. 31

2.1. The definition of slang................................................................... 31
2.1.1. The sociological approach .......................................................... 32
2.1.2. The stylistic approach ................................................................. 33
2.1.3. The linguistic approach............................................................... 33
2.1.4. The lexicographic definition ....................................................... 34
2.2. The classification of slang ............................................................. 35
2.2.1. Slang vs. jargon .......................................................................... 36
2.2.2. Slang vs. cant .............................................................................. 36
2.2.3. Slang vs. dialect .......................................................................... 37
2.2.4. Slang vs. vernacular.................................................................... 38
12 Table of Contents

2.2.5. Slang vs. accent .......................................................................... 38

2.2.6. Slang vs. colloquial language ..................................................... 38
2.2.7. Specific vs. general slang............................................................ 39
2.3. The description of slang................................................................. 40
2.3.1. The linguistic properties of slang................................................ 41
2.3.2. The sociological properties of slang ........................................... 46

3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology ........................ 61

3.1. Slang formations............................................................................ 61
3.1.1. Grammatical formations ............................................................. 63
3.1.2. Extra-grammatical formations .................................................... 65
3.1.3. Borderline cases.......................................................................... 70
3.2. Slang word-formation .................................................................... 72
3.2.1. Compounding ............................................................................. 72
3.2.2. Prefixation .................................................................................. 91
3.2.3. Suffixation .................................................................................. 93
3.2.4. Final combining forms.............................................................. 120
3.2.5. Infixation .................................................................................. 123
3.2.6. Conversion................................................................................ 124
3.2.7. Back-formation ......................................................................... 128
3.2.8. Reduplicatives .......................................................................... 131
3.2.9. Acronyms and initialisms ......................................................... 135
3.2.10. Blending.................................................................................. 138
3.2.11. Clipping .................................................................................. 141
3.2.12. Elliptic rhyming slang............................................................. 148
3.2.13. Reversed forms ....................................................................... 149
3.2.14. Variation ................................................................................. 150
3.2.15. Word manufacture and fanciful formations ............................ 154
3.3. Conclusion ................................................................................... 155

4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization..................................... 157

4.1. The slang lexicon: hypotheses and aims ...................................... 157
4.2. Lexical organization .................................................................... 158
4.2.1. Organization via meaning relations .......................................... 159
4.2.2. Organization via regular patterns.............................................. 169
Table of Contents 13

4.3. Lexical disorganization................................................................ 193

4.3.1. Partial disorganization .............................................................. 194
4.3.2. Total disorganization ................................................................ 202
4.4. Conclusion ................................................................................... 207

5. Sociological Properties ..................................................................... 211

5.1. Slang sociology............................................................................ 211
5.2. Speaker-oriented properties ......................................................... 214
5.2.1. Group- and subject-restriction .................................................. 214
5.2.2. Secrecy and privacy.................................................................. 216
5.2.3. Informality and debasement...................................................... 217
5.2.4. Vulgarity and obscenity ............................................................ 218
5.2.5. Time-restriction, ephemerality and localism ............................ 220
5.3. Hearer-oriented properties ........................................................... 222
5.3.1. Playfulness and humour............................................................ 222
5.3.2. Freshness and novelty............................................................... 224
5.3.3. Desire to impress and faddishness ............................................ 225
5.3.4. Colour and musicality............................................................... 227
5.3.5. Impertinence, offensiveness and aggressiveness ...................... 229
5.4. The opinion of native speakers .................................................... 231
5.5. Conclusion ................................................................................... 234

Final Remarks....................................................................................... 237

References ............................................................................................. 243

Author Index......................................................................................... 253

Subject Index ........................................................................................ 257

Glossary ................................................................................................. 261

Foreword

Despite the amount of work that has been carried out to collect
English slang data, there has been, to date, no general introductory
work that has attempted to synthesize the main points of predictable
relevance of slang as a linguistic phenomenon. This book aims to
fill the gap.
The reasons for this constant omission are mainly to be sought in
the traditional attitude of linguists and morphologists towards any
linguistic fact that is dubious in terms of grammar and its
recognized rules. Slang, a linguistic modality confined to spoken
language, has always been difficult to locate, to explain and to
grasp as a unitary phenomenon. This has discouraged overall
formal accounts. Or, at most, its relevance has been explored in
sociology, where it has been described as a manifestation of low-
class membership, or as the secret language of restricted groups,
unwilling to communicate with outsiders, or, more generically, it
has been conflated with homiletic or other colloquial varieties.
Slang has been preferentially described in relation to the social
effects that it produces rather than as a phenomenon in itself. The
linguistic comments have been mainly impressionistic and hardly
descriptive or explanatory of the phenomenon.
The present work comes as the result of a dissatisfaction with
such studies and as an attempt – a successful one – to fill the void
of a rigorous linguistic investigation.
The book is a careful, theory-grounded description of slang and of
its relevance in key areas such as morphology, semantics and socio-
pragmatics. It offers a new understanding of slang formation
mechanisms, of its elusive, unstable meanings and meaning relations
16 Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi

and, lastly, it systematically reconsiders its socio-pragmatic impact

and relevance.
The main challenge for the author was to overcome widespread
prejudice whereby slang is allegedly only a marginal area of the
lexicon, a useless redundancy in semantics, an ‘oddity’ in word-
formation and an isolated phenomenon, lacking isomorphism with
syntactic relationships.
The key hypothesis of the project, by contrast, is that slang has a
locus both in the lexicon and among word-formation mechanisms
and that its input/output ‘rules’ are to be found within the borders of
the phenomenon itself, and not in contrast with canonical
grammatical rules. A comparison with grammatical morphology
only provides a basis for formulating evaluation criteria, but is not
the main target of the work. Slang is a widespread phenomenon
deserving a space of its own in linguistic inquiry, precisely on
account of its frequent independence of behaviour and extra-
grammatical quality.
The author’s appropriate model of explanation within the
relevant disciplines and the wealth of data systematically analysed
in the book lead to reliable viewpoints on the issue and to an
interesting wide-ranging description of the phenomenon.
A thorough description of slang must take into account and
accommodate its frequently discrepant behaviour in terms of
formation mechanisms. It often deviates from basic rules of
morphological grammar, but it may also represent a violation of the
more general principle of grammatical competence. Even when
slang words relate to morphological structures governed by
morphological competence, they may be discrepant because they
are coined conscientiously rather than spontaneously. This is the
case with many sophisticated coinages, like rhyming reduplicatives
or blends, or also analogical formations, like workaholic or
Irangate. Such forms are normally excluded by morphologists,
owing to their non-predictability.
Slang may also deviate from any criterion of predictability and
transparency at the level of semantics. Meaning is often a
conscientious attribution, rather than the output of compositional
elements. This is the case, for example, with Cockney rhyming
slang, many compounds, but also with a large number of single
Foreword 17

words, whose meaning is totally at variance with the meaning the

same words have in the standard language.
The study of slang also opens up many sociological and socio-
linguistic prospects, amply investigated in the literature. Slang
separates society into groups along various dimensions, and this
fact is certainly of great relevance in sociology and partly explains
specific linguistic features of slang, such as its search for originality
and secrecy. Of special interest, though, is the area of emotions and
attitudes, in which the speaker’s choices of slangy formations and
their pragmatic effects on the addressee are carefully regulated.
This book approaches the matter from a wide-ranging perspective
and provides a clear account of the various motivations which lie at
the basis of slang use.

Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi

1. Introduction

1.1. Basic assumptions and aims

Slang is a controversial topic nowadays, and the debate on its

definition, classification and linguistic relevance is still heated. The
concept of slang has been inaccurately defined by many
lexicographers who tend to restrict it to colloquial or bad language,
and the term has been imprecisely used by many sociolinguists who
conflate it with such language varieties as cant, jargon, dialect,
vernacular or accent. Besides, many formations of slang have long
been neglected by morphologists dealing with the English system
(Aronoff 1976, Mayerthaler 1981, Bauer 1983, Scalise 1984,
Dressler et al. 1987 inter alia) since they find no room within the
regular word-formation patterns of the standard language; other
slang formations have been briefly dealt with since “they result
from the same ordinary word-building processes that give rise to
the general vocabulary” (Eble 1996: 9).
The present study is an attempt to explore English slang and
reconsider it from both linguistic and sociological perspectives.
The approach adopted here is synchronic, as it aims to illustrate
the formations and the neo-semanticisms which characterize
present-day English slang. As a more specific – and ambitious –
aim, this study intends to make a contribution to the international
debate on the position that slang formations occupy within the
relevant morphological theories, principally, generative morphology
(Aronoff 1976, Scalise 1984), natural morphology (Dressler et al.
1987, Kilani-Schoch 1988, Tonelli & Dressler eds 1993, Wurzel
1994, Dressler 1999, 2005), and extra-grammatical morphology
20 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

(Dressler & Merlini Barbaresi 1994, Doleschal & Thornton eds

2000) or expressive morphology (Zwicky & Pullum 1987). I am
indeed persuaded that the spontaneous, lively, and creative
processes of a language may cast some light on the possible
development of its grammar. And I am also persuaded that a
qualitative approach to slang could help to explain the semantic
issues of the phenomenon, its sociological impact, and the reasons
why it is used or objected to within society.
Consider, for instance, the slang term foxy. From the morphological
point of view, it is a denominal adjective produced by a rule-governed
mechanism of word-formation, i.e. fox
fox-y. Grammarians
classify this term among the most productive canonical derivatives of
English, together with such standard adjectives as juicy, sexy, shiny,
etc. (Marchand 1969: 352). From the semantic point of view, it
instead acquires a novel sense which departs from the standard
English meaning. It is frequently used among young men, who apply
it to ‘attractive, desirable, pretty, sexy’ women.
Consider now the slang adjective shagadelic, which has a
similar meaning to foxy, but an uncertain origin connected with the
coarse slang verb shag (‘copulate’). This adjective does not obey
any of the standard mechanisms of formation and would therefore be
marginalized by grammarians to what is called extra-grammatical (or
expressive) morphology. Yet it has been genuinely coined by young
men and applied to ‘sexy, beautiful’ women (Mattiello 2005).
Our question now is: why use the semantically indeterminate
adjective foxy or the extra-grammatical formation shagadelic rather
than clearer canonical forms such as sexy or beautiful? This question
has both linguistic (semantic and grammatical) and sociological
(speaker-oriented and hearer-oriented) explanations:
 From the semantic point of view, slangy foxy is more loaded
than neutral sexy in terms of information provided. That is, for
young people foxy means having the quality of: (1) attracting
interest, attention, affection, (2) causing desire, (3) excellent
or admirable in appearance, and (4) sexually provocative,
exciting, etc., whereas sexy only refers to the quality indicated
in point (4);
1. Introduction 21

 From the grammatical point of view, the slangy formation

shagadelic is less transparent than the standard derivatives
beautiful ( beauty) or sexy ( sex), and its formation is
difficult to assign to recognized morphological rules. This
word, popularized by the film Austin Powers: International
Man of Mystery (1997), has recently been included in
Dalzell & Victor (eds) (2007a) as a blend of shag and
psychedelic (cf. “partial blends” in Thornton 1993: 145-
148), and in the OED as a combination of shag and -adelic
(a combining form originating from psychedelic). But
whereas psychedelic is obtained from an established base
(psyche), a well-known formative (δηλουν ‘make manifest,
reveal’  δηλος ‘manifest, visible’, as in delomorphic), and
a common English suffix (-ic), shagadelic exhibits a base
(shag) which is not attested in other derivatives, and its
formation must necessarily rely, both morphologically and
semantically, on the word psychedelic;
 The speaker-oriented explanation concerns the speaker’s
social identity: foxy and shagadelic index male adolescents,
who use them for multifarious reasons connected with their
identity – e.g., to show their belonging to a band, to stress
their virility or their age, to reinforce connection with their
peer group and to exclude outsiders, to show off, etc. – while
neither sexy nor beautiful say much about the speaker;
 The hearer-oriented explanation concerns rather the effects
the speaker wishes to produce upon the hearer: in-group foxy
is certainly more efficient and fresher than sexy, and vulgar
shagadelic is undoubtedly playful, faddish, colourful and
musical, and therefore achieves effects which could not be
obtained using a comparable standard English form, such as
beautiful.
The adjectives foxy and shagadelic are but two of the wide range of
slang words. In this study I intend, first, to offer a survey of the
grammatical and extra-grammatical formations of English slang in
terms of their morphology, and, second, to go deeper into their
semantics and social meaning. Each of these aspects will be touched
upon and expanded from chapters three to five. The theoretical
22 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

framework, some provisional observations, the data, and the entire

organization of the study are clarified below.

1.2. The theoretical framework

In the relevant theories, many slang formations are marginalized or

even ignored on account of: (a) oddity and opacity (Aronoff 1976),
(b) minor importance within word-formation (Scalise 1984), (c)
lack of naturalness (Dressler 1999), and (d) extra-grammatical
nature (Dressler & Merlini Barbaresi 1994, 1997, Doleschal &
Thornton eds 2000). On the other hand, these types of expressions
are marked and therefore complex (Merlini Barbaresi 1988, ed.
2003), and may create extreme complexity in terms of lexical
organization (Bertuccelli Papi & Lenci 2007). In other a-theoretical
(purely descriptive) studies, the mechanisms of slang are attributed
the same regularity as ordinary (morphological and semantic)
processes, and it is claimed that “there is no evidence that slang is
created in special or unfamiliar ways” (Eble 1996: 17; cf. Munro
ed. 1997).
Since slang formations and meanings may represent issues for a
theoretical debate, I will provisionally claim that ‘there is evidence
that slang is created in special or unfamiliar ways’. Hence, an
overview of the pertinent morphological and lexical semantic
theories would seem to be in order here. Particularly, this overview
focuses attention on the mechanisms of formation that violate the
basic properties of English morphological grammar, although they
have entered the standard language. It is thus meant to illustrate
what morphologists analysing the English system have considered
as irregular (not rule-governed), or have viewed as marked and
dispreferred, and often confined to extra-grammatical morphology.
The last subsection devoted to lexical semantics aims to illustrate
what has recently been considered complex within the English
lexis, and hence creates difficulty in cognitive processing and
interpretation.
1. Introduction 23

1.2.1. Generative morphology

Within generative grammar, many phenomena are not assigned the
status of word-formation rules (WFRs), i.e. rules which specify sets
of words on which they can operate. For instance, such phenomena
as blends (e.g. chunnel  channel + tunnel), acronyms (e.g. NATO),
clippings (e.g. fan  fanatic), word manufacture (e.g. Kodak), back-
formation (e.g. v peddle  peddler), and mixed formation (e.g.
scramjet  supersonic combustion ramjet) are classified among the
“oddities” of a language, i.e. very unusual and escaping word-
formation processes (Aronoff 1976: 20). They are indeed viewed as
opaque and uncommon mechanisms of word-formation which have
no recognizable internal structure or constituents.
In Bauer (1983: 232), these mechanisms are grouped under the
label “unpredictable formations”: it is said, at least, that they cannot
be predicted by the word-formation rules of generative grammar.
Nonetheless, it is also said that since they are so common in
English, it is misleading to consider them unusual. In spite of this,
in such studies as Scalise (1984), they are relegated to a footnote,
because they are marginal to the theory of generative morphology.

1.2.2. Natural morphology

In morphology, naturalness/markedness claims are based on many
criteria which are relevant also to slang formations. Within the theory
of naturalness/markedness, many formations are less natural/more
marked along the semiotically-derived parameters of iconicity,
indexicality, (morphosemantic and morphotactic) transparency and
biuniqueness (Dressler et al. 1987, Dressler 1999, 2005).
As regards the parameter of iconicity (resemblance between
signans and signatum), conversion (e.g. n cut  v cut) appears to
be non-iconic because addition of meaning is not paralleled by
change in form. Indeed, it is less iconic than canonical derivation
(e.g. cut-t-er  v cut) or compounding (e.g. cutthroat  cut +
throat).
As regards the parameter of indexicality (direct reference of
signans to signatum), the morphological phenomenon of infixation
(e.g. in-bloody-credible) – infrequent in English and rare in the Indo-
European languages (Bauer 1983: 18) – is more marked than
24 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

prefixation (e.g. in-credible) or suffixation (e.g. credibil-ity) because

it adds something in-between an affix and its base. In connection
with the same parameter, exocentric compounds, in which the head
has to be inferred, as in pick-pocket (‘a person who picks pockets’),
are more marked than endocentric compounds, which have their head
within the compound (e.g. hip-pocket is ‘a type of pocket’).
As regards the parameter of morphosemantic transparency, the
least natural compounds are those which exhibit opacity of both
members (e.g. birdbrain ‘a stupid person’). On the other hand,
early bird (‘one who rises early’), bird cherry (‘a wild cherry’) and
birdcage (‘a cage for birds’) illustrate progressive degrees of
naturalness, because they respectively display transparency of
modifier, head, or both constituents.
As regards the related parameter of morphotactic transparency,
blends (or contaminations) and other abbreviatory operations (i.e.
clippings, acronyms, etc.) are marked and marginal, because they are
mere semantic alternatives of existing words, although they are
recurrent in English as a result of a conscious action of economizing.
Lastly, as regards the parameter of biuniqueness (one-to-one
relations), marked (unique) formations are those in which one and the
same signans/form corresponds to two or more signata/functions:
e.g., the suffix -th forming both ordinal numbers (as in four

fourth) and nouns from adjectives (as in long
leng-th). The most
marked are, however, ambiguous formations, in which one form
corresponds to many functions and vice versa: e.g., the suffix -er
forming agent, instrument and local nouns, in competition with agent
nouns obtained by adding the suffixes -ist and -ator.

1.2.3. Extra-grammatical, marginal and expressive morphology

Within the theory of morphopragmatics (Dressler & Merlini Barbaresi
1994, 1997), many phenomena are excluded from morphological
grammar: (a) sophisticated coinages like shm-reduplication (e.g.
variables shmariables), (b) blends (e.g. smog), (c) hypocoristics (e.g.
Liz, Bet  Elisabeth; cf. grammatical Lizz-ie, Bett-y, in which the
hypocoristic suffix -y is grammatical but the bases are not), (d)
acronyms (e.g. GOP  Grand Old Party), (e) clippings (e.g. mike 
microphone), (f) echo-words (e.g. zigzag), (g) back-derivation (or
back-formation, e.g. v edit  editor), and (h) expletive infixations
1. Introduction 25

(e.g. abso-blooming-lutely). These phenomena are said to violate

various universal principles of English grammar: for instance, ablaut
reduplicatives – i.e. echo-words of the type tick-tock – may be formed
either from a left-hand or a right-hand base or have no existing base at
all (as in tip-top). Hence, their marginalization to extra-grammatical
morphology (see Merlini Barbaresi forthcoming) and irrelevance
for morphopragmatic investigation.
In Zwicky & Pullum (1987), most such formations are similarly
classified among the innovative extra-grammatical patterns of
English, as part of what they call “expressive morphology”, so as to
distinguish them from the ordinary formations of “plain morphology”.
In their opinion, “Expressive morphology is associated with an
expressive, playful, poetic, or simply ostentatious effect of some kind”
(Zwicky & Pullum 1987: 335).
In Doleschal & Thornton (eds) (2000), the central role of extra-
grammatical (or non-prototypical) phenomena in word-formation is
likewise stressed. In particular, what is stressed is the worldwide
frequency of blending, acronyms and combining forms (Bat-El,
Fradin), trade names (Ronneberger-Sibold, Thornton), and toponyms
(Nübling). Here a distinction is also made by Dressler between
extra-grammatical and marginal morphology: the former “lies
outside morphological grammar”, whereas the latter “lies at its
boundaries”, that is between morphology and other levels (e.g.
syntax, phonology, etc.), or within morphology (inflection, derivation
and compounding) (Dressler 2000: 1). Therefore, extra-grammatical
morphology includes such morphological operations as echo-words,
blends, hypocoristics, abbreviations, and back-formation, which
cannot be described by regular morphological rules. By contrast,
marginal morphology rather includes clitics, lying between
morphology and syntax, and semi-suffixes (or combining forms),
lying between derivation and compounding.

1.2.4. Lexical complexity

The theory of complexity has recently entered the framework of
lexical semantics (Bertuccelli Papi & Lenci 2007) via an extension
from textual complexity (Merlini Barbaresi 2003). This theory paves
the way for a concrete interpretation of the lexicon, viewed as a
complex self-organized dynamical macro-system whose behaviour is
26 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

determined by a high number of interrelating factors and dimensions.

Within this theory, a word such as texture provides an instance
of complexity in English because: (a) its description makes use of
multiple dimensions, and (b) it covers a multifaceted, fuzzy and
loosely organized semantic space spreading over multiple domains,
and, specifically, it is polysemous and therefore difficult to assign
to a single semantic frame in the sense of Barsalou (1992).1

This brief overview gives rise to a debate on whether slang

formations have to be marginalized, as they actually have been so
far, or rather appreciated for the opportunity they offer to develop
the branch of morphology and its parameters of analysis. It also
offers the starting-point for a discussion of slang lexical semantics,
which has received little treatment that may be called systematic, or
in any way helpful, e.g. for interpreters or translators.

1.3. Provisional observations

The guiding hypotheses of this study, based on a preliminary

investigation of partial data, concern both the morphotactics of
slang formations and their semantic extensions (neo-semanticisms).
With reference to the morphology of slang:
 Some slang formations are regularly produced by recognized
word-formation rules (as established in generative grammar),
and hence provide instances of grammatical morphology (e.g.
fox
fox-y);
 Others are not rule-governed, but attested in ordinary English
as instances of extra-grammatical or expressive morphology
(e.g. shagadelic);
 Still other formations are typical of English slang – the most
representative phenomenon being Cockney rhyming slang,
esp. in its elliptic form – but inexistent in standard English.

1 See Bertuccelli Papi (2003), Franceschi (2007), Lorenzetti (2007) and Masi
(forthcoming) for an application of the Lexical Complexity Theory to English
verbs of vision. See Bertuccelli Papi & Cappelli (2007) and Cappelli (2007) for an
application of the theory to verbs of cognitive attitude.
1. Introduction 27

Yet they appear to exhibit regularity and set the pattern for the
creation of analogous forms.
As for slang semantics:
 Slang items are far from being merely synonymous or
connoted variants of standard English equivalent forms (cf.
Dumas & Lighter 1978), because they are loaded with
aspects of meaning which are normally absent in standard
correspondents (cf. foxy and sexy);
 They are rather complex words because: (a) their semantic
description requires numerous dimensions (e.g. foxy
simultaneously entails visual perception and cognition, and
also points to the dimension of affect); (b) they cover vague
and disorganized semantic spaces, namely:
• In terms of semiotic principles, they may display low
transparency due to morphosemantic or morphotactic opacity
(e.g. in shagadelic meaning is non-compositional, headedness
is hardly assignable, and the internal structure or constituents
are difficult to identify), or they may lack biuniqueness due
to their ambiguity with common English forms (cf. slang
foxy ‘attractive, desirable, pretty, sexy’ and St. E. ‘crafty,
cunning’), or to polysemy (i.e. more than one slang meaning/
function);
• In cognitive terms, it is very difficult to assign them to a
single frame, since the same element may belong to more
than one, and these in turn may differ from the frame
assigned to the same word in the standard language.

1.4. The data

The main difficulty in collecting slang data is discriminating between

what is slang and what is not.
A clear-cut discrimination would have not been possible without a
preliminary selection in dictionaries.2 Corpora, film script excerpts

2 Many dictionaries of English slang have been compiled so far (e.g. Partridge
1984, Ayto ed. 1998, Munro ed. 1989, 1993, 1997, 2001, Dalzell & Victor eds
28 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

and questionnaires by native informants have however supported

lexicographic descriptions and corroborated genuine usage of the
selected expressions.
To sum up, my collection of slang data is drawn from two main
sources:
 For the descriptive part, slang data has been cross-checked
in The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and The Oxford
Dictionary of Modern Slang (ODMS), and reported together
with alternative spellings (if any), etymological information,
usage notes, definitions, and possible cross-references to
pertinent entries. Contextualized examples have mostly been
taken from the British National Corpus (BNC), which helped
me with the semantic descriptions of the words, providing
information about token frequency and preferential con- and
co-texts (word sketches).
 For the empirical part, tests on slang have been carried out by
submitting to informants excerpts from English films in which
some slang expressions are used, as well as conversations in
teenage slang recorded in COLT. The corpus-based slang data
is not necessarily recorded in the OED or in any specialized
dictionary of slang (e.g. ODMS). Native speakers have
confirmed its authenticity, current use or disuse, and its slang
nature, and have given their personal opinion about its
informality, derogatory flavour, vulgarity, obscenity, privacy
or regionalism.
The slang lexicon explored in this study is neither group-specific
(cf. Munro ed. 1997, 2001) nor subject-specific (cf. Dalzell &
Victor eds 2007b, c), since the slang of one particular group (e.g.
college slang) or belonging to a precise area, such as ‘vice’ or ‘sex’,
would exclude a large part of general slang items, or of the slang
spoken by other groups (e.g. drug addicts, military men, rappers,
etc.), and would therefore make my survey of slang formations

2007a, b, c; see also bilingual dictionaries such as Monti ed. 2003, Cagliero &
Spallino eds 2007), but no specific corpora of slang are at the moment available
except for the Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language (COLT), which however
provides only an incomplete restricted illustration of the phenomenon.
1. Introduction 29

incomplete. A distinction between general and specific slang is

however drawn in the second chapter, and the areas preferentially
covered by slang use are carefully analysed in the pertinent chapter
(chap. 4).
As a final point, the slang mentioned here is only partially in
current use: given the ephemeral nature of slang and its complex
dynamics, today some slang items may be considered old-fashioned
or obsolete. However, whenever slang is referred to as obsolete in
the OED or ODMS I will indicate it.

1.5. The organization of the study

This study is divided into five chapters. Chapter two introduces the
topic and provides a brief state of the art. It is meant to identify
certain descriptive criteria which may help us recognize slang and
distinguish it from other non-standard language varieties.
Chapters three and four focus on the linguistic properties of
slang. Specifically, chapter three is centred on slang morphology. It
classifies the word-formation processes of slang, discriminating
between the types that conform to grammatical morphology and
those that depart from it and rather belong to extra-grammatical (or
expressive) morphology. Some subsections are devoted to the
distribution of slang affixes, to their base categories, head properties
and grammatical classes. Others are devoted to slang compounds,
especially to the syntactic categories of their constituents and to their
morphosemantic transparency vs. opacity (cf. Dressler 1999). Minor
phenomena of formation, including reduplication, acronyms,
initialisms, blends, clippings, elliptic rhyming slang, back-formation,
reversed forms, variation, word manufacture and fanciful formations,
are also dealt with, as they are frequently involved in slang formations.
Chapter four deals with the phenomenon of slang from a lexical
semantic perspective. It first explores whether the slang lexical
system is comparable with the standard one in terms of organization
into fields and internal meaning relations. It then explores some
representative semantic areas of slang – viz., drug addiction,
homosexuality, alcoholism, foreigners, attractive women, body
parts – with the purpose of identifying regular and predictable
30 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

behavioural patterns, e.g. in terms of meaning association and

inferential mechanisms applicable to meaning disambiguation.
Lastly, it examines the complexity and disorganization of some
slang items due to the enormous array of information they require
in semantic description and to the manifold cognitive processes
they activate as contrasted with standard comparable forms (cf.
Bertuccelli Papi & Lenci 2007).
Lastly, chapter five focuses on the sociological properties of
slang, classified as speaker-oriented and hearer-oriented. In my
classification, the speaker-oriented properties qualify the speaker as
belonging to some distinct group within society, whereas the
hearer-oriented properties produce some particular effect upon the
hearer. This chapter is entirely based on conversations – either
spontaneous, as in COLT dialogues, or planned, as in film script
transcripts – since it is only in real or realistic contexts that we can
perceive the functions/effects of slang.
2. Previous Studies on Slang

One of the clichés of the subject is that anyone can recognize slang,
but no one can define it. The reverse may be closer to the truth.
(Dumas & Lighter 1978: 10)

2.1. The definition of slang

In the pertinent literature, most definitions of slang show a tendency

towards a sociological view of the phenomenon. This view is
accepted, among others, by Eble (1996) and Munro (ed.) (1997),
who basically regard slang as a social means of identification and
cohesiveness within a group (cf. Allen 1998). A second fundamental
approach is stylistic. In line with this, slang has to be arranged among
the “varieties according to attitude” (Quirk et al. 1985: 25-27) as it
“includes words that are below the level of stylistically neutral
language” (Stenström et al. 2002: 67). A third relevant approach
emphasizes the aspects of novelty and freshness of slang, and
characterizes it as a language variety that exhibits a leaning towards
lexical innovation (Dundes & Schonhorn 1963, Mencken 1967,
Olesen & Whittaker 1968, Dumas & Lighter 1978, Sornig 1981).
In lexicography, most dictionaries agree that the word ‘slang’
may be defined with at least two senses. First, slang is the restricted
speech of marginal or distinct subgroups in society and, second, it is a
quite temporary, unconventional vocabulary characterized primarily
by connotations of informality and novelty. In the OED, for
instance, slang is described both as “the special vocabulary or
phraseology of a particular calling or profession” and as a “language
of a highly colloquial type, considered as below the level of standard
32 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

educated speech, and consisting either of new words or of current

words employed in some special sense”.
What follows is an overview of the definitions of slang from
various perspectives, including the sociological, stylistic and linguistic
approaches, as well as its lexicographic description.1

2.1.1. The sociological approach

Within the sociological approach, slang is ascribed the two opposite
purposes of keeping insiders together and outsiders out. On the one
hand, Eble (1996: 11) stresses the social and interpersonal aspects
of slang and its function “to establish or reinforce social identity or
cohesiveness within a group or with a trend or fashion in society at
large”.2 Accordingly, sharing the same slang vocabulary aids both
to gain acceptance in a group and to preserve group solidarity
(Munro ed. 1997). Speaking in more general terms, slang is a socio-
cultural practice that speakers privilege for such social purposes as
being on the same speech-level with one’s audience, facilitating
social intercourse, and inducing friendliness or intimacy.
On the other hand, slang is said to serve antisocial purposes such
as marking social differences (Allen 1998), opposing people in
authority (Eble 1996), and hiding secret information or improper
behaviour from them (Franklyn 1961, Andersson & Trudgill 1990,
Stenström et al. 2002). In particular, slang is viewed as an in-group
vocabulary that certain subclasses in society (e.g. criminals or drug
addicts) cultivate to keep the content of their conversations private,
or which such specific subgroups as adolescents or college students
adopt to keep the older generation at a distance.
The two conflicting – social and antisocial – tendencies of slang
are evident in the effects it may produce: if sometimes it appears
playful and amusing, it may, some other times, signal the speaker’s
1 Part of this chapter is a revision of Mattiello (2005 online).
2 Actually, Eble (1996: 116) highlights three general functions of slang: “(1) Slang
changes the level of discourse in the direction of informality. (2) Slang identifies
members of a group. (3) Slang opposes established authority”. However, she gives
greatest prominence to the group-identifying function because her study focuses on
the slang used by college students. She indeed comments that slang mainly serves to
demarcate smaller groups or subcultures within the college student community, and
that it helps subgroups like technicians or student journalists to enhance solidarity
and work together.
2. Previous Studies on Slang 33

intention to startle his audience or even to be aggressive (Andersson

& Trudgill 1990).

2.1.2. The stylistic approach

Within the stylistic approach, slang is neutrally and rather vaguely
defined as a level of usage. In early studies (Partridge 1947: 287), it
is claimed that slang is “the quintessence of colloquial speech”, or,
as in Flexner (1960: vi), that it is “not accepted as good, formal
usage by the majority”.3
In this view, slang is juxtaposed to formal language: particularly,
it is below standard discourse and the neutral stylistic level (Allen
1998, Stenström et al. 2002), and typical of informal, relaxed speech
(Quirk et al. 1985). On the other hand, slang is also juxtaposed to
other non-standard varieties: it is neither dialect nor register, nor can
it be restricted to the concepts of cant, argot, or jargon (Andersson &
Trudgill 1990, Eble 1996). Slang can be rather viewed as a short-
lived ephemeral vocabulary that is expecting either to pass into
disuse or to have a more standard status (as gay).4

2.1.3. The linguistic approach

From the linguistic point of view, slang is regarded as the use of
ordinary words in extraordinary senses or of extraordinary words in
ordinary senses (Yust ed. 1950). Jespersen (1922: 298) pioneers this
position, stating that slang “finds amusement in the creation and
propagation of new words and in attaching new meanings to old
words”.5

3 As Dumas & Lighter (1978: 7) provocatively comment, “everything is slang by this

definition except formal usage and words and expressions of limited currency”.
4 Many studies stress the short-lived nature of slang. For instance, Andersson &
Trudgill (1990: 70) point out that, as slang is subject to change over time and from
place to place, “What is slang for one person, generation or situation may not be
slang for another”, and Munro (ed.) (1997: 27) likewise notices that “Slang words
come and go. Some slang expressions are no longer recognized by speakers just a
few years later, other slang words come to be accepted as standard language, while
still others persist as slang for many years”. More in Dumas & Lighter (1978),
Maurer & High (1980) and Eble (1996).
5 See Dundes & Schonhorn (1963), Mencken (1967) and Olesen & Whittaker (1968)
for related positions.
34 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Within the linguistic approach, slang is distinguished from the

standard language in both its morphology and its semantics. In
morphology, it is characterized by clear insubordination as regards the
standard word-formation rules, and in semantics, it not only renames
everyday objects, but also enriches, qualifies and complexifies them.
Hence, Sornig’s (1981: 20) definition of slang:
Slang is, as it were, a language in statu nascendi, a language (or at
least a lexicon) in the making. Slang is essentially an experimental
language.

2.1.4. The lexicographic definition

In dictionaries, there is no unique clear-cut definition of slang
because this concept has acquired different senses in different periods
of time.6 Originally, the term was used to refer to the language of
criminals, thieves and vagabonds. The OED, for instance, states that

6 Opinions diverge not only with regard to the definition of the concept of slang
but also as regards the etymology of the word ‘slang’, which is presently unknown
or dubious for most lexicographers. Overall, two distinct positions have developed
which attribute dissimilar origins to slang. One relates slang to the Scandinavian
world. In Skeat (ed.) (1910) the origin of the word ‘slang’ (‘low, vulgar language’)
is traced back to the Norwegian verb slengja kjeften (lit. ‘sling the jaw’, ‘use abusive
language, slang’) and to the Icelandic words slyngr or slunginn (‘versed in a thing,
cunning’). In addition, the lexicographer behind this dictionary also reminds us of the
Swedish word slanger (‘gossip’), remarking that all these terms are probably derived
from the second grade of the verb sling (‘throw, cast’). The supposition of a
Scandinavian origin is also contemplated by Weekly (1921, in Mencken 1967: 703,
see also Partridge 1970), who reports two Norwegian dialect words – the neologism
slengjeord (lit. ‘a slang-word’) and the nickname slengjenamn (lit. ‘a slang-name’) –
as its brothers. By contrast, the OED states that the date and early associations of this
word make it improbable that there is any connection with certain Norwegian forms
based upon the cognate verb slenge or slengje.
The alternative position – suggested in the OED – attributes a cant origin to slang.
The word ‘slang’ may be either an argotic distortion of the French word langue or a
blending with the English word language as its second member: e.g., sling language
(Webster & McKechnie eds 1963). Cf. beggars’ language, rogues’ language, thieves’
language (Mencken 1967, Eble 1996). The latter postulation is motivated by the fact
that, when the word ‘slang’ first appeared in English, about the middle of the
eighteenth century, it was employed as a synonym of ‘cant’, and, less than fifty years
later, as a synonym of ‘argot’. As observed by Skeat (ed.) (1910: 568), the word
‘slang’ once denoted ‘a narrow piece of land’, so that currently, in the language of
thieves and gipsies, to be out on the slang means “travel about the country as a
hawker, encamping by night on the roadside slangs”.
2. Previous Studies on Slang 35

in the mid-eighteenth century, it labelled “the special vocabulary

used by any set of persons of a low or disreputable character”, and
Webster & McKechnie (eds) (1963) specify that in the beginning it
referred to “the specialized vocabulary and idioms of criminals,
tramps, etc. the purpose of which was to disguise from outsiders the
meaning of what was said”. Accordingly, there seems to be an
overlap between the original sense of slang and the current concept
of cant (cf. F. argot).
But soon after the mid-eighteenth century, the term ‘slang’
gradually broadened to include the language of other subgroups, not
necessarily of low culture, but rather connected by their profession,
like lawyers, scientists, historians, essayists and poets (OED), or by
a common way of life (Webster & McKechnie eds 1963). In this
sense, the term became more specialized and nearly synonymous
with jargon.
Lastly, in the early years of the nineteenth century, slang acquired
the more general sense of colloquial or informal vocabulary which is
outside of conventional or standard usage, and which belongs rather
to familiar conversation than to written language (Webster &
McKechnie eds 1963, Longman Dictionary 1984, OED).7
Today slang covers both the specific and the general sense. It
typically consists of new words and novel or extended meanings,
and develops from the attempt to find fresh, vigorous, colourful,
pungent or humorous expressions.

2.2. The classification of slang

As an exploration of the literature shows, the classification of slang

is a challenging task. On the one hand, there is a conceptual and
terminological overlap which makes slang hard to distinguish from
other similar language varieties (e.g. cant, jargon, dialect). On the
other hand, the nature of slang is so vast and all-encompassing that
a sub-distinction between specific and general slang is definitely
required.

7 The Longman Dictionary (1984) mentions ‘dialect’ as a synonym of slang.

36 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Among the numerous non-standard language varieties of English,

slang finds its place both as a diastratic variety and as a diatopic
variety. Nonetheless, as a diastratic variety, it diverges from both
jargon and cant, whereas, as a diatopic variety, it departs from
dialect as well as from vernacular and accent. Lastly, slang may
also be viewed as a diaphasic variety, although it differs from
colloquial language.

2.2.1. Slang vs. jargon

Slang is not jargon, a widely used term referring to the specialized
vocabulary and phraseology of a set of people sharing a trade or
profession (OED; cf. Nash 1993, Burke 1995), although slang may
be a choice within jargon. For example, musicians employ specific
slang terms to refer to different music styles (e.g. funk, grunge,
handbag, hardcore, house, jazz, jungle, ragga, techno, etc.), doctors
use medicine slang terms to describe the diseases or physical
conditions of their patients (e.g. O sign orig. and chiefly U.S. ‘the
open mouth of a patient who is in a coma, dying, or dead’), soldiers
use such services’ slang words as acker (‘a piastre’) and skunk (‘an
unidentified surface craft’) in their military life, and seamen use
such nautical slang expressions as Harry Flakers (‘exhausted’),
Harry Flatters (‘(of the sea) calm’) and Harry Frees (‘free’) –
jocularly from flaked, flat and free – with their ship-mates.
Slang differs from jargon in its lack of prestige8 and
pretentiousness. In fact, slang terminology is much more familiar and
spontaneous than the technical jargon of science, medicine,
academics, law, bureaucracy, business, etc. Slang may be used
within a particular group like musicians, doctors, soldiers or
seamen, but it does not exactly deal with status or reputation.

2.2.2. Slang vs. cant

Slang is not cant, the specialized and usually secret language of
thieves, professional beggars, and other groups operating on the fringes
of society (OED, see also Barisone 1989, Beier 1995, Gotti 1999). Yet
many slang words arise from the language of the underworld and are

8 Cf. “covert prestige” in Andersson & Trudgill (1990) and Allen (1998).
2. Previous Studies on Slang 37

used for the purposes of secrecy and conspiracy. For instance, drug
dealers use such specific slang names as Charley/-ie, rock, skag,
skunk and speed for drugs in their traffics, and criminals use a
number of different in-group slang words to refer to the police (e.g.
bill, filth, fuzz, heat, pigs) in their illicit trades.
Despite its sometimes cryptic character, slang cannot be reduced
to the private language of the criminal world. It may be used by those
people in society who have reason to hide from actual authority (like
drug addicts and criminals), but it may also suit certain subgroups
who want to keep the content of their conversations secret from adult
people (like teenagers and college students), either to gain acceptance
in a group or to preserve their group solidarity (Eble 1996, Munro ed.
1997, Stenström 2000).

2.2.3. Slang vs. dialect

Slang is not geographically restricted, like dialect (cf. Chambers &
Trudgill 1980, Romaine 1994, 2000, Trudgill 1999), even if it is
often regional and “may vary from place to place, dialect to dialect”
(Andersson & Trudgill 1990: 70). Therefore, what is slang in
British English may be standard in American English, or may have a
different meaning within the two regional varieties. For example, the
slang word bomb is used in British English to refer to ‘a success (esp.
in entertainment)’ (e.g. like a bomb ‘with considerable effectiveness
or success’), but in American English, some of which is gaining
currency in Britain, it is used in the exactly opposite sense of ‘a
failure’. Similarly, the vulgar slang word fanny refers to ‘the female
genitals’ in British English, but it means ‘the posterior or rump’ in
American English.
Despite its local peculiarities, slang is not necessarily associated
with one region or social class. Some slang words are of more
general use or they happen to be understood by practically anyone
within the language community: for example, this is the case with
words like nerd (‘an insignificant or socially inept person’) or
crackers (‘crazy, mad’), though they may not be accepted as proper
British or American English words.
38 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

2.2.4. Slang vs. vernacular

Slang is not vernacular, the native speech of a particular country or
district (OED), but it frequently includes variation of sounds or
mispronunciation of words which are typical of a limited area. The
expressions bejesus, bollox and eejit are Anglo-Irish alterations of by
Jesus, bollocks (‘a stupid, contemptible man or boy’) and idiot, while
bovver (‘trouble or fighting’) and garn are Cockney pronunciations
of bother and go on.
Slang is a wider concept than vernacular (cf. Walker 1984), as it
is not strictly indigenous local speech. It is instead a hybrid language
and often permeated with foreign lexical material, as in the case of
smack (‘heroin’), which comes from Yiddish schmeck, and ackers
(‘money, cash’), which in turn is an adaptation of Arabian fakka
(‘small change, coins’) via Egyptian akka.

2.2.5. Slang vs. accent

Since slang is pertinent to word form and meaning, it is not accent,
which simply refers to word pronunciation (tone quality, pitch,
stress, etc.) (see Simpson 1994). In actual fact, some slang words
are created by changing some sounds of standard items: e.g.,
Gawblimy! and Gor blimey! are corruptions of the imprecation God
blind me!, heck is a slang euphemistic alteration of hell, lickle
(‘small’) is a childlike corruption of little, and thang is the Southern
U.S. slang pronunciation of thing (originating from Black E., see
Munro ed. 1989: 8).
As we will see, however, slang involves not only altered words
in terms of misspelling or mispronunciation, but also new forms
and novel senses (more in § 2.3.1 below).

2.2.6. Slang vs. colloquial language

Slang does not correspond to colloquial language, although, like
familiar speech, it departs from neutral and formal styles (see
Partridge 1947, Andersson & Trudgill 1990). Slang is informally
used among people who belong to the same social group, or, more
generally, among friends, intimates or family members, but its
purposes differ from mere familiarity. Consider, for instance, the
expressions belly and beer belly: the former is a colloquial term
2. Previous Studies on Slang 39

referring to one’s ‘stomach’, while the latter is a slang expression

which refers to ‘a protruding stomach caused by drinking large
quantities of beer’, and may also be used as a derogatory definition
for people having such a stomach, as in They described Pa as a
beer-belly and said Ma was unfriendly. Similarly, nana is an
abbreviation of banana in colloquial English, but, in English slang,
it rather refers to ‘a foolish or silly person’, as in A frank admission
that he had made a nana of himself.
Slang displays features such as secrecy, privacy or vulgarity
which are not applicable to colloquial language, and it produces
various effects (e.g. humour, impertinence, offensiveness, etc.),
which are not obtained by comparable familiar expressions.

2.2.7. Specific vs. general slang

So far, we have established that slang may be classified as a social
variety characterizing a group (e.g. music slang, military slang,
navy slang, drug slang, thieves’ slang, teenage slang, college slang,
etc.), as a regional variety distinguishing an area (e.g. British slang,
American slang, Anglo-Irish slang) or a district (Cockney slang),
and as an informal style of the language. It must be further
subdivided into either specific or general slang.9
Basically, specific slang is language that speakers use to show
their belonging to a group and establish solidarity or intimacy with
the other group members. It is often used by speakers to create their
own identity, including such aspects as social status and geographical
belonging, or even age, education, occupation, lifestyle and special
interests.10 It is largely used by people of similar age and experience
(like teenagers or college students) to strengthen the bonds within
their own peer group, keeping outsiders out (Eble 1996, Munro ed.
1997, Stenström et al. 2002). It is also used by people sharing the

9 In sociolinguistics some scholars requiring a systematic classification make a

distinction between specific and general slang words. Stenström et al. (2002: 64),
for example, distinguish between those words that are associated with a particular
group or trend (e.g. joint, speed, spliff) and those that are not (e.g. booze, fag,
spooky) (see also Allen 1998: 878).
10 Flexner (1960: xii-xiii): “Slang can be one of the most revealing things about a
person, because our own personal slang vocabulary contains many words used by
choice, words which we use to create our own image”.
40 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

same occupation (like military men and computer users) to increase

efficiency in communication; or by those sharing the same living
conditions (like prisoners and criminals) to hide secret information
from people in authority. Lastly, it is used by people sharing an
attitude or a lifestyle (like drug addicts and homosexuals) to
reinforce their group cohesiveness (cf. Andersson & Trudgill 1990:
158). Items like chick (‘a girl; a young woman’), cool (‘all right,
‘OK’’) and dude (‘a fellow or ‘chap’’) can be considered specific
slang words, as they are related to the young and hardly understood
by adults, and rock (‘a crystallized form of cocaine’), smack (‘a
drug, spec. heroin’) and smoke (‘opium’, ‘marijuana’) are likewise
specific, as they belong to the vocabulary of drug addicts and drug
dealers, but they have a different meaning in the standard language.
General slang, on the other hand, is language that speakers
deliberately use to break with the standard language and to change
the level of discourse in the direction of informality. It signals the
speakers’ intention to refuse conventions (cf. Flexner 1960, Dumas
& Lighter 1978) and their need to be fresh and startling in their
expression, to ease social exchanges and induce friendliness, to
reduce excessive seriousness and avoid clichés, in brief, to enrich
the language (cf. Partridge 1947: 288). General slang words have a
wider circulation as they are neither group- nor subject-restricted:
for example, items like bevvy (‘a drink, esp. beer’), caff (‘a café’)
and footy (‘football’) are much more likely to get established as
informal or colloquial English.
Yet some slang words are both specific and general, according
to their pragmatic meaning and context of occurrence: e.g., the
word grass in slang takes on both the specific sense of ‘marijuana,
used as a drug’ (drug slang), or of ‘a police informer’ (criminals’
slang), and the more general sense of ‘green vegetables’.

2.3. The description of slang

The descriptive properties which can be ascribed to slang are

heterogeneous, and vary depending on the perspective (sociological,
stylistic or linguistic) from which it is investigated, or on the sense
(either specific or general) that is taken into account. After a careful
2. Previous Studies on Slang 41

examination of the relevant studies on slang, a primary distinction

can be drawn between its linguistic and sociological properties.

2.3.1. The linguistic properties of slang

In the literature, most linguists dismiss the question of the slang
locus in language by assigning it to the lexicon. Jespersen (1922:
299), for instance, argues that “slang is more productive in the lexical
than in the grammatical portion of language”. Andersson & Trudgill
(1990) likewise stress that slang affects above all vocabulary, and
Sornig (1981: 22) lays emphasis on its “tendency towards the
creation of a lexicon of its own”. I have to personally contrast this
opinion in the sense that I would rather assign slang’s relevance to
each level of the language.
2.3.1.1. Phonology
At the phonological level, slang plays with sounds and manipulates
word pronunciations (Flexner 1960, Sornig 1981, Eble 1996, Allen
1998). The most common way of enlivening slang terms is
onomatopoeia or echoism, which accounts for many slang terms, as
in the set of synonyms for the verb ‘vomit’ (i.e. barf, bolk, chunder,
puke, ralph, spew, throw (up), etc.).
Another way is jocular mispronunciation of words: for instance,
the slang affectionate forms of address hinnie/-y, luvvie/-y and
marra are respectively mock pronunciations of honey, lovey and
marrow, while the pronouns summat ( somewhat) and nuffink
sound like and are used in the place of standard something and
nothing (cf. analogical formations in COLT: e.g. anyfink 
anything, everyfink  everything).
Assimilation is likewise recurrent in slang, especially in
combination with consonant gemination. Examples proliferate in
teenagers’ conversations: the interjections innit? ( isn’t it?) and
wunnit? ( wasn’t it?), and such contractions as dunno ( I do
not/don’t know), gimme ( give (it to) me; cf. lemme  let me),
gonna ( going to), gotta ( (have) got to/a) and wanna ( want
to/a) are attested in COLT (cf. doncher  don’t you).
Furthermore, some sounds seem to be more distinctive of slang
than others (cf. Wescott 1977, 1978, in Eble 1996: 40). For instance,
the vowel /u/ is in slang variations, such as bazoom /bzum/ (
42 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

bosom /b zm/) ‘a woman’s breast’, booty /but / ( bottom

/b tm/, via botty /b t /) ‘the buttocks’, choom /t um/ ( chum
/t m/) ‘an English soldier’, and shoot / ut/ ( shit / t/) ‘a coarse
exclamation of annoyance or disgust’, and in copy reduplicatives,
such as boo-boo /bubu/ ‘a foolish mistake or blunder’, doo-doo
/dudu/ and pooh pooh/poo poo /pupu/ ‘faeces, excrement’. It
may also act as a suffix, as in smackeroo /smækru/ (U.S.) (
smacker) ‘a coin or note of money’ (more under the suffix -eroo, §
3.2.3.8). The voiced consonant /z/ is likewise frequent in slang (as in
pizzazz /p zæz/ ‘vitality or liveliness’), especially from voiceless /s/
after back-clipping, as in spaz /spæz/ ( spastic /spæst k/), and
combined with suffixation, as in Aussie / zi/ ( Australian
/ ste lin/), mossie/mozzie /m z / ( mosquito /m skit /) and
prossie/-y /pr z / ( prostitute /pr st tjut/).
Nevertheless, the most lively phenomenon in the creation of
slang terms is Cockney rhyming slang, based on rhyme. Rhyming
slang is the process whereby an item is replaced by one or more
words that rhyme with it (e.g. trouble and strife for ‘wife’). It
originated in the London tradition of Cockneys, but then extended
to other areas and speakers, even if it remains a private language.
Rhyming slang is extremely productive in the coining of nouns,
which are normally in the form of two semantically and
syntactically-related words (e.g. dog and bone for ‘telephone’, five-
to-two for ‘Jew’, God forbid for ‘kid’, pig’s ear for ‘beer’, rock of
ages for ‘wages’, etc.), or of a single word, either a simple one (e.g.
joanna for ‘piano’) or a complex one (e.g. boat-race for ‘face’).
Rhyming slang nouns may also be obtained from fictitious proper
names (e.g. Rosy Lee for ‘tea’), or from the names of famous
characters of sport, music, television, cinema, etc. (e.g. Mutt and
Jeff for ‘deaf’, from the characters of a popular comic strip). Lastly,
they may be obtained from the names of familiar places (e.g.
Hampstead Heath for ‘teeth’, from a district in north London).
Some such nouns rhyme with slang rather than standard words: e.g.,
fiddley-did (Austral.) rhymes with quid (‘one pound’), ginger-beer
2. Previous Studies on Slang 43

with queer (‘a homosexual’), John Hop with cop (‘a policeman’),
macaroni (chiefly Austral.) with baloney (‘nonsense, rubbish’), etc.
The same forms are found – though relatively less often – in
rhyming slang adjectives (e.g. elephant’s trunk for ‘drunk’, Mozart
and Liszt rhymes with pissed ‘drunk, intoxicated’), verbs (e.g.
Adam-and-Eve for ‘believe’, cocoa for ‘say so’, rabbit-and-pork for
‘talk’, also n), and clauses (e.g. Hot beef for ‘Stop, thief!’).
2.3.1.2. Morphology
At the morphological level, it is claimed that “the same ordinary
word-building processes that give rise to the general vocabulary also
shape slang expressions” (Eble 1996: 39). However, Eble (1996: 26-
38) only mentions word-formation processes which are attested in
both slang and standard English, namely compounding, affixation,
conversion, shortening and blending, and completely disregards the
processes which are distinctive of slang. As far as I know, the
suffixes -o (e.g. doggo  dog, ‘quiet’; kiddo  kid, ‘a child’), -s
(e.g. nuts  nut, ‘mad’; bananas  banana, ‘crazy’), and -ers (e.g.
champers  champagne, preggers  pregnant) do not give rise to
any standard English term, nor do the infixes -bloody- (e.g. abso-
bloody-lutely) and -fucking- (e.g. unfuckingtouchable).11
Besides, formations obtained by back-slang (e.g. yob  boy, ‘a
lout, hooligan’) and rhyming slang (e.g. dog’s meat ‘feet’) are not
considered established WFRs by morphologists, since they typically
obtain English slang words rather than standard ones. In fact, slang
morphology exhibits many formation patterns which still have to be
explored, and which will be in chapter 3 of this work.
2.3.1.3. Grammar
Not much attention has been devoted so far to the grammar of slang.
Munro (ed.) (1997: 19) argues that “the grammar of U.C.L.A. slang
is almost identical to the grammar of standard English”, at least in its
inflectional morphology (cf. Sornig 1981, Eble 1996). Indeed, as in
standard English inflection, slang plural nouns are obtained by the
addition of the -s suffix (e.g. bird ‘a girl, woman’
birds), or of its

11 Munro (ed.) (1997: 8) remarks that one frequent infix that has entered the slang
vocabulary of Californian students is -iz-, as in dizope from dope ‘trendy’, and dizark
in the pizark from dark in the park.
44 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

allomorphic variants (e.g. fairy ‘a male homosexual’
fairies,

yobbo
yobbo(e)s), and uncountable nouns do not have any plural
form (e.g. stuff ‘narcotics’). Similarly, most slang verbs act regularly,
with the -ed suffix in the past tense form (e.g. nick ‘steal’
nick-ed),
-s in the third person singular form (e.g. nick-s), and the -ing form
(e.g. nick-ing). Lastly, slang adjectives have ordinary comparative
and superlative forms (e.g. daisy U.S. ‘first-rate, charming’, daisi-er,
daisi-est).
As far as syntax is concerned, three main features have been
regarded as typical of slang: first, an unusual affective use of the
definite article the as in I have the mega headache to mean ‘I have a
mega headache’, second, the omission of copular be in present-
tense sentences such as You crazy instead of You are crazy, and
third, the special use of the adjectival word total with the adverbial
function of ‘completely’ as in I’m total hungry (from Munro ed.
1989: 13-14). Actually, slang does not depart from the standard
language for these syntactic aspects. Firstly, the article the is part of
slang idiomatic expressions (e.g. to give a person the hump ‘annoy,
depress, a person’, to kick the bucket ‘die’, etc.), but similar fixed
forms belong to standard English (e.g. to kick/strike the beam ‘be
greatly outweighed’, to hold the stage ‘command the attention of a
theatre audience’, etc.). Secondly, the frequent omission of the copula
in slang present-tense predicative sentences is comparable to the
omission of be in Black usage,12 and has entered American slang
via the increased popularity of rap music. Thirdly, the construction
with the adjective total in adverbial position is recurrent in slang, as
other adjectives are in informal language and dialects (e.g. real).
2.3.1.4. Semantics
The semantics of slang has attracted the attention of almost all
pertinent studies. In particular, Eble (1996: 61-73) and Munro (ed.)
(1997: 11-12) underline the tendency of slang to name things
indirectly or figuratively, especially through metaphor (e.g. bird ‘an
aeroplane’, double O U.S. ‘an intense look’), metonymy (e.g.
tinnie/-y Austral. ‘a can of beer’), synecdoche (e.g. wheels ‘a car’),

12 Dalphinis (1998: 77) asserts that many grammatical features of Black English
(mainly derived from Creole languages) survive in the U.K. For instance, John go
to market is said instead of John goes to the market, and it red instead of it is red.
2. Previous Studies on Slang 45

euphemism (e.g. family jewels ‘the male genitalia’), and irony (e.g.
a (little) bit of all right ‘something or somebody regarded as highly
satisfactory; esp. applied to a pretty woman’) (see also Gumperz
1972).
Eble (1996: 54-60) also argues that slang items often diverge
from standard usage in predictable ways, especially by such
opposite semantic processes as “generalization” and “specialization”,
or “amelioration” and “pejoration”.13 For instance, the term eppie/-y
( epileptic fit) is used in slang with the more general sense of ‘a
fit of temper’, whereas grass, which in standard English refers to
‘herbage in general’, in slang rather assumes the specialized sense
of ‘marijuana, used as a drug’. Similarly, the adjective wicked,
having bad connotations in standard English (i.e. ‘bad in moral
character, disposition, or conduct’), in slang is used with positive
connotations to mean ‘excellent, splendid; remarkable’ (orig. U.S.),
whereas the neutral adverb inside (St. E. ‘on the inner side’), in
slang acquires the negative sense of ‘in prison’. Actually, similar
processes of pragmatic adjustment are found in standard English as
well. Wilson (2003: 273-277), for instance, identifies the process of
“narrowing” (e.g. drink used to mean ‘alcoholic drink’), and that of
“broadening”, which is further subdivided into “approximation”
(e.g. square used to mean ‘squarish’) and “metaphorical extension”
(e.g. rose or diamond applied to a person).
However, it is not always possible to identify a logical connection
between a word’s standard meaning and those added by slang.
Indeed, what seems to be particularly relevant from my lexical
semantic approach is the organization (if any) of the slang lexical
system. That is, I hypothesize that the associative processes which
help us identify the meaning of slang words are different from
standard ones, and sometimes they are concealed, so as to make
words inaccessible to outsiders. I will particularly concentrate on this
aspect of slang semantics in chapter 4.

13 Eble (1996: 58) uses the term “pejoration” for the process opposed to amelioration.
She further explains that pejoration is the process whereby the connotation associated
with a slang item becomes less favourable than the meaning it normally denotes.
46 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

2.3.1.5. Pragmatics
The pragmatics of slang is marginally hinted at in relevant
literature, or is treated indirectly through the various functions that
are attributed to the phenomenon, or the effects it produces upon the
hearer. These aspects, however, interface with slang sociological
properties (see the section which follows and chap. 5).

2.3.2. The sociological properties of slang

Again in the literature, slang is associated with many sociological
properties, which derive from both its varied nature and its
multifunctionality. The properties are reported here below and
arranged in descending order of frequency: that is, the first property
(group-restriction) is the most frequent among slang definitions,
whereas the thirty-first (spontaneity) is reported only in one study of
all those that I have explored.14
Given the miscellaneous nature of such properties, and their
often contradictory nature (cf. debasement and prestige), slang is
not claimed to exhibit all of them simultaneously. However, it
should exhibit at least some of the following:15
 Group-restriction: in its specific sense, slang is frequently
described as an in-group vocabulary that identifies people of
a common age and experience, and facilitates their group
solidarity. London teenagers, for example, may be identified
by their use of such slang words as man, mate and wicked
(COLT), while drug addicts use such words as coke, joint,
and smack to create cohesiveness within their group.
 Informality: slang (esp. general slang) is commonly viewed as
a colloquial level of speech that signals the speaker’s desire to
soften the seriousness or formality of the dominant tone, and
to assume instead a more familiar or conversational tone.

14 Most of the properties are mentioned by linguists and lexicographers as exactly

reported in this section. However, as terminology varies throughout the literature,
synonymous properties are included under the same label. For instance, such
properties as vitality, vigour, vivacity, liveliness and exuberance fall under the label
‘freshness’, whereas ‘informality’ summarizes the slang qualities of being (highly)
colloquial, conversational, familiar, popular, or not accepted as formal usage.
15 See Table 2 for a detailed report in the literature.
2. Previous Studies on Slang 47

Instances of slang informality are the noun bread (orig. U.S.),

used in familiar contexts to mean ‘money’, and the verb
phrases go big (orig. U.S.) and go it, which are the informal
counterparts of ‘be a big success, have a large sale’ and ‘go
along at great speed’.
 Time-restriction: slang is temporary since it changes over
time. It is typical of some generation but falls into disuse
very quickly, with the taking over of the next generation and
the change of trends and tastes. Thus, some slang words may
have a very similar meaning, but a different temporal
collocation, as shown by the near-synonymic exclamations
for ‘excellent’: wizard (1920s), groovy (1930s-40s), magic
(1950s), fab ( fabulous, 1960s), brill ( brilliant, 1980s),
sick (2000s).
 Ephemerality: slang is an ephemeral, short-lived, ever-
changing vocabulary. Novel words and special meanings
crop up at very brief intervals, but generally remain in
current use for a short time, and then pass away as quickly as
they have been created. Thus, while some words, such as
chap, chum and grub “have been slang for a long time”
(Andersson & Trudgill 1990: 78), other words (called “vogue
words” in the literature), such as massive, paranoid and
reckon, “have become fashionable for a short period of time”
(Stenström et al. 2002: 65). And still other words, such as bus,
phone and pub are no longer felt as slang, but rather as
colloquial language (see § 2.2.6).
 Debasement: like many other non-standard varieties, slang is
considered debased, subordinate speech, characteristically
dominated by reversed prestige, lack of dignity and anti-social
features. At least, slang is viewed so by the conformists, who
condemn many common slang words (e.g. bloke, dude, guv)
because they lower the level of discourse to degraded
language.
 Freshness: slang is often described as a fresh vital vocabulary
that keeps language alive and growing. The vigour and
liveliness that lie behind slang make it a language for
48 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

fashionable people, and for those who want to avoid the

monotony of ordinary language. Thus, fashionable young
people use such slang adverbs as for yonks (‘a long time’), in
a mo ( in a moment) and indeedee ( indeed) (COLT) to
be fresh and to escape the dullness of neutral style.
 Playfulness: slang is usually playful, since it manipulates
words and their meanings. The jocular use of slang is
illustrated, for example, by the catch-word Abyssinia, which
plays on the pronunciation of the parting salutation I’ll be
seeing you!, by the term Eyetalian, which distorts standard
Italian (cf. offens. Eyetie), and by nana ( banana) and
cake, used jocularly for ‘a foolish or silly person’.
 Obscenity: slang synonyms flourish in the taboo subjects of
a culture. For instance, slang vocabulary is rich in dirty
words and obscenities which are related to sex, especially
male and female genitalia (e.g. cock, dick, prick, cunt, fanny,
pussy), sexual intercourse (e.g. fuck, screw, shag), oral sex
(e.g. suck) or sexual stimulation (e.g. wank). Other obscenities
are related to either excretion (e.g. cack, crap, shit), or
religion: e.g., blasphemous expressions, such as for fuck’s
sake, goddamn, etc. (cf. Munro ed. 1997, Stenström et al.
2002).
 Subject-restriction: sometimes slang is described as the
special, even specialized, vocabulary of some profession,
occupation or activity in society. This makes slang peculiar
to a set of people who are identified by their specific
terminology or by the specialized terms they use with in-
group members. In particular, specific slang words such as
crack (‘a potent, crystalline form of cocaine’), junkie (‘a
drug addict’) and joint (‘a marijuana cigarette’) are related to
the topic of drugs, and creep (‘a stealthy robber’), dog (‘an
informer; a traitor’), and the Family (‘the thieving fraternity’)
are connected with the crime topic.
 Novelty: slang is generally modern and up-to-date. The
linguistic exuberance and the rapid change of the slang
lexicon represent a large part of slang’s originality, as they
2. Previous Studies on Slang 49

render people’s speech more creative and new. Eble (1996:

42), for instance, notices how North Carolina students enjoy
creating such novel words as emboosticated (‘embarrassed’),
matriculate (‘start a trip’), or motorvate (‘move around
socializing in a group, leave’). An original expression that
has gained the approval of many young people is Black
slang phat, esp. applied to ‘sexy, attractive’ women, or to
‘excellent, admirable; fashionable’ music.16
 Orality: slang is predominantly associated with spoken
language, where it generally starts its way towards recognition
and acceptance. This is amply demonstrated by what
Stenström et al. (2002: 65) call “vague words” (e.g. doodad,
doofer, thingamajig, thingy) and “smallwords” (e.g. innit,
yeah, you know), which are typical fillers of everyday
conversation and never used in formal written language.
 Unconventionality: Dumas & Lighter (1978: 13) argue that,
in general, the slang lexicon is characterized by the intention
of the speaker/writer “to break with established linguistic
convention”. Unconventionality is evident, for example, in
some unusual slang expressions meaning ‘crazy, mad’, such
as bananas, bonkers, crackers or nuts (Mattiello 2005).
 Faddishness: slang consists of an eccentric, strange vocabulary,
mainly characterized by “bizarre metaphors” (Allen 1998: 878)
and other “extravagant, forced, or facetious figures of speech”
(McHenry ed. 1993: 871). For instance, bird and chick are odd
metaphors for ‘a girl; a young woman’, while fairy and
pansy bizarrely allude to ‘a male homosexual’. Figurative
interpretation likewise characterizes metonymy (e.g. brain ‘a
clever person’), irony (e.g. bitching, killer having the positive
senses of ‘excellent’ and ‘a formidable person or thing’),
euphemism (e.g. wacky baccy, wacky tobaccy, wacky weed
U.S. ‘marijuana’), and similes (e.g. to smoke like a chimney

16 The OED considers phat a respelling of fat, but also provides some quotations
with explanations of the term as an acronym ( pussy hips ass and tits or pretty
hot and tempting; cf. pretty hips and thighs, Eble 1996: 175).
50 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

‘smoke a lot’, to work like a dog ‘work very hard’) (Mattiello

2005).
 Humour: slang is usually hilarious and as Yust (ed.) (1950:
766) states, “an element of humour is almost always present
in slang, usually as humorous exaggeration”. Sometimes the
humour of slang is evident (as in antiphrases that are generally
accompanied by an ironic intonation), but more frequently it
is implied (as in punning or intrinsic ambiguity). The humour
of slang is clearly illustrated by the expressions to dance one’s
ass/tits off, to work one’s brains off/out and to work one’s guts
out, which are exaggerations of the effects produced by
excessive dancing, studying or working.
 Vulgarity: slang has often been associated with bad language
(see, e.g., Andersson & Trudgill 1990: 69). Slang vocabulary
in effect abounds in vulgarisms, which are now used as
naturally as decent language by most people.17 Examples of
vulgar slang are expressions connected with the word fuck
(e.g. fucked-off), esp. when used as an intensifier (e.g. fucking
bollocks, fucking crap, fucking hell, etc.) (cf. obscenity above).
 Desire to impress: slang is deliberately used by speakers to
impress or shock others. Partridge (1947: 288) supports this
opinion by stating that one reason for using slang is “to be
arresting, striking, or even startling”, and Andersson &
Trudgill (1990: 78) likewise state that “the point of slang
words is often to be startling, amusing or shocking”. The
striking or shocking effects of slang are obviously related to
the extravagance and taboo nature of some of its
expressions, such as fart (‘a breaking wind’, ‘a contemptible
person’) and cunt (‘the female external genital organs’, ‘a
term of vulgar abuse for a woman’).18

17 Apte (1998: 989): “Individuals who use taboo words excessively in their speech
may become insensitive to both the socially determined taboo nature of these
words and the fact that such words are offensive to listeners”.
18 Apte (1998: 988): “Speakers who are aware of the potential of taboo words to
arouse strong reactions may deliberately use them to shock their listeners”.
2. Previous Studies on Slang 51

 Hybridism: slang is sometimes viewed as a hybrid language

variety because some foreign words may occur in its
vocabulary. Foreign lexical material can be borrowed either as
direct loans, as in ciao (‘hello; good-bye’) from Italian, and
loco (orig. U.S. ‘mad, insane’) from Spanish, or as loan
adaptations, as in capeesh (chiefly U.S. ‘do you understand?’),
which is adapted from Italian capisce (cf. Polari in Iamartino
2002, Pinnavaia 2003a, b). In any case, the effect of borrowing
is always that of a mixture of languages and cultures (see also
Andersson & Trudgill 1990: 83-84, Munro ed. 1997: 13).
 Localism: there are many regional differences in slang.
British, American and Australian slang, although they share a
common language (English), are viewed as different varieties
of it (cf. Brit. slang bloke ‘man, fellow’ and U.S. slang guy),
and within each variety, other sub-varieties can be identified.
For instance, American slang is often differentiated between
Southern and Northern, and within British slang, Cockney is
used in the London area. So, while some slang items can be
found in all regions of Britain (e.g. knackered ‘exhausted,
worn out’), others, such as whistle ( rhym. slang whistle
and flute for ‘suit’), are restricted to Cockney.
 Colour: slang has a tendency to be colourful, or, as Andersson
& Trudgill (1990: 16) suggest, “to make your speech vivid,
colourful and interesting”. Yust (ed.) (1950: 766) made
reference to the “onomatopoeic colour” of some slang words
of the period: e.g., biff (‘a blow, whack’), flabbergast
(‘bombast’) and flummox (‘a failure’). Other instances of the
onomatopoeic colour of slang are verbs for ‘engage in sex’
(e.g. boff, bonk, pork, etc.) (see Eble 1996).
 Impertinence: slang may be defined as audacious, and be
accused of disrespect and impertinence.19 For instance, it
disregards respect for other people with its numerous impolite
appellations. Many derogatory terms are coined or used in
slang to name outsiders: e.g., the term dago (a corruption of
Sp. Diego ‘James’) is used by American people for Spaniards,

19 An additional sense of ‘slang’ in the OED is “abuse, impertinence”.

52 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Portuguese, Italians or any foreigner, Chinkie/-ey/-y and

Paki are used by British people to indicate Chinese,
Pakistani or South Asian people (see COLT), whereas
Pommie/-y ( pomegranate) is used in Australia and New
Zealand for immigrants from Britain, esp. from England.
 Offensiveness: as a consequence of the previous property,
slang may be offensive. Many slang derogatory words
characterizing certain groups of people on the basis of negative
stereotypes are inherently offensive. For example, many sexist
slang words refer to male or female homosexuality (fag,
faggot, lesbo, lezzy), female promiscuity (slag, slut, tart),20 or
even to women as animals (bitch, cat, cow, dog). These are
normally perceived as abusive words by the hearer or
addressee.21
 Secrecy: slang may also be cryptic and exclusive when it is
used by certain subgroups to hide their conversations from
people in authority. Criminals, for example, use the slang
verbs nick and pinch to mean ‘steal (a thing)’, and they
employ the polysemous noun stuff (‘narcotics’, ‘money,
cash’, ‘stolen goods’, ‘forbidden goods smuggled into a
gaol’) to speak secretly about clandestine drug traffic and
other forms of illegal behaviour.22

20 Cf. the/his tart (‘a wife or girl-friend’) in Australia and New Zealand, or in
Scouse, the Liverpool dialect.
21 Chapman (1986: xxxiii, in Munro ed. 1989: 12), marks two levels of
offensiveness: on the one hand, the “strongest impact” rating which indicates a
taboo expression, and, on the other hand, the “lesser impact” rating which signals a
vulgar expression. Munro (ed.) (1997: 17) finds this reasoning quite arbitrary, and
opts for only one level of offensiveness: “Only the category of derogatory words is
perceived as potentially offensive by today’s U.C.L.A. students” (cf. Apte 1998).
22 The cryptic character of slang is reminiscent of French verlan, which is a non-
standard language formed by syllabic inversion, hence the name verlan (from F.
l’envers). As Méla (1991) states, verlan is predominantly spoken by college
students, and relates to specific semantic areas, such as drugs (e.g. cigarette

[artsi] ‘cigarette’), sex (e.g. cul
[yk] ‘bum’), intercultural relations (e.g.
portugais
[typ!r] ‘Portuguese’), scuffle (e.g. partouze
[tuzpar] ‘bunch’),
but also to ordinary terms, such as métro
tromé (‘underground’) and poubelle

bellepou (‘dustbin’). Méla (1991), who suggests the main patterns for the
2. Previous Studies on Slang 53

 Musicality: another typical tendency of slang speech is to

play with sounds. In particular, rhyme is the favourite sound
effect of slang (see Eble 1996: 39-43), as amply illustrated
by the phenomenon best known as Cockney rhyming slang
(e.g. pork-pie ‘a lie’). Yet reduplicatives (e.g. hotsy-totsy
‘comfortable, satisfactory’) and alliteration (e.g. dinky-die
Austral. and N.Z. ‘honest, genuine’, kidvid U.S. ‘a video
made for children’) also play a role in slang musicality.
 Privacy: slang is occasionally private, obscure or nearly
incomprehensible to outsiders. It generally creates a sense of
intimacy among in-group members, but at the same time it
may create a sense of exclusion or even rejection among
those people who are not part of the group. College students,
for instance, show their closeness when they talk about the
other sex: e.g., young men use fox and knockout to refer to
‘attractive girls’, and young women use babe and magnet for
‘attractive boys’. But most of these college slang words
would be impenetrable to outsiders, esp. parents, teachers
and adults in general.
 Aggressiveness: slang is aggressive and forceful, and at
times malicious or even cruel. Sornig (1981: 69) cites the
aggressive and parodistic undertone of slang, and Allen
(1998: 879) its “vicious and hostile verbal aggression”. In
fact, slang is often used by speakers as a means of
provocation or otherwise to express hostility and dislike.
Verbal aggression is illustrated, for example, by the
numerous slang terms referring to ‘an idiot, fool, crazy, or
stupid person’ (airhead, bone-head, cluck, drongo, dumb-
dumb, flat-head, goof, knuckle-head, muggins, ning-nong,
slob, turkey, etc.) (cf. Andersson & Trudgill 1990: 88-89).
 Culture-restriction: slang is a marker of cultural differences.
It is viewed as an anti-language that serves an anti-society
(like beggars and gamblers), and generally associated with the
levels of society that are culturally sub-standard. The raga

formation of verlan, stresses its use both in clandestine activities, as a secret code,
and in peer groups like students, as a marker of belonging and alliance.
54 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

youth culture, for instance, is associated with reggae music,

drugs, Jamaican or African accent and speech style, and with
such expressions as ya man and mash up (Stenström et al.
2002: 75-76).
 Efficiency: slang is efficient in the sense that slang words
may be much more direct than their standard corresponding
descriptions. Among the numerous reasons for using slang
that Partridge (1947: 288) identifies is “to be brief, concise”.
In fact, slang terms are not always concise, but they are
generally immediate and unequivocal for those who share
the same slang vocabulary, since they help efficiency. As
evidence, compare the slang compound outside job and its
standard English equivalent explanation: ‘a crime committed
by a person not connected or associated with the building,
organization, etc., in which it took place’.
 Individuality: slang is viewed by some scholars as a marker of
an individual’s identity. For example, it may be perceived as a
distinguishing mark, revealing private information about
someone’s age, gender, attitude, condition, education, special
interests, etc. By the way, Stenström et al. (2002: 73-76) show
the relationship between slang and gender (see also Olivares
1998, Stenström 1999), and between slang and age. As for
gender, they remark that male speakers use proper slang
words (e.g. bimbo, freak, yobbo) and dirty slang words (e.g.
bastard, crap, suck) relatively more often than female
speakers (cf. Allen 1998, Taylor 1998), whereas for age,
COLT 17-19 year-olds are reported to use more slang than
the other age groups.
 Prestige: slang may be used to convey a sense of prestige. In
particular, sociolinguists (e.g. Andersson & Trudgill 1990,
Allen 1998) identify a kind of positive value in slang use,
which they call “covert prestige”. Covert prestige is often
associated with toughness and strength, or with other
positive qualities such as independence and naturalness.
Young men, for instance, are strongly tempted to use slang
swearwords (e.g. bitch, bollocks, fuck off, hell) because they
serve to create their own status or reputation, and to
2. Previous Studies on Slang 55

strengthen group affinity. Actually, Sornig (1981: 63) claims

that “transgression of valid norms provides prestige”.
 Technicality: slang can sometimes be viewed as a ‘technolect’,
as it behaves as terminology in terms of restricted use. For
example, the verbs bull (‘polish (equipment, etc.) in order to
meet excessive standards of neatness’) and slot (‘kill or injure
(a person) by shooting’) belong to the slang of the army,
while bloke (‘the ship’s commander’), oggin (‘the sea’) and
to clap a guy on (‘put a stop to’) to nautical slang.
 Spontaneity: slang is a free natural speech, associated with
cities and modern society. Allen (1998: 881) remarks that
new experiences in the industrial city were recorded by the
slang of the 1950s (e.g. bus, el, skyscraper, taxi, etc.).
Furthermore, many slang terms are popular locutions
aroused in spontaneous conversation or prompted by the
mass media. Instances of spontaneous coins are the blends
fantabulous ( fantastic and fabulous) ‘of almost incredible
excellence’, and ginormous ( gigantic and enormous)
‘very large, simply enormous’, which reflect the influence of
spoken language on vocabulary innovation.
Tables 1 and 2 below summarize the properties of slang illustrated
above. Table 1 shows the language levels which in the relevant
studies are viewed as affected by slang, whereas Table 2 shows the
sociological aspects which have been associated with slang up to
now.
The language levels and sociological aspects are disposed on the
vertical axis of the two respective tables, while the studies
considered are placed on the horizontal axis. In Table 1 the mark 
indicates that the language level under examination is claimed to be
affected by slang innovation in the corresponding study on the
horizontal line; in Table 2, it indicates that slang meets the
sociological property taken into account, again in the opinion of the
respective scholar(s).
 lexis/
Levels

grammar

semantics
Studies

Language

phonology

pragmatics
Relevant

morphology


Allen (1998)


Andersson & Trudgill (1990)



Dumas & Lighter (1978)





Dundes & Schonhorn (1963)





Eble (1996)



Flexner (1960)




Franklyn (1961)




 Jespersen (1922)



Longman Dictionary (1984)

Matthews (ed.) (1997)





 McHenry (ed.) (1993)



Mencken (1967)
Table 1. The linguistic properties of slang in the relevant studies.







Munro (ed.) (1997)



OED


Olesen & Whittaker (1968)



Partridge (1947)


Pearsall (ed.) (1998)



Quirk et al. (1985)







Sornig (1981)



Stein (ed.) (1966)






Stenström (2000)



Stenström et al. (2002)



Trudgill (1999)


Webster & McKechnie (eds) (1963)





Yust (ed.) (1950)

 Social

orality
novelty
Aspects

freshness

obscenity
Studies

time-restr.

playfulness
informality
group-restr.

debasement
Relevant

subject-restr.
ephemerality









Allen (1998)












Andersson & Trudgill (1990)






Dumas & Lighter (1978)







Dundes & Schonhorn (1963)












Eble (1996)








 Flexner (1960)





Franklyn (1961)



Jespersen (1922)






Longman Dictionary (1984)




Matthews (ed.) (1997)












McHenry (ed.) (1993)











Mencken (1967)






Munro (ed.) (1997)

Table 2. The sociological properties of slang in the relevant studies.







OED






Olesen & Whittaker (1968)








Partridge (1947)





Pearsall (ed.) (1998)





Quirk et al. (1985)












Sornig (1981)






Stein (ed.) (1966)









Stenström (2000)







Stenström et al. (2002)



Trudgill (1999)





Webster & McKechnie (eds) (1963)









Yust (ed.) (1950)

Table 2, (Cont’d).

unconvention.         
faddishness        
humour        
vulgarity        
desire to impr.       
hybridism      
localism      
colour     
impertinence     
offensiveness     
secrecy     
musicality    
privacy    
aggressiv.   
culture-restr.   
efficiency   
individuality   
prestige   
technicality  
spontaneity 
2. Previous Studies on Slang 59

Table 1 shows that the level of lexis/semantics is influenced by

slang much more than the other language levels. Pragmatics is also
significant in slang, seeing that its context of use and interlocutors
play a central part in its interpretation. The remaining levels – i.e.
morphology, phonology and grammar – are taken into account in
this descending order of importance, but they are normally
underestimated or marginalized. I rather believe that the levels of
morphology, especially word-formation, and lexical semantics,
constitute the core features of slang, since they exhibit qualities
which allow us to discriminate slang from the standard language.
Specifically, I believe that slang extra-grammaticality allows a
distinction from the canonical rules of English grammar, and that
some of its word-formation mechanisms are so peculiar that they can
help us determine the slang status of words. In addition, I believe that
the obscure relationship between some lexemes and their slang
meaning(s) allows a distinction from the standard English lexicon,
since it is indicative of slang lexical disorganization, and of the
complicated cognitive processes that slang activates.
Table 2 shows that slang is considered both in its specific sense
(as an in-group language variety) and in its general sense (as a
short-lived informal vocabulary which is below the level of stylistic
neutral language). It also shows that the sociological properties of
slang may be classified in relation to either the speaker or the
hearer.
The speaker-oriented properties of slang characterize the speaker:
 As member of a particular group (group-restriction,
individuality), often an exclusive one (secrecy, privacy,
culture-restriction, prestige);
 As someone with a precise occupation/activity (subject-
restriction, technicality);
 As someone having a low cultural status (informality,
debasement), or using low/bad language (vulgarity,
obscenity);
 As an individual of a certain age or generation (time-
restriction, ephemerality), or coming from a specific regional
area (localism).
60 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

The hearer-oriented properties are rather meant to produce some

effect upon the hearer, viz.:
 To amuse the hearer or to make him laugh (playfulness,
humour);
 To release him from the monotony of neutral style
(freshness, novelty, unconventionality);
 To impress the hearer (desire to impress), esp. with bizarre
expressions (faddishness), or to attract his attention with
colourful words (colour) and their sounds (musicality);
 To mock, offend or challenge the hearer (impertinence,
offensiveness, aggressiveness).
The linguistic and sociological properties of slang may therefore be
summarized and rearranged as in the schedule below, which
provides an outline of chapters 3-5 of this study on slang.

SLANG
LINGUISTIC SOCIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES
PROPERTIES Speaker-oriented Hearer-oriented
grammatical and group-restriction playfulness
extra-grammatical subject-restriction humour
morphology secrecy freshness
privacy novelty
informality desire to impress
debasement faddishness
lexical organization
vulgarity colour
and disorganization
obscenity musicality
time-restriction impertinence
ephemerality offensiveness
localism aggressiveness

Table 3. A review of the linguistic and sociological properties of slang.

3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical
Morphology

Though slang usage is characterized by rule-breaking and

insubordination as regards the rules of Standard usage, this
insubordination follows rules of its own, it is a partly
conventionalized disregard for conventions. (Sornig 1981: 76)

The speaker always has the capacity to make up new words, which he
can then add to his repertoire. It thus remains the task of a morphology
to tell us what sort of new words a speaker can form. (Aronoff 1976: 19)

3.1. Slang formations

Slang formations follow different word-formation patterns. Many of

them are obtained via extra-grammatical morphological operations
(EMOs), i.e. word-formation mechanisms which violate various
universal properties of grammatical morphology (see Dressler &
Merlini Barbaresi 1994, Doleschal & Thornton eds 2000; cf. Zwicky
& Pullum’s 1987 “expressive” vs. “plain” morphology). Yet some
slang formations can be assigned to recognized grammatical
morphological rules (MRs), i.e. rules which are productive in the
grammatical morphology of standard English (see Bauer 2001). A
third type of slang formation appears to lie in-between, since it
exhibits some regularity (e.g. in the process of morphotactic
concatenation), but extra-grammaticality in the base forms, or vice
versa, i.e. it shows the regularity of the base, but extra-grammaticality
in the mechanism of formation. For example, consider the following
representative sample of contemporary use (taken from the ODMS):
62 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

1. I was bombed out (‘under the influence of drink or drugs’)

– didn’t know what I was doing.
2. The women thought him an eligible bachelor, if a bit of a
chaser (‘an amorous pursuer of women’).
3. ‘Mm, is that him?’ said the girl, all velvet. ‘He’s dishy (‘very
attractive’)’.
4. They even had a couple of black-clad bagladies (‘homeless
women’) sitting silently on straight chairs by the door.
5. Tom needed money for drugs… pot, acid, speed, ups
(‘amphetamines’), downs (‘tranquillizing drugs’).
6. Young men exchange their uniforms for ‘civvies’ (‘civilian
clothes’).
7. Her husband got antsy (‘agitated’) and asked me to have
Tom Lewis see her in consultation.
8. The local Teddies and yobbos ( back-slang yob + -o,
‘louts’) swing their dubious weight behind the strike.
9. A shambles as big as the Labour gabfest (‘a gathering for
talk’).
10. ‘Gee,’ said Wing Commander Dewar, ‘this thing’ll drive me
nuts (‘crazy’)’.
11. By half-past three he’ll be raving bonkers (‘mad’).
12. Oh so loverly sittin’ abso-bloomin’-lutely (emphatic,
‘absolutely’) still! I would never budge ’til Spring crept over
me windersill.
13. If you look like a grot ( grotty, ‘unpleasant person’),
you’ll never get a flat.
14. ‘People will dance to anything now,’ muses Mal. ‘I blame
the E (‘ecstasy’) meself!’.
15. Have a butcher’s ( rhym. slang butcher’s hook ‘look’) at
the News of the World.
16. The Bill continues to go from strength to strength because
all the bobbies are completely O.T.T. (‘outrageous’).
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 63

17. She avoids ever producing her ambi-sextrous (‘bisexual’)

young publisher.
18. The days of the ‘des res’ (‘desirable residence’) that clearly
isn’t are set to end for estate agents.
19. ’Aving a proper argy-bargy (‘contentious argument’) in
’ere, aren’t you? Losing your tempers too.
20. ‘Better have some chuddy (‘chewing gum’),’ said Tom.

I can anticipate that types (1) to (5) are rule-governed, i.e. their
word-formation processes conform to the canonical derivation and
compounding mechanisms of standard English. Hence, they
demonstrate that slang formations may conform to grammatical
MRs. Types (6) to (8) are partially regular formations, in the sense
that they exhibit regularity for some aspects, but extra-
grammaticality for others (i.e. unrecognizable bases or irregular
order of morphological processes). Type (9) (-fest) represents a
transitional phenomenon between derivation and compounding
(combining forms) and may be viewed as a case of what Dressler
(2000: 6-7) considers “marginal morphology”. Lastly, types (10) to
(20) are clearly outside grammar, since the processes of their
formation violate too many of the basic properties of morphological
grammar to be considered rule-governed.

3.1.1. Grammatical formations

Slang formations conforming to regular grammar are unexpectedly
numerous. In both derivation and composition, they adopt regular
morphological mechanisms to obtain predictable new words, as in
dish
dish-y and bag + lady
baglady.
Within derivation, suffixation may allow a better illustration of
regular morphological patterns, since the number of suffixes largely
outweighs that of prefixes in English slang. The most productive
suffixes regularly forming slang nouns are:
 -er, attached to nominal bases (life
lifer, weekend

weekender), or to verbal bases (chop
chopper, drop

dropper), like St. E. hat
hatter, bake
baker;
64 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

 -ing, attached to verbs, as in flame
flam-ing, ram-raid

ram-raiding, in line with the standard -ing pattern.
Less productive but still regular suffixes are: -ation/-ion (as in
connection  v connect), -ery (as in noshery  nosh), -ette
obtaining female nouns from male ones (as in hackette  hack), -ful
obtaining nouns from nominal bases (as in earful  ear), -ish
attaching to various bases (as in peckish  v peck and all-overish
 all-over), privative -less (as in legless ‘drunk’, though with added
figurative meaning), -ness (as in chestiness  chesty), and -ster (as
in dopester  dope, after drugster  drug).
Regular suffixes deriving adjectives are frequent as well, as the
following samples show:
 -ed deriving participial adjectives from verbs, as in crack

cracked and bomb
bombed, by analogy with standard
forms;
 -ed deriving denominal adjectives, as in pot
potted and
parasynthetic moon-eye
moon-eyed, which follow the
standard patterns of culture
cultured and dark-eye

dark-eyed;
 -ing forming participial adjectives, as in zonk
zonking, by
analogy with St. E. will
willing;
 -y attached to nouns, as in cheese
cheesy, analogous to St.
E. ice
icy.
Some such adjective-forming suffixes are less recurrent in slang
than in standard language, as -able (e.g. ropeable  v rope).
Some adverbs are likewise formed regularly by attaching the
suffix -ly to adjectives, as in stinkingly ( stinking), formed like St.
E. strikingly ( striking).
There are also some prefixes used in slang, which act regularly,
but their productivity in forming new words is low. Examples are
de- (as in de-bag  bags, ‘remove the trousers’), re- (as in re-up 
converted v up), super- and un- (as in super-cool and uncool 
cool), and under- (as in underfug  fug).
Within composition, regularity is in terms of both morphotactics
and morphosemantics. From the morphotactic point of view, some
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 65

slang compounds conform to the regular pattern forming nouns,

adjectives and verbs, by combining two bases, namely a modifier
(non-head) and a head. The compound noun baglady, for example,
is similar to St. E. bag-fox. But also the compound adjective pie-
faced and the verb talk turkey are comparable to St. E. formations
(e.g. dog-faced, talk sailor).
From the morphosemantic point of view, the above slang
compounds have their head within the compound (lady, face(d),
talk), hence, they conform to the prototypical pattern of endocentric
compounds, denoting ‘a type of lady’, ‘a kind of face’ or ‘a way of
talking’. However, not all of them seem to obey Frege’s principle of
compositionality, according to which the global meaning of the
compound can be deduced from the meaning of its constituent parts
(cf. full transparency in Dressler 2005). Indeed, while baglady –
denoting ‘a woman who carries her possessions in bags’ – is fully
compositional, pie-faced applied to someone ‘having a round, flat
face’ and talk turkey meaning ‘speak frankly and without reserve’
are not, though in pie-faced the semantic motivation by its first
member (non-head) is still evident.
As regards conversion, i.e. the transfer of a lexical item to a
different syntactic category with no overt marker, slang formations
are assignable to widely recognized patterns (as in Marchand 1969):
e.g., the transfer from a noun to a verb (n souvenir
v souvenir
‘take as a ‘souvenir’; steal’) or vice versa (v pop ‘inject a drug’
n
pop ‘an injection of a drug’), from an adjective to a verb (adj
special
v special ‘work as a special correspondent’), and from a
particle to a verb (prep off
v off ‘kill’). They also exhibit less
frequent patterns (e.g. from a particle to a noun, as in up, down,
etc.), but still attested in standard English (cf. ups and downs
‘vicissitudes, variations’).
Let us now turn to what is outside of standard English.

3.1.2. Extra-grammatical formations

Extra-grammatical phenomena are frequent slang formations. They
mainly consist of:
a) Anomalous derivations (i.e. expletive infixation and back-
formation or back-derivation, see Marchand 1969);
66 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

b) Abbreviatory morphological operations: i.e. clippings,

acronyms, initialisms, blends (in the wider sense of Thornton
1993; cf. Dressler 2000: 5), and abbreviated rhyming
formations;
c) Reduplicating mechanisms: the various patterns of echo-
words or reduplicatives (see Merlini Barbaresi forthcoming);
d) Irregular and unpredictable reversed forms and variations of
the base, including analogical formations, malapropisms,
metathesis, letter pronunciation, extensions and a range of
alterations;
e) The combination of (b), (c) or (d) with affixes which carry no
semantic but merely pragmatic meaning: e.g., the colloquial
prefix schm-/shm-, the hypocoristic or familiar suffix -ie/-y,
its allomorphic variants -ey/-ee, the (chiefly Australian slang)
familiarizer -o, jocular -er and -s, and the composite suffixes
-ers, -eroo, -sie/-sy/-so (cf. Dressler & Merlini Barbaresi
1994, Merlini Barbaresi 2001);
f) Entirely unmotivated terms derived by word manufacture
(see Bauer 1983) and fanciful formations of unknown
origin.
The major grammatical MRs that appear to be violated in the afore-
mentioned slang formations, compared with canonical formations,
include:
 Whereas rules of canonical derivation are predictable in
form change, affixes being added to continuous bases (un- +
touch, absolute + -ly), the morphotactics of slang derivatives
is often irregular, as in back-derived grot ( grotty), or the
base may be discontinuous, that is, interrupted by an infix, as
in abso-blooming-lutely.
 Whereas subtractive MRs exhibit a tendency to delete a
small (usually final) part of the base (evacuate
evacu-ee),
and, with two bases, of the first base (Austrian-Hungarian

Austr-o-Hungarian), slang subtractive operations may
delete larger and not necessarily final (non-salient) parts:
i.e., the coda (E  ecstasy, feeb  feeble-minded), two
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 67

codas (des res  desirable residence), the beginning (gator

 alligator, bin  loony bin), both the coda and the
beginning (tec  detective), or the middle part, as in B-girl
( bar-girl), ginormous ( gigantic + enormous),
ambisextrous ( ambidextrous + sex) (see § 3.2.10.2).
 Whereas conventional word-formation rules rely on existing
stem or word bases, slang reduplicative formations often
show no meaningful bases, hardly recognizable as pre-
existent meaningful morphemes (hanky-panky, hotsy-totsy,
zig-zag). In the onomatopoeic type (bling-bling), no
independent word bases are identifiable, since the two
constituents form a phonetic unit. In the rhyming and ablaut
types, headedness is difficult to assign, since both
syntagmatic directions are possible (cf. easy-peasy and chit-
chat). The same happens with slang fanciful formations
(lallapaloosa), whose bases are not independent words, or
with those forms of unknown etymology obtained by word
manufacture (scag).
 Whereas standard MRs mostly comply with Aronoff’s
(1976) Unitary Base Hypothesis, slang extra-grammatical
formations exhibit various base categories for the same suffix,
thus exhibiting what Zwicky & Pullum (1987: 336) call
“promiscuity with regard to input category”.1 This is the case
with the -ie/-y suffix, applied primarily to nouns (druggie/-y),
but also to adjectives (biggie/-y), verbs (clippie/-y ‘a bus-
conductress’), adverbs (downie ‘a depressant or tranquillizing
drug’), etc. (see also Merlini Barbaresi 2001). The same
promiscuity is found in the output (cf. Scalise’s 1988 Unitary
Output Hypothesis), as shown by the alternative classes of the
above outputs.
 Whereas MRs form new words, slang formations often obtain
connoted variants. This is the case with: (1) some reduplicative

1 The hypothesis that input syntactic category information is not crucial to word-
formation rules has been put forward by many linguists (e.g., by Plank 1981, Plag
1999, Ryder 1999, Montermini 2001), and has been systematically investigated by
Plag (2004), who shows that the Unitary Base Hypothesis is untenable in derivational
morphology, and rather proposes a semantic, output-oriented approach.
68 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

formations, such as O.K.
okey-dokey, sometimes with the

prefix schm-/shm- (e.g. moon-schmoon); (2) some slang
suffixes (e.g. -eroo as in flop
flopperoo, -o as in yob

yobbo), esp. when combined with shortened bases (e.g. -er/-ers
in bedder  bedroom, preggers  pregnant, -ie/-y in footie/-y
 football, -o in muso  musician, etc.); (3) most variations,
as champagne
shampoo (humorously chosen for its
assonance), B.B.C.
Beeb; (4) various abbreviatory
operations, such as initialisms (sex appeal
S.A.), blending
(tabloid show
tab show), and clipping (hashish
hash,
potato
tato), which do not generally exhibit any semantic
difference between input and output.
As the descriptive and theoretical literature on morphology shows
(esp. Marchand 1969, Aronoff 1976, Bauer 1983), some of the above
extra-grammatical morphological operations are not peculiar to slang.
For instance, the phenomena included in (a), (c), (f) (back- and
reduplicative formations and word manufacture), and subtraction
(as in b), are attested in other non-standard varieties and in informal
speech, but are generally excluded from morphological grammar
due to their oddity and disregard of generative WFRs. On the other
hand, other extra-grammatical morphological operations are
restricted to slang use, viz.:
 Infixation, in which the bases are discontinuous rather than
continuous morphs, as in fantastic
fan-bloody-tastic (cf.
the preference for morphotactic transparency in Natural
Morphology (NM), Dressler 2005).
 Abbreviated (elliptic) rhyming formations, which, like other
subtractive devices, exhibit no meaning change between
input and output, and also tend to lose the phonological
iconicity relating onset and outset, as in butcher’s (
butcher’s hook), losing the element hook rhyming with the
referent ‘look’ (cf. preference for iconicity in NM).
 Reversed and altered forms, as in back-slang neves for
seven, chuddy for chewing gum and flick for film, in which
the bases are unrecognizable as pre-existent meaningful
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 69

morphemes, and the resulting formations are therefore

morphotactically opaque.
 Familiarizing suffixes (“familiarity markers” in Quirk et al.
1985: 1584), which do not derive new words, but rather pet
forms or colloquial variants of standard English words.
Examples would be:
• The English pet suffix -ie/-y (or -ey/-ee), with a basic
hypocoristic meaning, used in slang to convey the pragmatic
feature [non-serious], as in denominal shoppie/-y (‘a shop
assistant’) and deadjectival hottie/-y (‘a sexually attractive
person’) (see Dressler & Merlini Barbaresi 1994);
• The British suffix -er (and -ers, from a cumulation with -s),
introduced into Oxford University slang from sport, esp.
rugby, and used to make jocular formations on nouns, by
clipping or curtailing them and adding -er(s) to the remaining
part, which is sometimes itself distorted, as in leccer/lecker/
lekker ( lecture), rugger ( rugby), spaggers/spadgers (
spaghetti), etc.;
• The American slang suffix -eroo (as in pipperoo  pip),
and its variants -aroo, -roo, -oo, conveying playfulness and
jocularity to terms used in certain circles (e.g. radio, sports,
advertising);
• The Australian slang familiarizer -o, used to obtain informal
equivalents of nouns and adjectives, as in kiddo ( kid) and
cheapo ( cheap) (cf. the derivative function in milko ‘a
milkman’).
 The suffix -s which, unlike the homophone and homograph
inflectional suffix of standard English, derives adjectives
from nominal bases, as in nuts and bananas ‘mad, crazy’, or
may combine with other suffixes (e.g. -y, -er, -o) to obtain
adjectives (nutsy, bonkers ‘crazy’) or nouns (fatso ‘a fat
person’).
70 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

3.1.3. Borderline cases

In-between grammatical and extra-grammatical morphological
operations, there are some partially regular slang formations, which
conform to the regular patterns of word-formation, but may exhibit
some violations of universal properties of English grammar. We
distinguish three main tendencies:
g) Formations which conform to the regular patterns of
morphotactic concatenation, but display extra-grammaticality
in the base form (cf. Bauer 1988b);
h) Formations with regular bases, but an irregular order of
morphological processes (esp. derivation after inflection);
i) Formations which belong to marginal morphology because
the processes involving them straddle the borderline between,
say, derivation and compounding, or morphology and
phonology.
Type (g) is the most common in slang formations. Consider, for
instance, the derivatives obtained via suffixation of the slang bases
yob, derived by back-slang (i.e. inverting the letters of boy), and
yuppie, an acronym from young urban professional:
 From yob, slang obtains the adjectives yobby and yobbish,
the adverb yobbishly, and the abstract nouns yobbery and
yobbishness;
 From yuppie, it obtains the noun yuppi(e)ness, the adjective
yuppyish, and, after the verb yuppify, the deverbal adjective
yuppified and the noun yuppification.
While, on the one hand, these derivatives conform to the regular
order of morphological concatenation (i.e. n yob
adj yob-b-ish

n yobbish-ness; n yuppie
v yupp-ify
adj yuppif-i-ed / n yuppif-i-
cation), on the other hand, they show a basic extra-grammatical
nature due to the origin of the bases (see § 3.1.2).
Type (h) is basically exemplified by inflected bases deriving
new words. Indeed, one of the most common generalizations which
morphologists make when distinguishing inflection from derivation
is that derivational suffixes tend to occur closer to the root or stem
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 71

than inflectional suffixes, as in (v) arrive
(n) arrive-al
(pl.)

arrive-al-s.
Compare, now, the inflected slang nouns civvies (shortened from
civilian clothes) and yobbos (from a familiarizing suffixation of back-
slang yob) with the slang adjectives antsy and ballsy, respectively from
the inflected (plural) bases ant-s (also in antsy-pantsy) and ball-s.
Whereas civvies and yobbos exhibit a regular inflectional morphology,
though attached to extra-grammatical bases (type g), antsy and ballsy
exhibit a regular derivative morphology, but attached to inflected bases
(n ant
pl. ant-s
adj ants-y; n ball
pl. ball-s
adj balls-y),
which makes the formatives morphotactically and morphosemantically
opaque (cf. Dressler 2005). A similar example is provided by the
adjective dicey, in which the base of the derivative is inflected – the
plural of die – and hence irregular.
Inflected words are also universally less preferred than autonomous
words as compound members. Hence, the slang nominal compound
balls-up, with a pluralised first base, is less preferred than St. E.
ballpark, with autonomous words in their uninflected form as bases
(cf. Dressler 2005).2
Type (i) is illustrated by some slang final combining forms (e.g.
-fest as in gabfest and -burger as in psychoburger), which are
transitional phenomena between derivation and compounding, and
therefore belong to what Dressler (2000) considers “marginal” in
morphology. Indeed, final combining forms (or semi-suffixes)
display the same productivity and morphosemantic regularity as
derivational suffixes (see Mattiello 2007b), but often acquire an
independent status (e.g. fest  G. Fest and burger as a shortening
of hamburger; cf. § 3.2.4.2), which makes them comparable to
compound members.
This latter type is additionally illustrated by some slang
phenomena which are marginal in the sense that they lie in-between

2 An explanation for the morphological inconsistency of a derivational suffix

preceding an inflectional one is found in the lexicalization process: in American
slang, the noun balls acquires the singular sense of ‘courage, determination’, so it is
treated as a simple base rather than as a complex one in the adjective derivation. The
case of antsy is similar: the origin of this adjective is from the American English
idiomatic phrase to have ants in one’s pants (‘fidget constantly, esp. because of
extreme agitation’), hence the lexicalized noun ants to which the -y suffix is added.
72 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

morphology and, e.g., phonology, such as letter pronunciation,

reproducing the pronunciation of the initial letters of a word (e.g. gee
 guy), or as an alteration, reproducing a colloquial, dialect, regional
or standard word pronunciation (e.g. Cockney loverly /lvl / 
lovely /lvl /).

3.2. Slang word-formation

As seen so far, the word-formation mechanisms of slang include

regular phenomena, such as compounding, affixation – mostly in the
form of suffixation, but also of prefixation – and conversion, as well
as extra-grammatical ones, exemplified and discussed in section
3.1.2. We will now examine each phenomenon in more detail, and
describe the grammatical classes of slang formations, in addition to
their base categories and head properties. As regards slang classes, I
can anticipate that most slang compounds and derivatives are nouns,
followed by adjectives and verbs. Interjections, adverbs and particles
represent relatively minor groups within the slang lexicon, though
they are attested among its formations, e.g. the exact reduplicative
hubba-hubba is an interjection, the -o derivative doggo is an adverb,
etc. Idiomatic phrases and longer expressions will not be part of this
investigation with the exception of some slang idioms (e.g. dog’s
breakfast), which will be distinguished from proper slang compounds.
Compounding is the first topic of my investigation.

3.2.1. Compounding
Compounding is a common morphological mechanism which
obtains new words consisting of “two elements, the first of which is
either a root, a word or a phrase, the second of which is either a root
or a word” (Plag 2003: 135). In English and similar languages, the
modifier generally precedes the head, as established by Williams’
(1981) Righthand Head Rule (RHR).3 In slang, both head and non-
3 Williams’ (1981: 248) Righthand Head Rule states: “In morphology, we define
the head of a morphologically complex word to be the righthand member of that
word”. By the way, Dressler (2005: 275-276) claims that “an explanation for the
right-hand head preference may lie in the psycholinguistic recency effect which
makes the end of a word more salient”. In semiotic terms, the compound head
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 73

head positions may be occupied by a variety of classes, the most

unusual being particles (i.e. prepositions, numerals and pronouns),
as in four-eyes, I AM, Section Eight, she-male, undercover, all
forming compound nouns. On the other hand, the regular pattern of
right-headed endocentric compounds, which have the head within
the compound and, specifically, to the right, is found in doss-house
‘a lodging house’, hot chair ‘the electric chair’, and outside man
denoting ‘a person involved in robbery’, which have respectively a
noun, adjective and adverb as non-head. These combinations are
called “attributive” or “appositional” (e.g. by Marchand 1969: 41,
61) because they are typically characterized by a determinant-
determinatum relation.
Before moving on to a classification of slang compounds, an
orthographic clarification may be in order here. It is well known that
compounds in English are spelt variously as one word (blackbird), as
hyphenated words (black-face), or as two independent words (black
eye) (see Jespersen 1942: 136, Lieber 1992: 84). This distinction,
however, is not always as clear-cut as that: some compounds are,
indeed, written in different ways, as blackboard or black board, and
black-ball or blackball, all perfectly acceptable in standard English.
Slang compounds make no exception, as the three spellings of red
neck, redneck or red-neck seem to confirm. Sometimes, however,
spelling may affect the reading of the compound: for instance, the
hyphenated compound bad-mouth may be both a noun and a verb.
But when the compound is written as two separate words (as bad
mouth) it has to be read as a noun, while when it is spelt as one word
(as badmouth) it denotes a verb.
3.2.1.1. Compound nouns
Nouns constitute the most extensive syntactic class of slang
compounds. The base categories of such compounds are, as
anticipated, various, though the most common are, as in standard
English, two nouns (house-man), or a head-noun and an adjective-
modifier (main man). Less common bases are provided by
grammatical rather than lexical words, as in I AM or she-male, with

represents the figure, while the non-head is the ground. However, saliency does not
seem to apply to Romance languages (see Scalise 1988, 1992).
74 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

a pronominal first member. What follows is an attempt to identify

the possible combinations among base categories.
3.2.1.1.1. Noun-noun compounds are richly illustrated in slang.
Within this pattern, the most frequent subgroup is represented by
metonymic compounds (see § 3.2.1.4.1), in which the syntactic
head is a part of the semantic head. In particular, the syntactic head
is a body part, which stands for the whole person.
Metonymic compounds with head as the second member mainly
denote ‘a stupid or despicable person’. This sense is in airhead, bone-
head, bubblehead, knucklehead, meat-head, mush-head, mutton-head,
shithead, and, with a deverbal first member, propellerhead. They are
all analysable as ‘a person having a head as indicated by the first
member’.
Such compounds have to be distinguished from compounds in
which head means ‘drug addict’. This latter type, indeed, does not
have a metonymic nature, as the first member rather specifies the
sort of substance (drug or other) the person is addicted to: e.g., acid
head (orig. U.S.) ‘an LSD addict’, crackhead (orig. U.S.) ‘one who
is addicted to crack cocaine’, hophead (U.S.) ‘an opium-smoker’,
piss-head (chiefly Brit. and N.Z.) ‘a drunkard’, pothead ‘one who is
addicted to marijuana’ (more in § 4.2.1.3).
Other metonymic compounds having mouth as the second
member denote ‘a person who talks in the way denoted by the first
member’ (e.g. flannel-mouth U.S. ‘an empty talker’, motormouth
orig. U.S. ‘a person who talks fast and incessantly’). Similar “pars-
pro-toto compounds” (Warren 1978: 27) are beer belly ‘one who has
a protruding stomach caused by drinking large quantities of beer’,
cloth ears ‘a person with a poor sense of hearing’, guzzle-guts ‘a
glutton’, jack-leg (U.S.) ‘an incompetent or unskilled person’, vulgar
jive-ass (U.S.) ‘a person who loves fun or excitement’, lard-ass (orig.
N. Amer.) ‘a fat person’, mossback ‘a slow, rustic, or old-fashioned
person’, and sparrow-brain ‘a person with a tiny brain’.
Another group of endocentric nominal compounds characterized
by man as the second member belongs to the attributive
(appositional) type: hit-man ‘a hired murderer’, lurkman (Austral.)
( lurk ‘a scheme, plan of action’) ‘a person who lives by sharp
practice’, matman (orig. U.S.) ( mat ‘floor-covering used in
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 75

wrestling’) ‘a wrestler’, monkey-man (U.S.) ‘a weak or gullible

man’, muscle man ‘a man with highly developed muscles’, needle
man (U.S.) ‘a drug addict who takes drugs by injection’, rodman
( rod ‘a gun’) ‘a gunman’, skyman (Journalistic) ‘a paratrooper’.
The element man is pronounced [mn] in slang when the word
denotes a member of a specific group, as in house-man (U.S.) ‘a
burglar’, passman ‘a male prisoner who is allowed to leave his cell
as a special privilege’, and streetman (U.S.) ‘a petty criminal who
works on the street’.
Within the attributive type, the following compounds have a
human being as the second element: baglady (orig. U.S.) ‘a homeless
woman, often elderly, who carries her possessions in shopping bags’,
glamour boy ‘a member of the R.A.F.’, homeboy (orig. U.S.) ‘a
member of one’s peer group or gang’, Jew boy (offens.) ‘a Jewish
male’, loony-doctor ‘a psychiatrist’, pavement princess (U.S.) ‘a
prostitute who seeks business on the streets’ (cf. Amer. sidewalk),
pen-mate (Austral. and N.Z.) ‘each of two or more shearers who
shear sheep from the same pen’, piss artist (chiefly Brit.) ‘a
drunkard’, pox-doctor ( pox ‘syphilis’) ‘a doctor specializing in
the treatment of venereal disease’, sky pilot ‘a priest or clergyman,
esp. a military or naval chaplain’, suicide blonde (jocular) ‘a
woman with hair dyed blonde (esp. rather amateurishly)’, witch-
doctor (Military) ‘a psychiatrist’. Some such compounds, however,
are non-compositional (e.g. pavement princess, sky pilot), since
they do not denote a member of the class expressed by the second
member, but they have rather to be read metaphorically.
The class of endocentric compounds with a non-human head
includes blood wagon ‘an ambulance’, doss-house ( doss ‘a bed’)
‘a common lodging-house’, hit list ‘a list of persons to be
assassinated’, hit squad (orig. U.S.) ‘a group of esp. politically-
motivated assassins or kidnappers’, hock-shop ‘a pawnshop’,
lughole ‘the ear-hole’, meat-wagon (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ‘an
ambulance’, monkey meat (U.S., Army) ‘tinned meat’, monkey suit
(orig. U.S.) ‘a formal, decorative, or showy uniform’, needle beer
(U.S.) ‘near-beer mixed with ethyl alcohol’, nut-house ‘a home or
hospital for people with mental illnesses’, penguin suit ‘a man’s
formal evening wear’, roadwork (Criminals’) ‘the work of an
itinerant thief’, sack time (orig. U.S., Forces’) ‘time spent in bed’,
76 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

sin city (often jocular) ‘a city of licentiousness and vice’. The head
is unusually the left-hand member in murder one (U.S.) ‘a first-
degree murder’.
The class of opaque exocentric compounds referring to human
beings includes dream-boat (orig. U.S.) ‘an exceptionally attractive
or pleasing person’, face-ache ‘a mournful-looking person’,
fruitcake (orig. U.S.) ‘a crazy or eccentric person’, gasbag ( gas
‘empty or boastful talk’) ‘an empty talker’, glamour puss ‘a
glamorous person’, grease-ball (U.S.) ‘a derogatory term for a
foreigner’, grease monkey ‘a mechanic’, gum-shoe ‘a detective’,
head case (orig. Brit.) ‘a person characterized as mentally ill or
unstable’, jail-bait (orig. U.S.) ‘a girl who is under the legal age of
consent’, jelly bean ‘a pimp’, jelly-dog ‘a harrier’, jelly roll ‘a
lover’, jungle bunny ‘a derogatory term used to designate Blacks,
Australian Aborigines, etc.’, king-fish (U.S.) ‘a leader, chief, boss’,
lounge lizard (orig. U.S.) ‘a man who spends his time idling in
fashionable society’, mouthpiece (chiefly Criminals’) ‘a lawyer’,
nutcase ‘a crazy, mad, or eccentric person’, peanut ‘a small,
unintelligent, or unimportant person’, pork chop (U.S., derog.) ‘a
black person who is subservient to whites’, post office ‘a person
who receives information and either transmits it or holds it for
collection’, ring-worm (U.S.) ‘someone who regularly attends
boxing-matches’, salt horse (Nautical) ‘a naval officer with general
duties’, screwball (chiefly U.S.) ‘an eccentric; a madman’, snow-
bird (U.S.) ( snow ‘cocaine’) ‘one who sniffs cocaine’, stink-pot
‘a term of abuse for a person’.
The following exocentric compounds refer to inanimate objects,
things, places, and even abstract aspects: cakehole ‘a person’s mouth’,
cheesecake (orig. U.S.) ‘female sexual attractiveness’, eyewash
(Military) ‘unnecessary routine tasks or ceremonial’, glass-house ‘a
military prison or guard-room’, gobstick ( gob ‘the mouth’) ‘a
clarinet’, God-box ‘a church or other place of worship’, goggle-box ‘a
television set’, goof ball/pill ‘(a tablet of) any of various drugs’, gum-
bucket (Naval) ‘a smoker’s pipe’, gum-game (U.S.) ‘a trick or dodge’,
hash-joint (chiefly U.S.) ‘a cheap eating-house’, hop toy ‘a container
used for smoking opium’, horse opera (orig. U.S.) ‘a Western film or
television series’, jaw-bone (N. Amer.) ‘credit’, joy-house ‘a brothel’,
joy/jungle juice (U.S.) ‘alcoholic drink’, knuckle sandwich ‘a punch in
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 77

the mouth’, lead balloon ‘a failure’, liquorice-stick (Jazz) ‘a clarinet’,

loony bin ( loony ‘a lunatic’) ‘a mental hospital’, marble
orchard/town (N. Amer.) ‘a cemetery’, meat-hook ‘an arm or hand’,
meat-house ( obs. meat ‘a prostitute’) ‘a brothel’, meat-market ‘a
meeting-place popular among prostitutes or people in search of casual
sexual partners’, mitt camp (U.S.) ( mitt ‘a hand’) ‘a palmist’s or
fortune-teller’s booth, tent, etc.’, monkey parade (dated) ‘an
evening promenade of young people’, mousetrap ‘inferior or
unpalatable cheese’, neck-oil ‘an alcoholic drink, esp. beer’, nose
candy (N. Amer.) ‘a drug that is inhaled through the nose; spec.
cocaine’, notch house ( coarse notch ‘the female genitals’) ‘a
brothel’, oil can (Military) ‘a German trench mortar shell of the
First World War’, parlour-house (U.S.) ‘an expensive type of
brothel’, pie-card (U.S., dated) ‘a meal ticket’, pigboat (N. Amer.,
Navy) ‘a submarine’, pigeon-drop (orig. U.S., Criminals’) ‘a
confidence trick’, pineapple ‘a bomb’, pine drape (U.S.) ‘a coffin’,
prat leather (U.S., Criminals’) ( prat ‘a hip-pocket’) ‘a wallet or
purse kept in the hip pocket’, puppy-hole (Eton College) ( puppy
‘pupil’) ‘a pupil-room’, rat house (Austral. and N.Z.) ‘a mental
hospital’, slaughter-house ‘a shop where goods are bought from
small makers at very low prices’, whore-shop ‘a brothel’, wish book
(N. Amer.) ‘a mail-order catalogue’.
This latter type with a plural second member is found in family
jewels (orig. U.S.) ‘the male genitals’, horse feathers (U.S.)
‘nonsense, rubbish, balderdash’, office hours (U.S., Military) ‘a
disciplinary session’, road apples (U.S.) ‘horse droppings’, and
snake eyes (U.S.) ‘tapioca’.
This type may also be used attributively, as in rat-bag (orig.
Austral. and N.Z.) ‘a stupid or eccentric person’ (also ‘stupid’) and
screwball (chiefly U.S.) ‘an eccentric; a madman’ (also ‘eccentric,
mad’).
Some of the above opaque compounds have a figurative origin,
and therefore meaning can be retrieved through metaphorical
reading (cakehole ‘the mouth’), euphemism (joy-house ‘a brothel’,
marble town ‘a cemetery’, pine drape ‘a coffin’), synecdoche (prat
leather ‘a wallet’), etc. The compound peg-house, originally
endocentric and used to mean ‘a public house, a tavern’, is now used
figuratively for ‘a brothel or meeting place for male homosexuals’.
78 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

3.2.1.1.2. Adjective-noun compounds represent another widespread

pattern in slang. Many metonymic compounds fall into this group.
Examples are pointy-head (orig. U.S., derog.) ‘a stupid person’,
shrewd-head (Austral. and N.Z.) ‘a cunning person’, sore-head
(chiefly N. Amer.) ‘a discontented, dissatisfied person’, squarehead
‘an honest person’; big mouth (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ‘a very
talkative or boastful person’, fat-mouth (U.S.) ‘one who talks
extravagantly’, smart mouth (U.S.) ‘one who is good at repartee’;
red-neck (U.S.) ‘a reactionary’, roughneck (orig. U.S.) ‘a person of
rough habits or quarrelsome disposition’; roundeye ‘a European’
(cf. slant-eye orig. U.S. ‘a slant-eyed person, esp. an Asian’); lame-
brain ( lame ‘naïve, socially inept’) ‘a dull-witted or stupid
person’; paleface (orig. N. Amer., Black E., chiefly derog.) ‘a white
person’; pink toe (U.S., Black E.) ‘a white woman, or a light-
skinned black woman’; red legs (U.S., Military) ‘an artilleryman’;
yellow belly (orig. U.S.) ( colloq. yellow ‘cowardly’) ‘a coward’.
In greenback the second element refers to the back of an animal
(i.e. ‘a frog’, see § 3.2.1.4), whereas in bad-mouth, glad eye and
glad hand the body part respectively refers to a type of ‘talk’,
‘look’, and ‘handshake’.
A small subgroup of metonymic compounds denotes the person
through his/her clothing: e.g., droopy drawers ‘an untidy, sloppy, or
depressing woman’, fancy pants ‘a dandy; a snob’, old boot ‘a
woman; a wife’, red-cap (Brit., Military) ‘a military policeman’,
red-hat (Military) ‘a staff officer’, slyboots (mainly jocular) ‘a sly,
cunning, or crafty person’.
People are also denoted through non-transparent exocentric
compounds whose second member is difficult to assign to the
semantic head: e.g., main squeeze (N. Amer.) ‘an important person;
a sweetheart’, oddball (orig. U.S.) ‘an eccentric or odd person’, old
bean/fruit ‘a familiar form of address’, old ship ‘a jocular address to
a sailor’, old sweat ‘an experienced soldier or military pilot’, pink
button (Stock Market) ‘a jobber’s clerk’, Roman Candle ‘a Roman
Catholic’, second banana (orig. U.S., Theatre) ‘a supporting
comedian’ (cf. top banana ‘the leading comic in a burlesque
entertainment’), small potatoes (orig. U.S.) ‘a person or thing
considered unimportant or worthless’, sweetie-pie (orig. U.S.) ‘a
lovable person; also as a term of endearment’.
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 79

The following are non-transparent exocentric compounds with a

non-human semantic head: cold turkey (orig. N. Amer.) ‘a method
of treating drug addicts by sudden and complete withdrawal of the
drug’, dead soldier (U.S.) ‘an empty bottle’, good oil (Austral.)
‘reliable information’, greasy spoon (orig. U.S.) ‘a cheap and
inferior eating-house’, greenhouse (Aeronautics) ‘the glass cockpit
covering over observation and similar planes’, happy dust
‘cocaine’, hard cheese (Brit.) ‘bad luck’, hard tail (U.S.) ‘a mule’,
heavy sugar (U.S.) ‘big money’, hot rod (orig. U.S.) ‘a motor
vehicle specially modified to give high power and speed’, hot-shot
(U.S.) ‘injection of a drug that is of higher potency than the addict
is accustomed to’, idiot box ‘a television set’, idiot stick (U.S.) ‘a
shovel’, inside job ‘a crime committed in a house, etc., by a resident
or servant in the building’, inside stand ‘the placing of a gang
member incognito as one of the staff of a place to be robbed’, Irish
confetti ‘stones used as weapons’, lazy dog (U.S., Military) ‘a type
of fragmentation bomb’, left field ‘a position away from the centre
of activity’, lunatic soup (Austral. and N.Z.) ‘alcoholic drink’,
merry hell ‘a disturbance; severe pain’, physical torture (humorous)
‘physical training’, private business (Eton College) ‘extra tuition’,
red ink (chiefly U.S.) ‘cheap red wine’, Redland ‘the Soviet Union’,
red lead (Naval) ‘tomato ketchup; tinned tomatoes’, short time ‘a
brief sojourn in a hotel for sexual purposes’, Spanish tummy ‘a
stomach upset of a type freq. experienced by visitors to Spain’,
tinned dog (Austral.) ‘canned meat’.
Endocentric compounds are far less frequent. Examples include
animate and inanimate terms. Compounds denoting animate beings
are main guy (U.S.) ‘a man of authority or importance’, main man
(U.S.) ‘a favourite male friend’, old lady (U.S., chiefly Prison) ‘a
passive partner in a homosexual relationship’ (cf. colloq. ‘a
person’s mother; a man’s wife’), pretty-boy ‘an effeminate man, a
male homosexual’, wise guy (orig. U.S.) ‘a know-all’. Compounds
denoting inanimate things are hot chair, liquid lunch (often jocular)
‘a midday meal at which drink rather than food is consumed’, mad
money ‘money for use in an emergency’, wooden cross (Military) ‘a
wooden cross on a serviceman’s grave’.
80 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

3.2.1.1.3. The type verb + noun generally refers to a person (agent)

performing the action denoted by the verb, as in jitterbug (orig.
U.S.) denoting ‘a bug ‘a person obsessed by an idea’ who jitters
‘acts in a nervous way’’ and plug-ugly (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ‘an
ugly ‘ugly person’ who plugs ‘strikes’’.
Within this pattern, the noun may represent an object (patient),
as in sawbones ‘surgeon’ and slaphead (orig. and chiefly Brit.,
humorous or deprec.) ‘a bald or shaven head’.
3.2.1.1.4. The type adverb + noun is found in the endocentric
compound outside man (U.S.) ‘a person involved in robbery’, and
in the exocentric, but metaphoric, compound outside job ‘a crime
committed by a person not connected with the building in which it
took place’ (see efficiency in § 2.3.2).
3.2.1.1.5. The first member is a numeral in four-eyes ‘a person who
habitually wears spectacles’ and nineteenth hole (humorous, orig.
U.S.) ‘the bar room in a golf clubhouse, as reached at the end of a
standard round of eighteen holes’. It is a preposition in undercover
‘an undercover agent’.
3.2.1.1.6. There are other possible base combinations, which
however represent marginal cases. For instance, compounds with a
nominal/verbal base followed by a verb (look-see ‘a survey; a tour
of inspection’), by an adverb (speak-easy ‘an illicit liquor shop’,
star-back ‘an expensive, reserved seat at a circus’), by a preposition
(beer-off ‘an off-licence’, beer-up ‘a drinking-bout or -party’,
booze-up ‘a drinking-bout’, going-over ‘a beating; a thrashing’, leg-
over ‘sexual intercourse’), or by a numeral (as in Military slang
Section Eight). An adjective followed by an adverb is found in low-
down ‘the fundamental facts on (about) a person, situation, etc.’.
Some rare cases of composition have a grammatical word (gen.
a pronoun) as their first base (e.g. her indoors ‘one’s wife or
girlfriend’, I AM ‘a self-important person’, she-male ‘a passive
male homosexual or transvestite’), or they may combine a word
with an interjection, as in shoo-fly (U.S.) ‘a policeman, usu. in plain
clothes’ and Hooray Henry ‘a type of loud, rich, rather ineffectual
young society man’, which has a proper name as its second member.
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 81

3.2.1.2. Compound adjectives

Adjectives are quite frequent among slang compounds. Most of
them are deverbal – that is, they are obtained via participial
adjectives (God-damn-ed, mind-blow-ing) or phrasal verbs (bomb-
ed out) – or denominal, as in mob-hand-ed, mutton-head-ed, moon-
ey(e)-ed, etc. In my description, however, the type moon-eyed will
be dealt with under suffixation (§ 3.2.3.5), since *eyed does not
exist as an autonomous word. On the other hand, the types bombed
out and mind-blowing belong here, because the elements bombed
and blowing are freestanding participial adjectives and may
therefore act as independent, though complex, constituents (see
Crocco Galèas 2003).4
3.2.1.2.1. The most common type of slang compound adjectives is
the pattern obtained from phrasal verbs. The first base therefore
occurs in its inflected form (as a past participle) and the second one
is a preposition. The preposition is out in bombed out ‘drunk; under
the influence of drugs’, gross-out ‘shocking, disgusting’, skinned
out ‘having no money left, broke’, strung out (orig. and chiefly
U.S.) ‘addicted to drugs’.
The preposition up is extensively used, as in hopped-up (U.S.)
‘under the influence of a narcotic drug’, hung up ‘confused’, lit up
( v light up) ‘drunk or under the influence of a drug’, pissed up
(chiefly Brit.) ‘drunk, intoxicated’, pooned up (Austral.) ‘dressed
up, esp. showily or flashily’, sexed-up ‘sexually aroused’, washed
up (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ‘defeated, exhausted’. It is also present
in stove-up (N. Amer.) ‘run-down, exhausted’, irregularly obtained
from the verb stave (‘break up (a cask) into staves’), and in geed-up
‘drugged’, which has a nominal first base (gee ‘opium or a similar
drug’) acting as a verb.

4 Crocco Galèas (2003: 32-33) distinguishes the type blue-eyed from the compounds
which have a past or present participle as their second member (e.g. easy-going). The
author claims that the former is a derivational compound adjective “which firstly
undergoes a rule of compounding and secondly a rule of derivation” (blue-eye + -ed),
whereas the latter is “the result of a derivational rule (going) followed by a
compositional rule” (easy + going). Cf. Conti’s (2007) analysis of “double-base -ed
derivatives”.
82 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Less common prepositions are off (as in pissed off orig. U.S.
‘angry, irritated’) and on (as in switched-on ‘aware of all that is
considered fashionable and up-to-date’).
3.2.1.2.2. The type with a participial adjective as its second base is
not as profuse as the previous one. Examples with a past participle
are gobsmacked or gob-struck (Brit.) ( gob ‘the mouth’)
‘flabbergasted; speechless’, blasphemous God-damned ‘accursed,
damnable’, and coarse shit-scared ‘extremely frightened’; whereas
mind-blowing ‘consciousness-altering (esp. as a result of drug use)’
shows a present participle. The interpretation is, in both subgroups,
metaphorical: e.g., mind-blowing alludes to the fact that drugs
‘blow one’s mind’.
3.2.1.2.3. In the type God-awful ‘terrible; extremely awful’, the
second base is an adjective and the first one (a noun) often intensifies
or characterizes it. Other compounds belonging to this pattern are
shit-hot (coarse) ‘unpleasantly enthusiastic, very skilful’, slug-nutty
(U.S.) ‘punch-drunk’, and stir-crazy (chiefly U.S., Criminals’) (
stir ‘a prison’) ‘mentally deranged (as if) from long imprisonment’.
The compound stone-broke ‘ruined’, with a participial as its second
base, has inspired the coining of comparable adjectives (e.g. stone
crazy, drunk, mad, etc.) (cf. St. E. stone-dead). This type with a verb
in the non-head position is found in slap-happy ‘punch-drunk; dizzy
(with happiness)’.
3.2.1.2.4. When the first base is an adjective, the second one may
be either an adjective or a participial. The former is found in
squeaky clean ‘above criticism, beyond reproach’, and the latter in
half-cut (also obs. half shaved), half-shot (orig. U.S.) ‘half-drunk’,
and stony-broke ‘ruined’ (cf. stone-broke above).
3.2.1.2.5. The attributive type adjective + noun is clearly exophoric
(metaphoric), as the following examples seem to confirm: half-pie
(N.Z.) ‘halfway towards, imperfect’, punk-ass (U.S.) ‘of a person:
worthless, good-for-nothing’, red-eye (U.S.) ‘used attrib. to designate
an aeroplane flight on which the traveller is unable to get adequate
sleep’, sad-ass (N. Amer.) ‘poor, contemptible’, smart-arse/-ass (also
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 83

wise-ass) ‘ostentatiously or smugly clever’, split-arse/-ass (Forces’)

‘classy, showy’, white-shoe (chiefly U.S.) ‘effeminate, immature’.
3.2.1.2.6. A few unusual patterns combine a base with a particle, that
is to say a preposition (in pod ‘pregnant’, all-in ‘exhausted’) or an
adverb (spark out ‘forgotten; (completely) unconscious’), or two
adverbs (as in far-out orig. U.S. ‘excellent, splendid’, way-in
‘conventional; sophisticated’, way-out ‘far removed from reality or
from convention’).
3.2.1.3. Compound verbs
Slang compound verbs are mostly obtained by conversion, as in (v)
eyeball  (n) eye-ball and (v) bad-mouth  (n) bad mouth (see §
3.2.1.3.4). These are considered “verbal pseudo-compounds” by
Marchand (1969: 101) and are classified together with verbal
compounds obtained by back-formation. Other types are relatively
marginal in slang.
3.2.1.3.1. A possible combination within slang compound verbs is
verb + noun. Although the first base is a verb, they generally thwart
a literal reading, and are therefore exocentric: e.g., kick ass (orig.
and chiefly U.S.) ‘act roughly or aggressively’, raise Cain ‘create
trouble or confusion’, spit blood ‘of a spy: fear exposure’, spit chips
(Austral.) ‘feel extreme thirst’. A partial exception is talk turkey
(orig. N. Amer.) ‘speak frankly and without reserve’, which is
endocentric, but not fully-compositional (see § 3.1.1).
3.2.1.3.2. The opposite direction (noun + verb) yields more
frequently endocentric compounds, as donkey-lick (Austral.) ( v
lick ‘beat, thrash’) ‘defeat easily’, pig-jump (chiefly Austral. and
N.Z.) ‘of a horse: jump from all four legs without bringing them
together, esp. in an attempt to unseat the rider’, and skin-pop (orig.
U.S.) ( v pop) ‘inject a drug subcutaneously’.
3.2.1.3.3. A verb is followed by a numeral in hang five, ten, etc.
(Surfing) ‘allow the specified number of toes to project over the
nose of the surfboard, usu. to gain speed’, or by a grammatical
word, as in make it ‘achieve sexual intercourse (with)’, mix it
‘quarrel, fight’, snuff it ‘die’, stop one (Austral.) ‘take a drink’,
84 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

strong it (Brit.) ‘behave excessively, exaggerate’. A rare possibility

combines a numeral with a noun, as in two-time (orig. U.S.) ‘be
unfaithful to (a spouse or lover)’.
3.2.1.3.4. As anticipated, many (pseudo) compound verbs are
converted from nouns (see also § 3.2.6.1.1). They follow either the
pattern with two noun constituents or the pattern with an adjective
plus a noun. The first subgroup is illustrated by eyeball (U.S.) ‘look
or stare at’, pratfall ‘fall on to the buttocks’, sandbag
‘underperform in a race or competition in order to gain an
advantage’, showboat (U.S.) ‘perform or behave ostentatiously;
show off’, tear-arse/-ass ‘drive recklessly’.
The second subgroup is exemplified by bad-mouth (orig. U.S.)
‘abuse (someone) verbally; criticize’, dead-head (chiefly U.S.)
‘drive an empty train, truck, taxi, etc.’, highball (U.S.) ‘go or drive
at high speed’, hot-stuff (Army) ( hot stuff ‘stolen goods’)
‘scrounge, steal’, hot-wire (N. Amer.) ‘by-pass the ignition system
of a motor vehicle’. Peculiarly, sweetmouth (chiefly U.S., Black E.)
‘flatter’ has no corresponding nominal compound.
3.2.1.4. Non-prototypical slang compounds
The variety of potential members of slang compounds confronts us
with the problem of non-prototypical compounds. We distinguish
various types of such compounds in slang, which depart from the
universal preferences established within NM (see Dressler et al.
1987, Dressler 2005):
 Exocentric compounds, which have their head outside the
compound, as in greenback ‘a frog’, and lame-brain ‘a
stupid person’;
 Synthetic compounds, in which the head is a deverbal
derivative, as in block-busting and egg-beater ‘a helicopter’;
 Three-member compounds, in which one of the compound
members (generally the non-head) is itself a compound, as in
four-letter man and one-arm joint;
 Coordinate compounds, in which the first member does not
modify the first one, as in lover man;
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 85

 Combinations of two or more elements which may resemble

compounds, but are not: e.g., bunch of fives, mother’s ruin,
tired and emotional, to kick the bucket, and phrasal verbs,
such as knock in, off, etc.
3.2.1.4.1. In standard English, exocentric compounds were originally
identified by Jespersen (1942: 142), who drew attention to bahuvrihi-
compounds such as red-coat, which is not ‘a kind of coat’ but ‘a
person wearing a red coat’. Similarly, Marchand (1969) notices that
the formula AB = B, though valid for endocentric compounds, does
not apply to other types of combinations, viz. pseudo-, bahuvrihi or
exocentric compounds (e.g. birdbrain, blackout, pickpocket and
showoff).
After such pioneering studies, many scholars have highlighted
the difference between endo- and exo-centric compounds: in
chronological order, Downing (1977), Warren (1978), Bauer (1983),
while Williams (1981: 250) suggests that exocentric compounds are
not only evident exceptions to his Righthand Head Rule, but they
are even derived by headless rules. Lieber (1992: 82) likewise
distinguishes between endocentric compounds (i.e. “those in which
both the semantic and syntactic category of the compound
corresponds to that of the head”) and exocentric compounds (i.e.
“those in which either semantically or syntactically (or both), the
compound as a whole does not bear the characteristics of its head”).
In terms of naturalness/markedness (cf. Dressler et al. 1987),
exocentric compounds are less natural/more marked than
endocentric compounds, based on the parameters of indexicality
and morphosemantic transparency: first, they do not allow
straightforward access to the compound head, which is outside the
compound or has to be inferred, and, second, they are non-
compositional and opaque, i.e. their meaning is not motivated by
the compound members.
In slang there are many exceptions to endocentric compounds.
One such exception is illustrated by the extremely large group of
metonymic nominal compounds (see §§ 3.2.1.1.1-2, also Mattiello
2003; cf. Warren’s 1978: 27 “pars-pro-toto compounds”, Plag’s
2003: 146 “possessive compounds”), which have a body part as the
second member, but refer to the whole person: e.g., big mouth,
86 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

four-eyes, lame-brain, paleface, pink toe, pointy-head, red legs, red

neck, roundeye, yellow belly, etc. These compounds imply a
metonymic relationship between the expressed member (the body
part) and the unexpressed one (the person), which is the actual
semantic head of the compound. Hence, big mouth alludes to ‘a
very talkative person’, four-eyes refers to ‘a person wearing
glasses’, lame-brain to ‘a person having a lame brain’, etc.
Another exception is illustrated by metaphoric slang compounds
(snow-bird, post office, half-cut), in which the head has to be
inferred. Thus, a snow-bird is ‘a person who uses snow, i.e.
cocaine’, a post office is ‘a person who receives information’, and
half-cut refers to someone who is partially affected by the bad
effects of alcohol, that is ‘half-drunk’.
Other exceptions to fully compositional (transparent) compounds
certainly exist (e.g. nominal beer-off, her indoors, adjectival all-in,
far-out, or verbal strong it, two-time, etc.), but, as seen, they represent
marginal and sometimes the only cases within the vast amount of
slang compounds.
3.2.1.4.2. Synthetic compounds (also called verbal, deverbal, or
verbal nexus compounds) are those in which the second member is
derived from a verb. In standard English, the most productive are
the types watchmaker and housekeeping, whereas cost containment,
food spoilage, load tolerance, power failure, tax-evasion and waste
disposal represent less productive types (see Marchand 1969, Allen
1980; cf. Roeper & Siegel 1978, Lieber 1983, 1992).
Within NM, synthetic compounds are universally less preferred
on the basis of the parameter of morphotactic transparency, because
one of the members is not a base word, but rather a derivative
(high-land-er, dish-wash-ing).
In slang, we find examples of the most frequent types, as in mitt-
reader (U.S.) ‘a palmist, a fortune-teller’ and skin-popping ‘the act
of injecting a drug subcutaneously’. However, the -er type is far
more productive than the -ing type: e.g., it is found in dog-robber ‘a
navy or army officer’s orderly’, easy rider (U.S.) ‘a sexually
satisfying lover’, ‘a guitar’, egg-beater (U.S.), gay deceivers ‘a
padded brassière’, gob-stopper ‘a large, hard, freq. spherical sweet
for sucking’, gold-digger (orig. U.S.) ‘a girl or woman who attaches
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 87

herself to a man merely for gain’, head-banger ‘a young person

shaking violently to the rhythm of pop music’, head-shrinker (orig.
U.S.) ‘a psychiatrist’, herring choker (U.S.) ‘a Scandinavian’, high-
binder ‘a swindler, esp. a fraudulent politician’, high-roller (U.S.)
‘one who spends extravagantly or gambles for high stakes’, knee-
trembler ‘an act of sexual intercourse between persons in a standing
position’, man-eater ‘a sexually voracious woman’, monkey-
hurdler (U.S.) ‘an organist’, oil-burner ‘a vehicle which uses an
excessive amount of lubricating oil’, pork-chopper (U.S.) ‘a full-
time union official’, sin-shifter ‘a clergyman’, skirt-chaser ‘one
who pursues women with amorous attentions’, etc. This type is also
in compounds which are not deverbal but denominal, as in left-
footer ‘a Roman Catholic’ and short-timer (U.S., Military) ‘one
nearing the end of his period of military service’.
From the morphosemantic point of view, most such compounds
are non-compositional and require a figurative interpretation: for
instance, if gob-stopper is a sweet which ‘stops one’s gob ‘mouth’,
impeding talking’, an egg-beater does not ‘beat eggs’, but alludes
to the helicopter rotor-blades, which resemble the appliance used
for beating eggs, and a skirt-chaser does not ‘chase skirts’, but, by
metonymic extension, he rather chases women.
From the morphotactic point of view, synthetic compounds such
as gob-stopper are analysable as a complex head that forms a
compound together with a non-head. Therefore, [gob [stop-p-er]] is
a better analysis than [[gob stop] -er] (see Oshita 1994: 201 and
Plag 2003: 149 for equivalent opinions). On the other hand, the -ing
type (as in block-busting) is better analysable as a derivative
compound, i.e. [[block bust] -ing].
Some -ing combinations contain the verbal element in the
modifier non-head position. The slang compounds creeping Jesus
‘an abject or servile person’, flaming onions (Services’) ‘an anti-
aircraft projectile’, and knocking-shop ‘a brothel’ belong to this
morphological type. However, since their head (i.e. most salient)
element is not a derivative, they cannot be compared to the types
illustrated earlier (see Marchand 1969: 19), though they are likewise
morphotactically opaque.
88 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

3.2.1.4.3. Three-member compounds are combinations whose

constituents include a compound, thus called “compound-within-
compounds” by Warren (1978: 10). Potentially, the modifier, the
head or both may occur as compounds. Actually, results from
studies on three-member compounds show that, across the various
languages (esp. English and German), there is an evident preference
for left-branching over right-branching compounds. Hence, the most
common type is that of the modifier being a compound, as in St. E.
three-star general, which is morphotactically less natural than star
general, with a word as the first member (see Dressler 2005).
The following are slang three-member compounds with a
compound in the non-head position: backroom boy ‘a person
engaged in (secret) research’, catbird seat (U.S.) ‘a superior or
advantageous position’, five-finger discount (U.S.) ‘the activity or
proceeds of stealing’, forty-rod whisky (U.S.) ‘cheap, fiery whisky’,
four-letter man (Brit.) ‘an obnoxious person’, necktie party (U.S.)
‘a lynching or hanging’, ninety-day wonder (U.S., Services’,
humorous) ‘a graduate of a ninety-day officers’ training course’,
one-arm bandit (orig. U.S.) ‘a slot machine’, one-arm joint (U.S.)
‘a cheap restaurant where the seats have one arm wide enough to
hold a plate of food’, one-night stand ‘a casual sexual liaison’,
peanut gallery ‘the top gallery in a theatre or cinema’, underground
mutton (Austral.) ‘a rabbit; rabbit meat’.
An example of a three-member compound with a composite
member in the head position is Mexican overdrive ‘the putting of
the gears of a vehicle into neutral while coasting downhill’, whereas
drug-store cowboy (U.S.) ‘a braggart, good-for-nothing’ is rather a
four-member compound, with a compound in both the head and the
non-head positions.
The non-head position is covered by a phrase in butter-and-egg
man (U.S.) ‘a wealthy, unsophisticated man who spends money
freely’ and wood-and-water joey (Austral.) ‘an odd job man’ (cf.
“phrasal compounds” in Lieber 1992: 92).
However, since grammatical relations are, like semiotic ones
(Peirce 1965), preferentially binary, three- and four-member
compounds can be grouped into two binary relations, i.e. [[catbird]
[seat]], [[Mexican] [overdrive]], and [[drug-store] [cowboy]], where
catbird, overdrive, drug-store and cowboy form intermediate units.
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 89

The case of butter-and-egg man, on the other hand, is analysable as

[[butter-and-egg] [man]], comparable to St. E. [[do-it-yourself]
[movement]] (vs. eye movement) (Dressler 1999: 138, 2005: 276,
also Plag 2003: 133).
3.2.1.4.4. Coordinate (coordinative, copulative, additive or dvandva)
compounds are (esp. noun-noun) combinations whose first element
does not modify or characterize the second one. To describe them,
Jespersen (1942: 142) uses the formula ‘AB means A plus B’, as in
Schleswig-Holstein, which consists of two districts (Schleswig and
Holstein), while Marchand (1969: 41) prefers ‘B which is also A’
(e.g. Austria-Hungary meaning ‘Austria is also Hungary’).
In NM, coordinate compounds are less natural/more marked
than subordinate ones because they appear to have two (or more)
morphosemantic heads with no clear figure-ground distinction. For
instance, in speaker-hearer both members are of equal status, even
if (pragmatically) the more important member, speaker, comes first.
Slang coordinate compounds similarly display members of equal
status. Examples are nouns (e.g. witch-doctor ‘a psychiatrist’) and
adjectives (e.g. red-hot ‘uninhibited, sexy, passionate’). Such
compounds, however, are morphosemantically opaque. That is, a
witch-doctor refers to ‘a type of doctor’, who is not ‘a witch’, but is
metaphorically comparable to him for practices, skills, etc., and,
similarly, red-hot only figuratively indicates something ‘red’ and
‘hot’ at the same time.
Coordinate compounds are therefore different from pleonastic
compounds (called “subsumptive” by Marchand 1969: 40), whose
second element is a logical subclass of the first element (e.g. oak-
tree). Indeed, in pleonastic compounds (e.g. lover boy, lover man ‘a
lover, a woman-chaser’, nancy boy ‘an effeminate man or boy’)
semantic headedness is more evident, since the head is a hypernym
of the non-head. Thus, a lover boy is ‘a boy’ and more specifically
‘a lover’, and a nancy boy is ‘a boy’ and more specifically ‘a nancy’
(i.e. a homosexual), representing a subgroup of the general category
‘boys’.
3.2.1.4.5. Lastly, compounds have to be distinguished from lexical
phrases, which are not compounds for two reasons. First, unlike
90 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

compounds, lexical phrases exhibit syntactic markers, as in bread

and butter, man in the street, mother of pearl (labelled “phrases” by
Marchand 1969: 122-123).5 Second, whereas compounds, at least
fully compositional ones, are motivated by their members, phrases
are lexicalized, and therefore more opaque.
Lexical phrases are frequent in slang, especially as nouns.
Examples include phrases marked by prepositions (e.g. bunch of
fives ‘the fist, the hand’, fly-by-night ‘one who defrauds his
creditors by decamping in the night’, hill of beans ‘a thing of little
value’, House of Lords ‘a lavatory’, six by six ‘six wheel truck with
six-wheel drive’), conjunctions (e.g. slap and tickle ‘light amorous
play’, soup-and-fish ‘men’s evening dress’), or articles (e.g. Jack-
the-Lad ‘(a nickname for) a troublemaker or rogue’, from Jack
Sheppard, a celebrated thief).
The most frequent type is marked by the possessive case, as in
cat’s pyjamas/whiskers (orig. U.S.) ‘the acme of excellence’, dog’s
age (orig. U.S.) ‘a long time’, dog’s body ‘a junior person’, dog’s
breakfast/dinner ‘a mess’, donkey’s breakfast ‘a straw mattress or
hat’, duck’s/ducks’ disease ‘a facetious expression for shortness of
leg’, Irishman’s hurricane (Nautical) ‘a dead calm’, Irishman’s rise
‘reduced wages’, Kelly’s eye ‘(in the game of bingo) the number
one’, magsman (orig. Brit.) ( mag ‘chatter, talk’) ‘a street
swindler’, Montezuma’s revenge (jocular) ‘diarrhoea suffered by
travellers, esp. in Mexico’, mother’s ruin ‘gin’, sailor’s blessing
(Nautical) ‘a curse’, sailor’s farewell (Nautical) ‘a parting curse’.
Slang lexical or idiomatic phrases may also be adjectives (full as
a goog, out-of-sight ‘extremely well’, tired and emotional, under
the table ‘drunk’, what-the-hell ‘casual, careless, devil-may-care’),
or verbs (to be with it ‘be fashionable, up-to-date’, to kick one’s
heels ‘stand waiting idly or impatiently’, to kick the bucket ‘die’).
With slang phrasal verbs we observe the same state of affairs as
with other lexical phrases. That is, they cannot be considered actual
compounds because, rather than being motivated by their members,
they are lexicalized as frozen phrases, and stored as such in the
mental lexicon. What follows is a partial exemplification.

5 Accordingly, F. chemin de fer is a lexicalized phrase, whereas G. Eisen-bahn, It.

ferro-via and Sp. ferro-carril are compounds.
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 91

As in standard English, many of them have the same verbal base

combining with different prepositions. Examples are buzz in ‘come
in (quickly)’, buzz off ‘go off or away quickly’; kick in (U.S.) ‘break
into (a building)’, ‘contribute (money, etc.)’, kick off (orig. U.S.)
‘die’; knock down (Austral. and N.Z.) ‘spend in drink or riot’, knock
in (University) ‘knock so as to gain admission to college after the
gate is closed’, knock off ‘die’, ‘steal, rob’, (orig. U.S.) ‘kill;
murder’, ‘seduce (a woman)’, knock out (Austral., N.Z. and U.S.)
‘earn’, knock over (Underworld) ‘rob (a person), burgle (a
building); steal (from)’, knock up (orig. U.S.) ‘make (a woman)
pregnant’; make out ‘succeed in seducing’, make with ‘bring into
operation; use’; set over (U.S., Criminals’) ‘kill or murder’, set up
‘lead on in order to fool, cheat, or incriminate (a person)’.
Other bases occur with only one preposition. Instances include
dry out ‘of a drug addict or alcoholic: undergo treatment to cure
addiction’, gussy up ‘smarten up, esp. dress smartly’, hang out (in
early use chiefly U.S.) ‘spend or pass time’, ‘reside, live’, kiss off
‘dismiss, get rid of, kill’, ‘go away, die’, lay for (orig. U.S.) ‘(of a
woman) be willing to have (extramarital) sexual intercourse’, mix in
‘start or join in a fight’, pig out (orig. N. Amer.) ‘over-indulge esp.
by overeating’, pop off ‘die’, race off (Austral.) ‘seduce (a
woman)’, row in ‘conspire’, salt away ‘put by, store away (money,
stock)’, scope out (U.S.) ‘investigate or assess (a person or a state
of affairs)’, send down (orig. U.S.) ‘dispatch or commit to prison by
sentence’, shell out ‘pay up, hand over’, snuff out ‘kill, murder’,
string out (U.S.) ‘be under the influence of a drug’, wind up
(Racing) ‘put (a race-horse) into fit condition for running’, wipe out
(orig. U.S.) ‘of drink: render intoxicated or senseless’.

3.2.2. Prefixation
Among slang affixes, prefixes play a marginal role. Their number is
indeed small, especially if compared with that of slang suffixes. The
only prefix which deserves attention is schm-/shm- (as in child
schmild), since its origin is in colloquial rather than standard
language. The other prefixes (de-, re-, super-, un- and under-), which
are attested in standard English, offer no case study of slang extra-
grammaticality.
92 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

3.2.2.1. The prefix de-

In standard English de- is prefixed to simple verbs to form complex
verbs having the sense of ‘undoing the action of – ’, or of ‘depriving
(anything) of the thing or character therein expressed’ (e.g. de-acidify
‘undo or reverse the acidifying process’). Less frequently, verbs (and
their derivatives) are formed by prefixing de- to a noun with the
meaning ‘deprive, divest, free from, or rid of the thing in question’
(e.g. debowel ‘take the bowels out of, eviscerate’). This latter pattern
is found in the slang verbs debag ‘remove the trousers from (a
person) as a punishment or for a joke’, from colloquial bag(s)
‘trousers’, and delouse ‘free from something unpleasant’, figuratively
from St. E. ‘clear of lice’.
3.2.2.2. The prefix re-
In English formations, whether on native or Latin bases (or French
in line with Marchand 1969: 188), re- is almost exclusively
employed in the sense of ‘again’, and only occasionally of ‘back’. It
may be prefixed to ordinary verbs of action, chiefly transitive (as in
rearrange) and to derivatives from these (rearrangement). In slang,
it is prefixed to the verb up ‘increase or raise’ to obtain re-up (U.S.
Services’) ‘re-enlist’ (also ‘one who re-enlists’), and its derivative
re-upping.
3.2.2.3. The prefix schm-, shm-
Schm- (or shm-) is a colloquial – chiefly American – element,
derived from the numerous Yiddish words that begin with this
sequence of sounds. It is fused with or replaces the initial letter(s)
of a word, so as to form a nonsense-word which is added to the
original word in order to convey disparagement, dismissal, or
derision. The result is a reduplicative formation of the type of slang
child schmild, moon-schmoon, Oedipus Schmoedipus, Trotsky-
Shmotsky, etc.
3.2.2.4. The prefix super-
Prefixed in an adverbial relationship to adjectives, in English super-
has the sense of ‘exceedingly, very highly, extremely, supremely,
extraordinarily; over-’ (e.g. superactive ‘highly active’). This sense
is likewise conveyed by the slang adjectives super-cool (orig. and
chiefly U.S.) ‘very cool, relaxed, fine’, cool being itself a slang
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 93

adjective with the meaning ‘restrained or relaxed in style (applied

to jazz music)’, and superfly (U.S.) ‘very good, excellent, the best
(esp. in the context of drugs)’ (cf. slang adj fly chiefly Black E.
‘attractive; hence, excellent’). The adjective superfly is also used in
the sense of ‘typical of the film character Super Fly’ (from the film
of the same name), with a related noun meaning ‘one who sells
illegal drugs’.
3.2.2.5. The prefix un-
In the standard language, un- is freely prefixed to adjectives of all
kinds to convey the basic meaning ‘not’ (e.g. unclear ‘not clear’,
unfair ‘not fair’). In slang it is regularly applied to obtain the
negative adjectives uncool ‘unrelaxed; unpleasant’, unreal (chiefly
N. Amer. and Austral.) ‘so good or impressive as to seem incredible;
remarkable, amazing’, and untogether ‘poorly coordinated; not in full
control of one’s faculties’.
3.2.2.6. The prefix under-
In English the prefix under- is used with nouns in names of
garments worn under other articles of clothing (e.g. undershorts). In
Schoolboys’ slang it is in denominal underfug (Brit.) ‘an undervest;
also, underpants’, from colloquial fug ‘a thick, close atmosphere’.

3.2.3. Suffixation
Suffixation is a wider phenomenon than prefixation in English
slang. Yet the productivity of slang suffixes is constrained by their
ephemeral character, and it is difficult to predict possible words,
that is, their applicability in terms of base and suffix. It is perhaps
easier to talk in terms of token frequency rather than type
productivity. This is expectable, given the scarce compliance of
slang words with regular morphological mechanisms.
As anticipated in the distinction between grammatical and extra-
grammatical morphology, some slang suffixes behave regularly and
attach to standard bases to form new words, as in (v) chop
chop-p-
er, which entirely conforms to the universal patterns of the English
grammar system. Such suffixes, however, may also conform to the
regular mechanisms of morphological concatenation, but attach to
irregular bases, as in twocer, from the acronym twoc ( taking
94 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

without owner’s consent). Other suffixes are, instead, outside

grammar and do not obtain new words but connote existing ones,
adding nuances of jocularity, humour, playfulness, etc., as in
bedder ( bedroom) and preggers ( pregnant). The latter
formations, which are not governed by well-known rules of
grammatical morphology, deserve more attention and scrutiny than
the regular ones, since they throw light on the core suffixes of
slang.
3.2.3.1. The suffix -able
In standard English -able is a suffix forming denominal and deverbal
adjectives (measure
measurable, accept
acceptable), normally
with a passive sense. In slang, it is found in deverbal ropeable
(Austral. and N.Z.) ‘requiring to be roped; intractable’, from the verb
rope ‘tie, bind, or secure with a rope’, itself obtained from a noun. It
is also in colloquial noshable ‘suitable for noshing; tasty, delicious’,
again from a verb (nosh ‘eat, have a meal’).
3.2.3.2. The suffix -ation, -ion
In English -ion is a suffix forming nouns of action from verbs (e.g.
pollute
pollution). In slang, it is found in deverbal connection
(orig. U.S.) ‘a supplier of narcotics; the action of supplying
narcotics’, from connect ‘meet in order to obtain drugs (from)’.
The alternative and more frequent form -ation (as in St. E. damn

damnation) is in Black English trickeration (U.S.) ( trickery) ‘a
trick or stratagem’, and in the colloquial noun yuppification (orig.
U.S.), from the verb yuppify (see § 3.1.3, type g).
3.2.3.3. The suffix -dom
The abstract suffix of state -dom was originally attached to nouns and
adjectives to convey the sense of ‘condition, state, dignity’, as in
bishopdom (‘the dignity of a bishop’), freedom, wisdom (‘the
condition of being free, wise’), etc. It is now a living suffix, freely
employed to form derivatives and nonce-derivatives with the main
sense of ‘domain, realm’, as in kingdom, popedom, sheriffdom, etc.
In slang formations, this suffix expresses both senses in
hippiedom, queerdom and yuppiedom, which respectively refer to
‘the condition or the fact of being a hippie, queer ‘homosexual’,
yuppie’, or to ‘the domains of such people’.
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 95

3.2.3.4. The suffix -ed (deverbal type: cracked)

In English the suffix -ed primarily obtains participial adjectives
from verbs (e.g. annoy
annoyed, irritate
irritated). In English
slang, this pattern is found in cracked ‘unsound in mind, slightly
insane’, crooked (Austral. and N.Z.) ‘irritable, angry’, gutted
‘bitterly disappointed; devastated’, paralysed (chiefly U.S.)
‘intoxicated; incapacitated through drink’, plastered ‘very drunk’,
qualified ‘euphemistic substitute for bloody, damned, etc.’,
smashed (orig. U.S.) ‘drunk; under the influence of drugs’.
The same pattern from slang rather than standard verbs is in
banjaxed (Anglo-Irish) ( banjax ‘batter or destroy’) ‘ruined’,
blasted (chiefly U.S.) ( blast ‘smoke marijuana’) ‘under the
influence of drugs or alcohol’, bombed ( bomb Austral. ‘drug (a
racehorse)’; cf. St. E. ‘bombard’) ‘drunk; under the influence of
drugs’, gassed ( gas orig. U.S. ‘excite or thrill’) ‘drunk;
intoxicated’, knackered ‘exhausted’, oiled ( oil (up) N. Amer. and
Austral.) ‘(mildly) drunk’, pissed (orig. U.S.) ( piss (off)) ‘angry,
irritated’, plotzed (U.S.) ( plotz ‘burst, esp. fig. ‘explode’ with
frustration’) ‘intoxicated; drunk’, spliced ‘married’, stoned ‘drunk,
extremely intoxicated’, wiped (orig. U.S.) ( wipe (out) ‘kill (a
person)’) ‘exhausted, tired out’, ‘incapacitated by drugs or alcohol’,
etc.
3.2.3.5. The suffix -ed (denominal type: potted)
The suffix -ed is also productively added to standard nouns to form
adjectives with the sense of ‘possessing, provided with,
characterized by – ’, as in cultured, moneyed, toothed, etc., and in
parasynthetic derivatives (dark-eyed, lion-hearted, seven-hilled,
etc.). It is likewise added to slang nouns to form the respective
adjectives: e.g., loaded (U.S.) ( load ‘a dose of narcotics or a
large amount of alcohol’) ‘drugged or drunk’, pipped (now chiefly
Austral. and N.Z.) ( pip ‘a fit of disgust, annoyance’) ‘annoyed,
irritated’, plonked (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) ( plonk ‘cheap
wine’) ‘intoxicated, drunk’, potted (N. Amer.) ( pot ‘marijuana’)
‘under the influence of cannabis’, etc. On the other hand, the
adjective O.D.’d ‘having taken an overdose’ is from the initialism
O.D.
96 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

This suffix is also productive in the formation of slang

parasynthetic derivatives: e.g., mob-handed (Brit.) ( mob ‘a large
crowd’) ‘that forms a large body’, moon-eyed (orig. and chiefly
U.S.) ‘drunk’, mutton-headed (orig. U.S.) ‘stupid; foolish’, pie-
faced (orig. U.S., chiefly derog.) ‘having a round, flat face or a
blank expression; stupid’, poker-faced ‘having a solemn or
humourless expression’ (abbreviated as po-faced), snake-headed
(Austral. and N.Z.) ‘angry, irritable’, sticky-fingered ‘apt to steal,
light-fingered’, toffee-nosed ‘snobbish, supercilious’, and numerous
vulgar derivatives with a second constituent -arsed (Amer. -assed),
viz. half-arsed/-assed ‘ineffectual, inadequate’, hard-assed ‘tough,
uncompromising, resolute’, raggedy-assed (orig. Military) ‘new and
inexperienced’, rat-arsed ‘drunk’ (also ratted  as drunk as a rat),
stiff-arsed/-assed ‘reserved, supercilious’, tight-arsed/-assed ‘unable
to relax and enjoy oneself’, tin-arsed (Austral. and N.Z.) ( tin
‘money’) ‘very lucky’, white-arsed ‘contemptible, despicable’, etc.
3.2.3.6. The suffix -er (type lifer, chancer)
In its original use, the suffix -er (like L. -arius) was added to nouns
to form derivative nouns with the general meaning ‘a man who has to
do with (the thing denoted by the base)’, and hence chiefly serving to
designate people according to their profession or occupation (e.g.
hatter ‘one who makes hats’). The English words of this type not
referring to profession or employment are comparatively few:
examples are bencher, cottager, outsider, villager.
Slang formations conforming to the regular model are numerous.
Examples include nouns formed from either standard or slang
nominal bases: gonger (U.S.) ( gong ‘opium’) ‘an opium pipe’,
jocker (N. Amer.) ( coarse jock ‘the male genitals’) ‘a male
homosexual’, josser (Austral.) ( joss ‘a Chinese figure of a deity’)
‘a clergyman or minister of religion’, juicer ( juice ‘electricity’) ‘an
electrician’, lifer ‘one sentenced to penal servitude for life’, looker
(orig. U.S.) ‘a person, usu. a woman, of particularly pleasing
appearance’, mucker ‘a heavy fall, a cropper (from falling into
muck)’, ozoner (U.S.) ( colloq. ozone ‘fresh air’) ‘a drive-in
cinema’, placer (Austral. and N.Z.) ‘a sheep which remains in one
place’ (cf. deverbal placer below), popper ( pop ‘an injection of a
drug’) ‘a person who takes pills (esp. of stimulant drugs) excessively’,
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 97

rocker ‘head’, rounder (U.S.) ‘a transient railway worker’, topper

(U.S., Military) ‘a first sergeant’, whaler (Austral.) ‘a tramp, orig. one
whose route followed the course of a river’. A name
noun pattern
is in Christer (U.S.) ‘an over-zealous or sanctimonious person’.
Some of them are from compound bases (see also § 3.2.1.4.2):
e.g., eyewasher ( eye-wash ‘humbug’) ‘one who obscures actual
facts’, hot rodder ( hot rod) ‘the driver of a powerful motor
vehicle’, left-footer ‘a Roman Catholic’, moonlighter ‘a person who
makes a hasty departure by night’, one-lunger ‘an engine with a
single cylinder’, one-pipper (Military) ‘a second lieutenant (so
called from this officer’s entitlement to wear one pip on the
shoulder of his uniform)’, weekender (orig. U.S.) ‘a person who
indulges in occasional drug-taking, esp. at weekends’.
A special use of the -er suffix in the standard language is its
addition to names of places or countries to express the meaning ‘a
native of’, ‘a resident of’ (e.g. Icelander, Londoner, New Yorker).
This use is comparably illustrated by the derogatory American
slang noun Piker, referring to ‘a poor white migrant from the
southern states of the U.S.’ (orig. Pike County, Missouri), and by
Scouser ‘a native or inhabitant of Liverpool’.
The most common use of this suffix is, however, as a deverbal
formative of agent-nouns with the meaning ‘animate or inanimate
performer of an action’ (e.g. St. E. baker). This is the pattern of
many slang agent-nouns,6 namely chancer ‘one who takes chances
or does risky things’, chaser (chiefly U.S.) ( chase ‘pursue (a
member of the opposite sex) amorously’) ‘one who chases women’,
chopper (U.S.) ‘a machine-gun or -gunner’, ‘a helicopter’, ‘a
motor-cycle’, clapper ( clap ‘tinkle’) ‘the tongue of a bell, which
strikes it on the inside and causes it to sound’, crimper ( crimp
‘curl’) ‘a hairdresser’, fizzer ( fizz ‘make a hissing or sputtering
sound’) ‘anything excellent or first-rate’, frightener ‘a member of a
criminal gang who intimidates the victims of its activities’, greaser
(U.S.) ( grease ‘smear with grease’) ‘a native Mexican or native
Spanish American’, heater ‘a gun’, joker (esp. Austral. and N.Z.)
‘man, fellow, ‘chap’’, jumper ‘a ticket-inspector or ticket-collector,
jumping on to buses to inspect tickets’, killer ( hyperbolic kill

6 Also Marchand (1969: 275, 280) observes that “slang is rich in -er words”.
98 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

‘excite, thrill, delight’) ‘an impressive, formidable, or excellent

person or thing’, loser (U.S.) ( lose ‘perish’) ‘a convicted
criminal’, owner (Nautical) ‘the captain of a ship’, passer ( pass
‘have currency’) ‘a person who puts base or forged money into
circulation’, placer ‘an organizer of criminal practices, esp. a dealer
in stolen goods’, roader (Taxi-drivers’) ( Amer. road ‘do (a
distance) on the road’) ‘a long-distance taxi fare or journey’, shiner
‘coin, money’, ‘a mirror’, ‘a diamond’, ‘a black eye’, sitter (U.S.)
‘someone employed to sit in a bar and encourage other patrons to
buy drinks’, snorer ‘the nose’, starrer ( star ‘perform the leading
part’) ‘a play or film which provides an impressive leading role for
an actor or actress’, stormer (Brit.) ( storm ‘rush with violence’)
‘something of surpassing size, vigour, or excellence’, ticker (orig.
U.S.) ( tick ‘beat, pulse’) ‘the heart’, etc.
Agent-nouns from non-standard verbs are extremely frequent in
slang. Some instances are crammer (orig. University) ‘one who
prepares pupils for an examination’, copper ( cop ‘capture, catch’)
‘a policeman’, crapper (coarse) ( crap ‘defecate’) ‘a privy’,
croaker (now chiefly U.S.) (ironically  croak ‘kill’) ‘a doctor, esp.
a prison doctor’, doer ( do ‘cheat, swindle’) ‘one who cheats
another’, doozer (perh.  douse ‘strike, punch’) ‘something
remarkable or unbelievable’, dosser ( doss ‘sleep’) ‘one who stays
at a common lodging-house’, dropper ‘one who passes counterfeit
money, cheques, etc.’, drummer ‘a thief, esp. one who robs an
unoccupied house’, flasher ‘one who exposes himself indecently’,
fucker ‘one who copulates’, grafter (orig. U.S.) ‘one who makes
money by shady or dishonest means’, grasser ‘a police informer’,
hoofer ‘a (professional) dancer’, hustler ( hustle ‘engage in
prostitution’) ‘a prostitute’, minder ‘a bodyguard employed to protect
a criminal’, mixer (Brit.) ( colloq. mix ‘fight or argue vigorously’)
‘a troublemaker’, moocher ‘a beggar, a scrounger’, nailer ( nail
‘apprehend, incriminate (a person)’) ‘a police officer, detective’,
nobbler (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) ( colloq. nobble ‘strike; stun’)
‘a small quantity of alcoholic drink’, poisoner (Austral. and N.Z.) (
colloq. poison) ‘a cook, esp. for large numbers’, poler (Austral. and
N.Z.) ( pole ‘take advantage of someone’) ‘a scrounger; a shirker’,
pusher (orig. U.S.) ‘one who peddles drugs illegally’, rager
(Austral. and N.Z.) ( rage ‘revel’) ‘a person who enjoys having a
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 99

good time’, rapper (U.S.) ( colloq. rap ‘talk or chat in a discursive

manner’) ‘a talker; a chatterer’, raver ( rave ‘give oneself over to
enjoyment’) ‘a passionate enthusiast for a particular thing, idea, or
cause’, renter ‘a male prostitute’, roller (chiefly N. Amer.) ( roll
‘rob’) ‘a thief; a prostitute who robs her customers’, rosiner ( dial.
rosin ‘supply with liquor; make drunk’) ‘alcoholic drink’, scalper
(U.S.) ‘someone who sells tickets, etc., esp. below the official rates’,
scammer (orig. U.S.) ( scam ‘perpetrate a fraud; cheat’) ‘a
criminal’, sender (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ( send ‘enthral, delight’)
‘one who or that which moves or enthrals, esp. a popular musician’,
singer (Criminals’) ( cant sing ‘peach, turn informer’) ‘an
informer’, skimmer (U.S.) ‘one who conceals some of his earnings in
order to avoid paying tax on them’, yacker (derog.) ‘a chatterbox or
gossip’, zapper (orig. U.S.) ( zap Computing ‘erase or change (an
item in a program)’) ‘the remote-control unit for a piece of electronic
equipment’.
The following nouns are from complex slang verbs: ear-basher
( ear-bash ‘talk inordinately’) ‘a chatterer; a bore’, four-flusher (
four flush ‘in poker: act in a fraudulent manner’) ‘one who bluffs’,
and panhandler (U.S.) ( panhandle ‘beg from or importune (a
person)’) ‘a street beggar’.
Slang words not coined with a basic agentive meaning are blower
‘a speaking-tube or telephone’ and smacker (orig. U.S.) ‘a dollar; a
pound’, whereas cooler ‘a prison or prison cell’ has an underlying
agentive meaning as it metaphorically ‘cools’ prisoners.
There are also some class-maintaining slang nouns with the -er
suffix: e.g., gasser (orig. U.S.) ( gas) ‘something that gives
enormous fun and excitement’, nutter ( nut ‘a mad or crazy person’)
‘an insane or eccentric person’, scrubber ( scrub ‘disreputable
woman’) ‘a prostitute; an untidy girl or woman’, slammer (orig. U.S.)
( slam) ‘prison’.
As in standard English (see Marchand 1969), in slang the -er
suffix may be tacked to almost any base: a proper name (Jimmy
Woodser ‘a solitary drinker’), an adjective (deader ‘a dead person, a
corpse’, goner ‘one who is dead or undone’,7 no-hoper ‘a racehorse
with no prospect of winning’), a particle (downer ‘a depressant or

7 Cf. St. E. goer, as in theatre-goer, with a totally different meaning.

100 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

tranquillizing drug’, upper ‘a drug (esp. an amphetamine)’, Public

School ‘a pupil of the upper school’), an adverb (oncer ‘a one-pound
note’, outer ‘the uncovered area of a racecourse or sports ground’,
twicer ‘a crook, liar’), a converted adverbial (up-and-downer/upper
and downer ‘an up-and-down fight or argument’), an interjection
(coo-er ‘an exclamation expressing surprise or incredulity’), and a
numeral (ten per center ‘a theatrical agent’).
Some slang nouns are peculiarly obtained from irregular
nominal, verbal or adjectival bases. For instance, fratter ‘one who
‘frats’’ is from the verb frat (short for fraternize) ‘establish friendly
and esp. sexual relations with German women’, prepper (U.S.,
School and College) ‘a student at a prep school’ is from the
abbreviated adjective prep ( preparatory), hotter (Brit.) ‘a
person, esp. a youth, who engages in ‘hotting’’ is from hot, a back-
formation from the verbal noun hotting ‘joyriding in stolen, high-
performance cars’, ligger ‘one who gatecrashes parties’ is from the
verb lig ‘sponge; gatecrash or attend parties’, a dialect variation of
lie, and twocer (with alternative spellings twocker/TWOCer) (Brit.,
orig. Police) ‘a car thief’ is from the acronym twoc ( taking
without owner’s consent).
From abbreviated bases, the suffix also derives class-maintaining
adjectives, such as chocker (orig. Naval) ( chock-a-block ‘jammed
or crammed close together’) ‘fed up; extremely disgruntled’, and
upter (Austral.) ( colloq. up to putty) ‘bad or worthless; no good’.
3.2.3.7. The suffix -er, -ers (type footer, champers)
The British slang suffix -er (and -ers, cumulated with -s) was
originally introduced from Rugby School into Oxford University
slang in 1875. Since then, it has been used to obtain colloquial or
jocular forms of words and names, with curtailment and often some
distortion of the root. The earliest attested examples are nouns
connected with sport and university habits, actions, objects, etc.: e.g.,
footer ( football, 1863), brekker ( breakfast, 1889), ekker (
exercise, 1891), rugger ( rugby, 1893), Togger ( Torpid, 1897)
‘a boat rowing in the Oxford college races called ‘Torpids’’, bonner
( bonfire, 1898), Divvers ( Divinity, 1905) ‘divinity honour
moderations, the first public examination in Holy Scripture’, and,
unusually, from the middle of words, tosher ( unattached, 1889)
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 101

‘an ‘unattached’ or non-collegiate student at a university having

residential colleges’, and soccer/socker ( Association, 1891) ‘the
game of football as played under Association rules’.
Other familiar examples with an -er/-ers ending are bedder (
bedroom), bed-sitter ( bed-sitting room), champers ( champagne),
collekkers ( collections) ‘an examination at the end of each term in
the colleges of the University of Oxford’, cupper ( cup) ‘a series of
intercollegiate matches played in competition for a cup’, leccer/
lecker/lekker ( lecture) and rudders ( rudiments of divinity).
Examples of proper names with the same ending are Adders (
Addison’s Walk), Bodder ( Bodleian) and Johnners ( Brian
Johnston, a British cricket commentator).
The respective extended variants -agger/-aggers are likewise
used with clipped nominal bases (e.g. chagger  changing-room,
sensagger  sensation, spaggers/spadgers  spaghetti, stragger
 stranger, wagger  waste-paper basket), or with proper names
(e.g. Jaggers  Jesus College and Quaggers  Queen’s College).
The cumulative suffix -ers is additionally used in Nautical slang
to coin nouns pertaining to drinks or liquids, such as pinkers (Brit.)
( pink ‘a drink of pink gin’) ‘pink gin’, sippers (Brit.) ( sip) ‘a
sip (of rum)’, and strongers ( strong) ‘a mixture containing
caustic soda used for cleaning paintwork and woodwork on ships’
(cf. soogee-moogee in the same sense).
Another use of this composite suffix is in the coining of
adjectives, such as bonkers (perh.  bonk ‘a blow or punch on the
head’) ‘mad, crazy’, ‘slightly drunk’, crackers ( cracker) ‘crazy,
mad; infatuated’ (cf. cracked ‘unsound in mind, crazy’), and, after
abbreviation, preggers (orig. Brit.) ( pregnant), ravers ‘raving
mad, delirious’, starkers (Brit.) ( stark naked) ‘absolutely without
clothing’.
3.2.3.8. The suffix -eroo, -aroo
The ending -eroo (and its variant -aroo, also -roo, -oo)8 has been
defined as a “factitious slang suffix” (OED) or a “neo-pseudo-suffix”
(Wentworth 1972) peculiar to American slang formations, such as

8 According to Wentworth (1972), there should be a further variant -amaroo, with

an intrusive element -am-, as is kissamaroo, no longer in use.
102 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

flopperoo ‘a flop, a failure’. In fact, it can be viewed as a factitious or

pseudo-suffix because it has no semantic consistency. Nevertheless,
Marchand (1969: 211) suggests that it has an “endearing force”: that
is to say, unlike regular slang suffixes (e.g. -er, as in life
lifer), it
does not derive new words, but rather new connoted variants, such as
flopperoo, which sounds like a [non-serious] (Dressler & Merlini
Barbaresi 1994) jocular account of a flop.
According to Wentworth (1972), it may have originated from
American dialect buckaroo (a corruption of Sp. vaquero ‘cowboy’),
or from Australian kangaroo, after which, by analogy, many
curious toy-words (e.g. antseroo, bingeroo, bounceroo, etc.) have
been formed. Thus, although the ending of the supposed progenitors
is -aroo, the most frequent form of the suffix is -eroo.
It occurs in some modern American slang nouns, such as jerkeroo
( jerk) ‘a fool, a stupid person’, peacheroo ( peach) ‘an
attractive woman’ (cf. peacherino), pipperoo ( pip) ‘a particularly
remarkable or pleasing person or thing’, sockeroo ( sock)
‘something with an overwhelming impact’, stinkeroo ( stink ‘a
disgusting smell’) ‘something of a very low standard; a very bad
performance’, switcheroo ( switch) ‘a change of position or an
exchange, esp. one intended to surprise or deceive’. Switcheroo may
also be used as an attribute, with the meaning ‘reversible, reversed’.
The suffix -aroo, with a basic vowel a instead of e, is less
frequently used, and merely as an alternative to -eroo, as in
stinkaroo/stinkeroo, buckaroo/buckeroo (also buckayro).
The variant -roo is regularly used with bases having a final
vowel e, as in boozeroo (N.Z.) ( boose/booze) ‘a drinking spree’,
whereas the -oo variant is added to nominal er-ending bases, as in
poofteroo (derog.) ( poofter orig. Austral.) ‘a homosexual man;
an effeminate or affected man’, smackeroo ( smacker) ‘a coin or
note of money’, ‘a kiss; a blow’, smasheroo ( smasher ‘anything
uncommon’) ‘a great success’.
The -eroo suffix (or its variant -oo) may be added to shortened
bases as well, as in brusheroo ( brush-off) ‘a rebuff, dismissal’,
razoo ( raspberry) ‘ridicule; the arousing of indignation or the
like’, and skidoo ( v skedaddle) ‘leave or depart hurriedly’.
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 103

3.2.3.9. The suffix -ery

The suffix -ery occurs in many English words adopted from French
(e.g. F. batterie, E. battery), and, as -y, in many others formed on
nouns ending in -er (e.g. baker
bakery). The formatives in -ery
regularly exhibit a general collective sense (machinery, scenery).
They may denote classes of goods (as pottery, jewelry), actions/
behaviours characteristic of, with contemptuous implication (as
knavery, monkery), or the place where an employment is carried on
(brewery, fishery).
The standard type brewery is identifiable in the English slang
nouns nightery/-erie, nitery/-erie (orig. U.S.) ( night or its
respelling nite) ‘a nightclub’, noshery ( nosh ‘food, a meal’) ‘a
restaurant; a snack bar’, nuttery (U.S.) ( nut) ‘a mental hospital’,
and in jocular Wrennery (Services’) ‘a building used to accommodate
Wrens’, from the noun Wren denoting ‘a member of the Women’s
Royal Naval Service’ (cf. nunnery, obs. slang ‘a brothel’, now only
St. E. ‘a convent’).
The senses expressed by pottery and knavery are less recurrent
in slang: an example of the former is ironmongery (‘firearms’),
which is obtained from a complex base (iron + deverbal monger),
whereas the latter is in British slang yobbery ‘hooliganism’, from
yob (see § 3.1.3, type g).
3.2.3.10. The suffix -ette
The suffix -ette – corresponding to the French diminutive suffix
(e.g. F. montagnette, E. mountainette) – is productively used in
English to form female nouns from male personal nouns (e.g.
suffragist
suffragette). It is analogously used in English slang to
form hackette ( hack ‘a journalist or reporter’) ‘a jocular or
disparaging term for a female journalist’, and in colloquial British
English to obtain ladette ( lad ‘a boy, youth’) ‘young woman
characterized by her enjoyment of male activities’.
In slang the suffix -ette may also be attached to a shortened base,
in which case it does not derive a new word but a connotative
option, as in derogatory bimbette ( bimbo) ‘a young woman
regarded as sexually attractive but thought to lack intelligence’.
104 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

3.2.3.11. The suffix -ful

In modern English the suffix -ful – which originated, as in other
Germanic languages, from the syntactic group a mouth full (of soup)
– has become a suffix forming derivatives with the general meaning
‘quantity that fills or would fill – ’ (Marchand 1969: 292-293). It may
therefore be freely attached to any noun denoting an object that can
be regarded as holding or containing a more or less definite quantity
of anything, as in bookful, bottleful, boxful, etc. (‘as much as a book,
bottle, box, etc. will contain’).
In slang, this suffix attaches to nouns denoting parts of the human
body to form novel nouns with a figurative rather than literal sense.
Examples are earful ‘as much (talk) as one’s ears can take in at one
time’, eyeful ‘a ‘good look’ at something’, hence, ‘a strikingly
attractive woman’, handful ‘a five-year prison sentence’ (think of the
five fingers of a hand), mouthful (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ‘an utterance
of notable truth or relevance’, skinful ‘as much as the skin can hold:
as much as any one can drink’. Sometimes the variant -full is used
(eye-full, skinfull), so that the new words are more similar to
compounds (with autonomous constituents) than to derivatives.
3.2.3.12. The suffix -ie, -y
The suffix -ie/-y has a basic hypocoristic meaning/function in
standard English: that is, it is used to form pet terms (terms of
endearment) and familiar diminutives expressing jocularity or
affection. It may be tacked either to full common nouns (aunt

auntie, babe
baby) or to shortened or endearingly modified proper
names (Edward/Edmund
Eddie, Elizabeth
Lizzie or Betty).
The forms -y and -ie are now almost equally common in proper
names as such, but in a few pet forms one or other spelling is
preferred (Annie but Sally), whereas in the transferred applications of
these (as in dolly, jemmy) the variant -y prevails. In other hypocoristic
forms -ie seems to be the favourite choice, after Scottish usage (as in
dearie, laddie).
The variants of -ie/-y are -ey, regularly used with bases with a final
vowel e (as in Charles
Charley, love
lovey), -ee (as in boot

bootee ‘an infant’s wool boot’), and, after cumulation, -sie/-sy (often
in reduplicative formations, such as popsy-wopsy, tootsie-wootsie). As
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 105

Merlini Barbaresi (2001) remarks, one of the favourite areas of use of

the suffix -ie/-y is slang.
In slang, many proper name hypocoristics convert into the
category of common nouns, though sometimes maintaining the
initial capital letter. Examples are Archie ( Archibald) ‘an anti-
aircraft gun’, Charlie/-ey (orig. U.S.) ( Charles) ‘cocaine’,
Hughie/Huey (Austral. and N.Z.) ( Hugh) ‘the ‘god’ of weather’,
Joey ( Joe) ‘a threepenny bit’, Johnnie/-y ( John) ‘a policeman’,
‘a condom’, Judy ( Judith) ‘a girl, woman’, maggie/-y (U.S.) (
Margaret) ‘a prostitute’, patsy (orig. U.S.) ( Patrick) ‘someone
who is the object of ridicule’, and many appellatives for cowards or
effeminate men deriving from (mainly female) forenames (e.g. gussie
 Augustus, Lizzie/lizzie  Elizabeth, mollie/-y/-ey  Mary, nancy
 Anne or Agnes, nellie/-y  Eleanor or Helen).
The -ie/-y suffix is predominantly used to form nouns with an
appellative hypocoristic meaning/function (as in duckie/-y ‘a term
of endearment’). However, it may also be used ironically or
sarcastically, esp. to refer to:
 ‘A person who belongs to a different race or country’, as in
Chinkie/-y/-ey ‘a Chinaman’, Dutchie/-y/-ee ‘a Dutchman or
a German’, Eyetie ( jocular Eye-talian) ‘an Italian’, Heinie/
-ey (N. Amer.) ( Heinrich) ‘a German (soldier)’, homie/-ey
(N.Z.) ‘an Englishman; a British immigrant’, Hymie (U.S.)
( Jewish Hyman) ‘a Jewish person’, Ikey/-y ( Isaac) ‘a
Jew’, Sammy (Brit.) ‘an American soldier in the war of 1914-
18’, slopy/-ey (U.S.) ‘an oriental, a Chinese’, Welshie/-y ‘a
Welshman or Welshwoman’, whitie/-y/-ey (Black E.) ‘a white
person’, yardie (orig. West Indies) ‘a Jamaican’;
 ‘One whose behaviour is not approved’, as in druggie/-y ‘a
drug addict’, junkie/-y/-ey (orig. U.S.) ( junk ‘any narcotic
drug’) ‘a drug addict’, queerie ( queer ‘homosexual’) ‘one
who is soft, effeminate, or homosexual’, roughie/-y ‘a rough
or rowdy; a hooligan’, rummy (chiefly U.S.) ‘a habitual
drunkard’, sickie/-y (N. Amer.) ‘one who is mentally ill or
perverted’;
 ‘A person having a distinctive physical condition, defect or
mental deficiency’, as in gimpy ‘a cripple’, nully (rare) ‘a
106 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

stupid person; a nobody’, shortie/-y ‘a person of short

stature’, thickie ‘one who is dull of intellect’, weirdie/-y ‘an
odd or unconventional person’, wheelie/-y (Austral.) ‘a
person in or confined to a wheelchair’, wingy ‘a one-armed
man’, wrinklie/-y ‘an old or middle-aged person’.
The above terms, esp. those belonging to the first two groups, are
deliberately used to produce an offensive effect, and most of them
undeniably have a derogatory sense.
With respect to the base categories, the -ie/-y suffix primarily
obtains nouns from nominal or adjectival bases.
Denominal formatives with an -ie/-y ending mainly denote ‘people
characterized by an activity, occupation, hobby, etc.’. Examples are
bikie (Austral. and N.Z.) ‘a motor-cyclist’, chiefy (Forces’) ‘a chief
or superior officer’, gobby ‘a coastguard, or an American sailor’,
groupie (R.A.F.) ‘a group captain’, groupie/-y ‘an ardent follower
of a touring pop group’, looie/louie/looey ( N. Amer. pronunciation
/lu/ of lieutenant) ‘a lieutenant’, roadie/-y ‘someone who organizes
and supervises a touring pop group’, schoolie (Naval) ‘a classroom
instructor’, shoppie/-y ‘a shop assistant’, slushie/-y/-ey ( slush
‘food’) ‘a ship’s cook’, squaddie/-y (Services’) ‘a member of a squad;
a private soldier’, stripey (Naval) ‘a long-service able seaman; one
with good-conduct stripes’, surfie (chiefly Austral.) ‘a surfer or
surfboarding enthusiast’.
Inanimate nouns from a nominal base refer to ‘something
characterized by or having to do with what the base denotes’: e.g.,
letty ( It. letto ‘bed’) ‘a bed, a lodging’, middy (Austral.) ( mid)
‘a medium-sized measure of beer or other liquor’, munchie (
colloq. munch ‘something to eat’) ‘snack food’, soupy/-ie (U.S.,
Military) ‘(a summons to) a meal’, and woodie/-y (orig. Surfing,
chiefly U.S.) ‘an estate car with timber-framed sides’.
Deadjectival formatives with this suffix generally refer to
‘people or things having the quality indicated by the adjective’.
They are similarly distinguished into animate and inanimate.
Animate nouns are biggie/-y (orig. U.S.) ‘an important person’,
cutie/-ey (orig. U.S.) ‘a cute person; esp. an attractive young
woman’, dummie/-y/-ee ( dumb ‘stupid’) ‘a deaf-mute’, hottie/-y
(orig. U.S.) ( hot ‘sexually attractive’) ‘a sexually attractive
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 107

person’, nuddie/-y (orig. Austral.) ( nude, as in in the nuddy),

smoothie (orig. U.S.) ( smooth ‘stylish, suave, chic’) ‘a person
who is ‘smooth’’, swiftie/-y ‘a fast-moving person: a rapid runner, a
quick thinker’, weakie/-y (chiefly Austral.) ‘a person who is weak
in constitution, character, or ability’.
Instances denoting inanimate nouns are cheapie ‘something
cheap’, darky/-ey ‘the night’, falsies (orig. U.S.) ‘a padded
brassière’, greenie (Surfing) ‘a large wave before it breaks’, sharpie
(N. Amer.) ( sharp ‘smart, well-equipped’) ‘that which is smart
or in good condition, esp. of cars’.
The -ie/-y suffix attaches to other less common bases, such as
verbs (clippie/-y ‘a bus-conductress’), and adverbs (downie ‘a
depressant or tranquillizing drug’). It peculiarly attaches to the
thieves’ cant verb chive ‘knife’ to obtain the synonymous slang
verb chivvy/chivey. But it mostly attaches to irregular shortened
bases, like clippings and acronymic formations (see §§ 3.2.11,
3.2.9.1 for the base analysis).
Clippings with an additional pet suffix are particularly frequent
in slang. They are mainly class-maintaining nouns which pertain to
the contexts of home, clothing, food, pub, sport, television, school,
military, job, etc. Examples are bevie/bevvy ( beverage), footie/-y
(esp. Austral. and N.Z.) ( football), indie ( independent) ‘an
independent theatre, film, or recorded company’, jerry (
jeroboam ‘a large bowl or goblet’) ‘a chamber-pot’, locie/lokey (N.
Amer. and N.Z.) ( locomotive), Minnie/-y (Military) ( G.
Minenwerfer) ‘a German trench mortar’, nembie (orig. and chiefly
U.S.) ( Nembutal) ‘a Nembutal capsule’, Polly ( Apollinaris)
‘Apollinaris mineral water’, pornie ( porn shortened from
pornography) ‘a pornographic film’, tatie/tattie ( potato), U-ey
(Austral.) ( U-turn), wellie/-y ( Wellington ‘a Wellington boot’)
‘a kick, acceleration’, and sammie or sarnie/-ey ( sandwich), after
an alteration of the base due to natural preferences.
Some of these inanimate nouns seem to belong to a more formal
area, such as the jargon of business, banking, urban planning, etc.
(e.g. chippie/-y  chip-shop; derry  derelict, ‘a derelict building’;
divvy  dividend; offie/-y  off-licence, ‘an off-licence shop’), now
also extended to everyday language.
108 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Other clippings with this suffix are hypocoristic names of places

(countries or towns), or refer to their inhabitants: e.g., Argie (
Argentinian/Argentine), Aussie ( Australia(n)), and its variants
Ossie/Ozzie, gippy/gyppie/gyppy ( gipsy) ‘an Egyptian’ (also ‘a
gipsy’), Phillie/-y (U.S.) ( Philadelphia), and Tassie/-y/-ey
(Austral.) ( Tasmania(n)).
Animate nouns from clipped bases denote people who have a
specific job, activity, habit, political/religious belief, or physical
condition. Examples are cokie/-ey (orig. U.S.) ( coke abbrev. of
cocaine) ‘a cocaine addict’, Commie/-y ( Communist; cf.
Commo), flatty (orig. U.S.) ( flat-foot) ‘a policeman’, gremmie/-y
(Surfing) ( gremlin) ‘a young surfer’, hostie (Austral. and N.Z.)
( hostess), juvie/-ey (U.S.) ( juvenile), kriegie ( G.
Kriegsgefangener ‘prisoner of war’) ‘an Allied prisoner of war in
Germany during the war of 1939-45’, Lesbie ( lesbian; cf.
Lesbo), its variants Lessie/-y/Lezzy, Limey (U.S.) ( lime-juicer)
‘an English sailor’, pikey/-y (chiefly regional) ( pike shortened
from turnpike) ‘a vagrant’, polly (orig. U.S., now chiefly Austral.
and N.Z.) ( politician), Proddie/-y (chiefly Ir.) ( Prod
shortened from protestant with voicing of intervocalic -t-),
prossie/-y or prostie/-y (N. Amer.) ( prostitute; cf. pross), statie
(U.S.) ( state trooper), trannie ( transvestite). A clipped word
with previous alteration of the base is patootie (chiefly U.S.) (
potato) ‘a girlfriend, a sweetheart; an attractive woman’. An adjective
belonging here is preggie/-y ( pregnant; cf. preggers, preggo).
A small group of (mostly American) nouns with an -ie/-y ending
originate from acronyms: e.g., dinkie/-y ( double income no kids),
woopie/-y ( well-off old(er) person), and yumpie ( young
upwardly mobile people), after yuppie/-y ( young urban
professional, now also frequently interpreted as young upwardly
mobile professional), Fannie Mae ( Federal National Mortgage
Association, after two female personal names), and Naffy, a variant
from NAAFI ( Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes).
The suffix -ie/-y and its cumulative variants -sie/-sy/-sey
sometimes attach to reduplicative formations, as in footie-footie or
footy-footy ‘amorous play with the feet’ (also footsie-footsie, footsy-
footsy, or simply footy), and tootsie-wootsie or tootsey-wootsey
(chiefly U.S.) ‘a woman, a girl; a sweetheart’.
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 109

3.2.3.13. The suffix -ify, -fy

The English suffix -ify (and its variant -fy quoted in the OED)
regularly forms verbs with the common meaning ‘make, convert
into, bring into the state of – ’, as in denominal beautify and
deadjectival uglify, with the regular dropping of final -y before the
suffix is added.
In slang, this suffix attaches to an irregular base – the acronym
yuppie/-y – to form the verb yuppify (orig. U.S.) ‘subject to
yuppification’ (see -ation § 3.2.3.2). After cumulation with the -ed
(participial) suffix, it also attaches to the slang noun pansy ‘a male
homosexual; an effeminate man’ and to colloquial sissy ‘an
effeminate person; a coward’ to obtain the adjectives pansified
‘excessively stylized or adorned; affected’ and sissified ‘effeminate’.
3.2.3.14. The suffix -ing (n type: flaming)
In present-day English, -ing is a suffix forming verbal derivatives,
originally abstract nouns of action (ask
asking, learn

learning), but subsequently developed in various directions, to
express existence, processes, habits, etc. By later extension,
formations with this suffix have been analogically made from nouns
(bedding, gardening), and, by ellipsis, from adverbs (as inning,
offing, outing); while nonce-words in -ing are formed freely on
words or phrases of many kinds: e.g. oh-ing, hear-hearing (‘calling
oh!, hear! hear!’), how-d’ye-doing (‘saying how do you do?’);
pinting (‘having pints of beer’), etc.
In English slang, verbal nouns ending in -ing mainly express
actions which have passed into a process, practice, habit: e.g.,
flaming (Computing) ‘the action or practice of sending inflammatory
or abusive messages by e-mail’, foozling (Golf) ‘bungling’, fratting
( frat) ‘friendly relations between British and American soldiers
and German women’, mooching (regional) ‘begging; loafing’,
phishing (Computing) (a respelling of fishing) ‘fraud perpetrated on
the Internet’, ranking (U.S., Black E.) ( rank ‘insult (a person)’)
‘intra-group repartee’, steaming ‘the action of passing rapidly
through a public place robbing bystanders’.
Sometimes the notion of action may be limited to a single or
particular occasion, as in bashing (Services’) ‘any arduous task’,
110 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

doing (dial.) ‘a scolding; a thrashing; a severe monetary loss’,

shellacking (chiefly U.S.) ‘a beating; a defeat’.
Nouns ending in -ing are also obtained from compound nouns or
verbs, as in denominal gender-bending (back-formed  gender-
bender, see § 3.2.8.3) ‘the action of affecting an androgynous
appearance’), hot-rodding (orig. U.S.) ( hot rod) ‘racing powerful
motor vehicles’, jawboning (U.S.) ( jaw-bone ‘credit’) ‘name
applied to a policy’, and in deverbal ram-raiding ( v ram-raid
‘break into (esp. commercial premises)’) ‘a form of smash-and-grab
robbery in which premises are broken into by ramming a vehicle
through a window or wall’.
The -ing suffix may also attach to adjectives, as in hotting (Brit.)
( hot ‘stolen’ (goods)) ‘joyriding in stolen, high-performance cars’,
or to nouns, as in sledging (Austral., Cricket) ( sledge ‘a large
heavy hammer usually wielded with both hands’) ‘unsportsmanlike
attempts by fielders to upset a batsman’s concentration by abuse,
needling, etc.’. A peculiar irregular base is the acronym sug (Brit.)
( sell under guise), which originates the noun sugging.
3.2.3.15. The suffix -ing (ppl adj type: corking)
The English suffix -ing is used to form both adjectives of participial
origin or nature (as cunning orig.  can, willing), and prepositions
or adverbs of participial origin (as concerning, during, excepting,
notwithstanding, pending, touching).
Instances of slang participial adjectives are corking (chiefly
U.S.) ‘unusually fine or excellent; stunning’, happening ( happen
‘be successful’) ‘currently in vogue, fashionable’, storming (chiefly
in Sport) ‘displaying outstanding vigour, speed, or skill’, swinging
( swing ‘be promiscuous’) ‘of or pertaining to one who engages
in promiscuous sexual activity’, topping ‘of high quality; excellent’,
zonking ( zonk ‘overcome, overwhelm’) ‘impressively (large or
great)’.
Most slang participial adjectives of this type are used as
intensifying adverbs, or as euphemistic substitutes for strong
expletives (i.e. bloody, fucking), exhibiting a phonological
resemblance with the original term. Examples are blinking,
blooming, chuffing (Brit.), effing ( eff ‘variant of ef, name of the
letter F, representing fuck’), flipping, fricking (orig. U.S.), frigging,
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 111

naffing (Brit.), perishing, pissing (chiefly Brit.), sodding, steaming,

stonking. Intensifiers with an -ing ending may also originate from
nouns (as pigging Brit.) or from adjectives (as hellishing chiefly
Austral. and N.Z.).
3.2.3.16. The suffix -ish
The adjectival suffix -ish has various functions and meanings in
English. In OE it was used to form adjectives from national names:
e.g., British (OE Brittisc), English (OE Englisc), Scottish (OE
Scyttisc), etc. With the same basic meaning of appurtenance, -ish
attaches to common nouns, as in more recent boyish, girlish, and,
with a derogatory meaning, in babyish, clownish, foolish, etc.
The suffix is now added to adjectives denoting colour (reddish,
yellowish), and, in colloquial use, to other monosyllabic adjectives
with the meaning ‘of the nature of, approaching the quality of,
somewhat’ (darkish, poorish, smallish). Further examples of this
type are the colloquial plutish (orig. Austral., now chiefly U.S.)
‘plutocratic’, from the base plute, shortened from plutocrat, and
moreish ‘of food or drink: that makes one want to have more’.
The suffix may attach to other head classes: verbs (as in standard
snappish and colloq. peckish ‘somewhat hungry (of a person)’ 
peck orig. cant ‘eat, feed’), particles (as in standard uppish) and
numerals, to denote approximate age or time (as in standard
fortyish, ninish).
In slang use, it also attaches to adverbial phrases (as in all-
overish ‘having a general sense of illness pervading the body’),
nominal compounds (as in pound-noteish/notish Brit. ‘affected,
pompous’), and to such irregular bases as altered clipped nouns
(hippish ‘somewhat hypochondriacal’  hip, altered abbreviation
of hypochondria), and as back-slang nouns (as in yobbish  yob,
‘characteristic of a yob’, see § 3.1.3, type g).
3.2.3.17. The suffix -less
The adjectival suffix -less, according to Marchand (1969: 324) “the
negative counterpart of -ful”, attaches to nominal bases to convey
the privative sense ‘without, free from – ’ (as in careless, needless;
cf. careful, needful). This sense is in colloquial potless (now chiefly
Brit.) ‘having no money, penniless’, obtained from the slang noun
112 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

pot ‘a large sum of money’. Added to deverbal nouns of action, the

adjectival derivative takes on the sense of ‘not to be –ed’ (as in
countless, numberless ‘not to be counted, numbered’).
In slang, the sense ‘without, not having – ’ has to be read
metaphorically, as in legless alluding to the physical effects of
drinking too much, and therefore referring to someone who is
‘drunk, esp. too drunk to stand’. A likewise metaphorical reading
applies to motherless (Austral.) ‘very poor, having no money’, to
coarse shitless ‘alluding to a state of extreme fear’, and to zipless
‘denoting a brief and passionate sexual encounter’. Some slang
derivatives with a -less ending are also used to intensify adjectives
(as motherless in motherless broke, drunk, stoney).
3.2.3.18. The suffix -ly
In English -ly is a suffix forming adverbs of manner, mainly from
adjectives, as badly ‘in a bad manner’. With the sense ‘in a –
manner’ slang regularly obtains adverbs from slang adjectives
ending in y, changed to i before -ly: e.g., chestily (U.S.) ‘in a chesty
manner’, dopily ‘in a dopey manner’, glitzily, groovily, hammily,
kookily, raunchily, spookily, wackily, etc. From an irregular
adjectival base (yobbish, see the adjective-forming suffix -ish
above), slang coins yobbishly ‘in a loutish manner’.
Slang adverbs may acquire the metaphorical sense ‘unusually,
excessively, really, extraordinarily’ when used as intensifiers, as in
all-firedly ( all-fired ‘infernal’, a euphemism for hell-fired),
seriously (orig. U.S.) (esp. as seriously rich), stinkingly (e.g.
stinkingly drunk, pretty, rich).
3.2.3.19. The suffix -ness
The English suffix -ness forms (mainly abstract) nouns from adjectives
(hardness), participles (drunkenness, knowingness), adjectival phrases
(donothingness), and (more rarely) nouns (childness), pronouns (I-
ness), adverbs (nowness), particles (outness) and numerals (oneness).
The general sense of the derivatives is ‘the condition, quality, state of
being what the base denotes’.
Regularly-formed slang deadjectival nouns are chestiness ‘the
condition or quality of being chesty’, crumbiness ( crumby ‘lousy;
filthy’), dragginess, glitziness, grunginess ( grungy ‘grimy,
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 113

unpleasant’), kookiness, peckishness ( deverbal adj peckish),

raunchiness, schmal(t)ziness, scuzziness, spookiness, wackiness,
yuckiness.
Nouns ending in -ness from compound adjectives are, for instance,
all-overishness (see the adj all-overish under -ish above), bone-
headedness ( bone-headed ‘thick-headed, stupid’), slug-nuttiness
( slug-nutty U.S. ‘punch-drunk’), and with-it-ness ( with-it
‘fashionable’). The noun hotsy-totsiness is from a reduplicative
adjective (i.e. hotsy-totsy ‘comfortable, satisfactory’) and yobbishness
‘the condition of being a hooligan’ is from a denominal adjective
(yobbish), whereas hippi(e)ness ‘the characteristics of a hippie or
hippies’ is from a noun (hippie/-y ‘a hipster; a beatnik’).
3.2.3.20. The suffix -o
The suffix -o – now widespread in English-speaking countries but
especially associated with Australian English – has various origins,
which deserve some diachronic explanation. In the early 16th
century, it mainly represented the final syllable of Romance
borrowings (e.g. E. camisado  Sp. Camisada, E. lingo  Portug.
lingua). In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, it represented the
vowel that became final after the shortening of words by dropping
the syllables following a medial o, as in memo ( memorandum),
and more recent (19th cent.) loco ( locomotive). Since the late
ME period, it has also represented the interjections ho, O, and oh
attached to a word to form refrains or vocative expressions (e.g.
cheerio, heave-ho, righto). A number of words occur in the second
half of the 19th century which appear to have their origin in the
attachment of one of these interjections to a noun or adjective.
Some of these are normally or frequently written as hyphenated
compounds (e.g. bottle-ho, dead-ho, smoke-ho, daddy-o, rabbit-o),
while others (e.g. milko, wino) are treated in spelling as having the
suffix -o.
The earliest example which shows a clear transition from one
use to the other is milko, used both as a milkman’s call indicating
that milk is available (esp. as Milk O, Milk-o) and as a slang word
for milkman. Further examples used as interjections as well as
nouns or adjectives are whizzo (‘an exclamation expressing delight’,
114 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

‘something excellent’), and socko (‘an interjection imitative of the

sound of a violent blow’, ‘a success’, ‘stunningly effective’).
The -o suffix has various uses in colloquial language and slang.
In colloquial language, it is used to form exclamations by analogy
with vocative expressions, as in Whacko ‘expressing delight or
excitement’ and Whammo ‘suggesting a sudden violent blow or
surprising event’, respectively from the onomatopoeic nouns whack
and wham.
In slang, the suffix is additionally used to form personal nouns
from non-personal nouns, as in milko (orig. Austral. and N.Z.),
plonko (Austral.) ( plonk ‘cheap wine’) ‘an alcoholic’, rabbit-o/
rabbit-oh (Austral.) ‘an itinerant seller of rabbits as food’, wino
(orig. U.S.) ( wine) ‘a habitual drinker of cheap wine’.
It also forms nouns from adjectives, as in dumbo (orig. U.S.) (
dumb) ‘a slow-witted or stupid person’, pinko (chiefly N. Amer.,
freq. derog.) ( pink ‘tending to left-wing’) ‘a socialist’, saddo
(Brit., deprec.) ‘a person perceived as socially inadequate or
contemptible’, scruffo ‘a scruffy person’, sicko (U.S.) ‘one who is
mentally ill or perverted’ (cf. sickie), single-o (U.S., chiefly
Criminals’) ‘a crime perpetrated without an assistant’, sleazo (U.S.)
‘something sleazy, pornographic’, weirdo ‘an odd or unconventional
person’ (cf. weirdie), wrongo (chiefly U.S.) ( Criminals’ wrong
‘untrustworthy, unreliable’) ‘a bad, dishonest person’. After
cumulation, the suffix -so derives the deadjectival nouns fatso
(humorous) ‘a fat person’ and nutso ( nuts) ‘a mad or crazy person’
(cf. nutsy under the adjective-forming suffix -y below).
Less frequently, nouns are derived from verbs, as in stingo
‘strong ale or beer’, or from deverbal nouns, as in stoppo ‘a rest
from work’, (Criminals’) ‘an escape, a get-away’. The adjective
stinko (orig. U.S.) ‘of a very low standard’, ‘intoxicated, drunk’ is
similarly formed from a verb (stink; cf. stinkeroo).
In criminals’ slang, there are also the in-group verb nitto ‘keep
still or quiet; stop’, from another colloquial verb (nit), with the
opposite sense of ‘escape, decamp’, and the adverb doggo, as in to lie
doggo ‘lie quiet, remain hid’, perh. from dog ‘an informer; a traitor’.
Yet the most common use of the -o suffix is to form familiar,
informal equivalents of nouns and adjectives. Familiar nouns
ending in o are often used as forms of address: e.g., bucko
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 115

(Nautical) ( buck ‘a man’) ‘a swaggering or domineering fellow’,

daddy-o ( daddy), kiddo ( kid) ‘a young child, man or woman’,
oafo (Brit.) ( oaf ‘a fool’) ‘a lout, a hooligan’, yobbo/yobo (
yob, see § 3.1.2).
Examples of informal adjectives of this type are cheapo ( adj
cheap, also reduplicated as cheapo-cheapo), and neato (chiefly N.
Amer.) ‘that is excellent, desirable’. The adjective wacko (orig. and
chiefly U.S.) ‘crazy, mad; eccentric’ is from slang wack/whack,
back-formed from wacky.
The suffix preferentially attaches to truncated word-forms.
According to the OED, the earliest example of the addition of the
suffix to a truncated word is probably beano (second half of 19th
cent., orig. Printers’) ( bean-feast), followed by Australian Salvo
( Salvationist) ‘a member of the Salvation Army’, and robbo (
Robinson) ‘a horse or trap, or its driver; a poor horse’. Since the
beginning of the 20th century, esp. Australian and New Zealand
slang formations of this kind have become numerous: e.g., aggro (
aggravation/aggression), ammo ( ammunition), combo (
combination), Commo ( Communist), compo ( compensation),
garbo ( garbage) ‘a dustman, a collector of rubbish’, gippo/gyppo/
gypo ( gipsy) ‘a gipsy’, ‘an Egyptian’, jollo ( jollification),
journo ( journalist), lesbo ( lesbian), metho ( methylated
spirits), muso ( musician), obbo/obo (Military) ( observation)
‘an observation balloon’, preggo ( pregnant), propho (orig. U.S.,
Military) ( prophylaxis), provo/Provo ( provisional) ‘a member
of the Provisional I.R.A.’, reffo ( refugee) ‘a European refugee’,
rego/reggo ( registration) ‘motor-vehicle registration’, speako
(U.S.) ( speakeasy) ‘a shop or bar where alcoholic liquor is sold
illegally’, starko ( stark naked), susso (dated) ( sustenance)
‘state government relief paid to the unemployed’, troppo ( tropic)
‘mentally ill through spending too much time (orig. on war service)
in the tropics’. Some such words also display alteration of the base
spelling, as in arvo ( afternoon), Nasho ( National Service),
sammo ( sandwich; cf. sammie in § 3.2.3.12), and secko ( sex) ‘a
sexual pervert; a sex offender’.
116 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

3.2.3.21. The suffix -ock

The suffix -ock originally forms diminutives (as in ME hillock ‘a
little hill’, and early ME wretchock ‘a diminutive person, little
wretch’). Most formations since the 18th century are regional (esp.
Scots), as in bittock ‘a little bit’, and lassock ‘a little girl’. Several
names of animals, esp. birds and fishes, have what appears to be the
same ending (e.g. piddock, tarrock), and are probably diminutive
formations.
In slang, esp. the British English variety, the suffix -ock is no
longer diminutive in nature, but is mainly used to form a number of
familiar, mildly depreciative or disrespectful words for people, such
as fussock/fuzzock ‘a fat, unwieldy woman’, pillock ‘a fool, an
idiot’, and wassock/wazzock (orig. northern dial.) ‘a stupid or
annoying person’.
This suffix is also present in the slang verb ballock ( ball)
‘reprimand or tell off severely’, and in the plural noun ballocks (and
its alterations bollocks, rollocks) meaning ‘an absurdity; a mess’,
also used as an interjection to mean ‘nonsense’, or as an adjective
with the sense of ‘naked’.
3.2.3.22. The suffix -s
In English the suffix -s is commonly combined with other suffixes,
esp. -y (as -sy), used in proper names (Betsy, Patsy), common nouns
(mopsy, petsy), and reduplicatives (popsy-wopsy). Yet it may also
be used autonomously with a hypocoristic function (as in Babs,
ducks, moms) (see Quirk et al. 1985: 1584).
In slang the -s suffix is peculiarly used to form denominal
adjectives with the general meaning ‘crazy, mad’, or in weakened
sense, ‘eccentric; wildly enthusiastic (about something or
someone)’. Examples are bananas (as in to go/drive bananas) and
nuts ( off one’s nut ‘out of one’s mind, insane’), also used in
British English as to be (dead) nuts on/upon ‘be fond of (a person);
be enthusiastic about (a person or thing)’.
As remarked in section 3.1.3, the -s suffix may also be a
reminiscence of a previous plural suffix. For instance, in ants (see
antsy ‘agitated’ in § 3.2.3.24) and bats (‘crazy’), which originated
from longer phrases (i.e. to have ants in one’s pants, to have bats in
the belfry).
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 117

The suffix may also attach to nominal or adjectival bases to form

nouns which refer to ‘human skills’ or ‘feelings, physical (or
imaginary) mental diseases’, as in denominal guts ‘energy, verve;
courage’ and deadjectival smarts (U.S.) ‘intelligence; wits’. The
formatives of this type are usually preceded by a definite article the,
as in the all-overs (chiefly U.S.) ‘a feeling of nervousness or
unease’, the shits ‘diarrhoea’, the slows ‘an imaginary disease or
ailment accounting for slowness’, and the uglies ‘depression, bad
temper’.
3.2.3.23. The suffix -ster
In English the suffix -ster has been used in the formation of agent-
nouns, derived from verbs or their corresponding nouns. According
to Marchand (1969: 349), this suffix often exhibits a characteristic
nuance of “shadiness”, as in crimester (‘organized perpetrator of
crimes’, his quote), drugster, gangster, etc.
Slang formations with such a nuance are boomster (U.S.) ‘one who
works up a ‘boom’; a speculator’, dopester ( dope ‘information’,
‘drug’) ‘one who collects information on, and forecasts the result of,
sporting events, elections, etc.’, ‘one who sells or uses drugs’, and
mobster ( the Mob ‘the Mafia’) ‘a member of the Mafia’. The OED
states that these formations imitate those of trade designations, from
which they derive the disparaging sense that we find, e.g., in
boomster as compared to boomer ‘one who ‘booms’ or pushes an
enterprise’.
A non-disparaging sense is found in slang hipster/hepster (orig.
U.S.) ‘an addict of jazz, swing music, etc.’.
3.2.3.24. The suffix -y
The derivational suffix -y – which descends from the OE -ig suffix
– is used in English to form adjectives. Originally, it only attached
to nouns to provide the meaning ‘having the qualities of, full of – ’
(as in bloody, icy). In the 13th century, the suffix began to be used
with verb-stems to express the meaning ‘inclined or apt to do
something’, or ‘giving occasion to a certain action’ (as in choky).
Since the early years of the 19th century, it has been used still more
freely in nonce-words designed to connote such characteristics of a
118 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

person or thing as call for condemnation, ridicule, or contempt (as

in beery, newspapery, piggy, etc.).
The variant -ey regularly occurs when the base ends in y (as in
skyey), or when the base ends in -e preceded by a vowel (as in
bluey, gluey). When the final -e is preceded by a consonant, there
may be variation (as in nosey/nosy).
Denominal derivatives are numerous in slang with the meaning
‘of, pertaining to, or characterized by – ’. Instances are cheesy (
cheese ‘the right thing’) ‘fine or showy’, when found with the
variant -ey ‘inferior, second-rate’, crappy (orig. U.S., coarse) (
crap ‘rubbish’) ‘rubbishy; worthless’, dishy ( dish ‘an attractive
person’) ‘sexually attractive’, doggy ( dog ‘style’) ‘dashing,
smart’, dopy/-ey (orig. U.S.) ( dope ‘drugs’) ‘sluggish or
stupefied, with or as with a drug’, fig. ‘stupid’, drippy (orig. U.S.)
( drip ‘sentimental drivel’) ‘drivelling, sloppily sentimental’,
faggoty/faggy ( faggot/fag U.S. ‘a (male) homosexual’)
‘homosexual’, foxy (U.S.) ( fox ‘an attractive woman’) ‘attractive,
desirable, pretty, sexy’, froggy ( frog ‘a Frenchman’) ‘French’,
funky (orig. U.S.) ( funk) ‘of jazz or similar music: down-to-earth
and uncomplicated; emotional’, gassy ( gas ‘empty or boastful
talk’) ‘characterized by empty talk’, gimpy (orig. U.S.) ( gimp ‘a
lame person or leg’) ‘lame, crippled’, groovy (orig. U.S.) (
groove ‘something excellent or very satisfying’) ‘excellent, very
good’, gungy/-ey ( gunge ‘any messy substance’) ‘of a sticky or
messy consistency; mucky’, hammy ( ham ‘an ineffective or
over-emphatic actor’) ‘characteristic of a ham actor or ham acting’,
hippy (orig. U.S.) ( hyppie/-y ‘a hipster’) ‘characteristic of
hippies’, hoppy (U.S.) ( hop ‘a narcotic drug; spec. opium’)
‘characterized by drugs or drug-taking’, hunky (orig. U.S.) ( hunk
‘a sexually attractive man’) ‘attractive, handsome’, jivey/-y (chiefly
U.S.) ( jive ‘misleading or empty talk’) ‘phoney, pretentious’,
kooky/-ie ( kook ‘a cranky or crazy person’) ‘crazy, eccentric’,
lippy (dial.) ( lip ‘saucy talk, impudence’) ‘impertinent; verbose’,
lushy/-ey ( lush ‘a habitual drunkard’) ‘intoxicated, drunk’, peachy
(orig. U.S.) ( peach ‘an attractive young woman’) ‘attractive,
desirable’, poncy/-ey (chiefly Brit., derog.) ( ponce ‘an effeminate
man; a homosexual’) ‘affected; homosexual’, queeny ( queen ‘a
male homosexual’) ‘effeminate’, raunchy/rancy (orig. U.S.) (
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 119

raunch ‘shabbiness, grubbiness’) ‘inept; dirty’, salty (U.S., Nautical)

( salt ‘a sailor’) ‘of a sailor: hard-bitten; aggressive’, schmaltzy (
Yiddish schmaltz ‘sentimentality, emotionalism’) ‘sentimentalized,
over-emotional’, sidy/-ey ( side ‘pretentiousness, conceit’)
‘conceited’, snitty (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ( snit ‘a state of
agitation’) ‘ill-tempered, sulky’, spooky (U.S.) ( spook ‘a spy’) ‘of
or pertaining to spies or espionage’, stakey/-y (chiefly Canad.) (
stake ‘an amount of money’) ‘well provided with money’, yucky (
yuck ‘messy or distasteful material’) ‘nasty, unpleasant’, zappy (
zap ‘liveliness, energy’) ‘lively; striking’, zizzy ( zizz ‘gaiety,
liveliness’) ‘showy; uninhibited’.
Some such adjectives are obtained from standard nouns, such as
chesty (U.S.) ‘having one’s chest thrust out as a sign of self-
importance’ and druggy ‘characteristic of narcotic drugs or their
users’. In most of them, the connection with the nominal base is
metaphoric, as in dreamy (orig. U.S.) ‘perfect, ideal’, lemony
(Austral. and N.Z.) ‘irritated, angry’, mossy (U.S.) ‘extremely
conservative or reactionary; old-fashioned’, rosy ‘drunk, tipsy’,
smelly ‘suspicious’, tasty ‘sexually attractive’. Of the same
figurative type is spooky (Surfing) ‘of a wave: dangerous or
frightening’, which originates from colloquial spook (‘a spectre,
apparition, ghost’).
It should be stressed that the adjective-forming -y suffix also
attaches to plural nouns, as in antsy ‘agitated’ ( the pl. of ant, also
reduplicated in antsy-pantsy), ballsy ‘courageous; determined’ (
the pl. of ball), and dicey ‘risky, dangerous’ ( the pl. of die) (see
§ 3.1.3, type h, for their morphotactic analysis).
Less frequently, the suffix attaches to bases other than nouns:
e.g., verbs (scroungy ‘shabby or dirty in appearance; inferior’), verb
phrases (screwy  to have a screw loose, ‘crazy; eccentric’; windy
 to get the wind up, ‘apt to get into a state of alarm’), adjectives
(nutsy ‘mad; eccentric’  nuts, after a cumulation with the slangy
suffix -s, see § 3.2.3.22), adjectival phrases (wacky ‘crazy; odd’ 
out of whack ‘disordered, malfunctioning’), and adverbs (e.g.
sometimey U.S. Black and Prison ‘variable, unstable’).
The derivational suffix -y is sometimes conflated with the
hypocoristic -y. There are a number of borderline cases which seem
to legitimate such a conflation, such as the adjectives dotty, goofy,
120 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

goopy (‘silly, stupid’) and nutty (‘crazy’) in A person who is

‘wanting in the upper storey’ is: dotty, goofy or goopy, and You
have to be a real sour square not to love the nutty, noisy, happy,
handsome Beatles. The abbreviated type may be borderline as well,
since it often corresponds to a hypocoristic noun.
Abbreviated bases are mostly back-clippings: e.g., gutty (Jazz)
( gut-bucket ‘a primitive, unsophisticated brand of jazz’) ‘earthy,
primitive’, poopy (chiefly U.S.) ( poop ‘a stupid or ineffectual
person’, shortened from nincompoop) ‘foolish; ineffectual’, specky
( specs shortened from spectacles) ‘bespectacled’, sussy (
suspicious/suspected), wiggy (U.S.) ( wig out ‘be overcome by
extreme emotion; go mad’) ‘mad, crazy’.
Abbreviations with a quasi-hypocoristic -y suffix are grotty (
grotesque) ‘unpleasant, dirty, ugly’, loony/-ey/luny ( lunatic),
porny ( porn shortened from pornography) ‘pornographic’ (also
n), preppy (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ( prep shortened from
preparatory) ‘of or relating to a student at a prep school’ (also n),
Proddy (chiefly Ir., derog.) ( Prod shortened from Protestant; cf.
The Cats and The Proddy Dogs ‘the Catholics and the Protestants’).
The base may be a blend, as in hokey (orig. U.S.) ( hokum, a
blend of hocus-pocus and bunkum, U.S., Theatrical) ‘sentimental,
melodramatic, artificial’, and scuzzy (orig. and chiefly N. Amer.)
( scuzz, a blend of scum and fuzz, or a corrupted abbrev. of
disgusting) ‘disgusting in appearance, behaviour, etc.’. It may also
be clipped from a reduplicative formation, as in the American
adjective zooty ‘(strikingly) fashionable’, from the rhyming
reduplicative zoot suit. A reversed base is in the adjective yobby
‘loutish’, from yob (see § 3.1.3, type g).

3.2.4. Final combining forms

Final combining forms are traditionally viewed as pseudo- or semi-
suffixes occurring in neoclassical compounds (Marchand 1969,
Bauer 1983): e.g., -logy (‘science of’), an anglicised adaptation of Gr.
logía via French use, as in pharmacology, psychology, sociology,
etc.9 In modern English there are two extra types of combining

9 Initial combining forms (e.g. bio- ‘life’, from Gr. bíos, as in biogenetic) are not
included in this description because irrelevant for the topic under investigation.
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 121

forms, namely truncated forms of model words (e.g. -holic 

alcoholic, as in spendaholic), and parts of model words, which
happen to be established morpheme-forms (e.g. -gate  Watergate,
as in Yuppiegate) (see Warren 1990, Fradin 2000, Plag 2003,
Mattiello 2007b).
The modern types are found in slang as well, and, since some of
them have acquired an autonomous morphological status, their
formation mechanism has been compared to that of proper
composition: e.g., by Dressler (2000), who classifies them as cases
of marginal morphology. It remains true, however, that combining
forms develop a novel meaning which is connected to, but
independent from that of the original full word (cf. Amer. -burger
and hamburger explained below).
3.2.4.1. The combining form -(a)licious
The final combining form -alicious ( delicious), with a variant
-licious (esp. after a vowel or y), is used in American slang to form
adjectives with the meaning ‘embodying the qualities denoted or
implied by the first element to a delightful or attractive degree’.
Examples of denominal adjectives are babelicious/babe-alicious
( babe ‘a girl or woman’) ‘of a woman or girl: sexually attractive,
gorgeous’, bootylicious ( booty ‘the buttocks’) ‘esp. of a woman,
often with reference to the buttocks: sexy; shapely’, and other
nonce-words, such as dog-licious, goodylicious, groovalicious,
hunkalicious and spooklicious (recorded in the OED).
3.2.4.2. The combining form -burger
The combining form -burger, whose origin is from the G. city of
Hamburg, reanalysed as ham + burger by folk etymology – even if
“there is no ham in the hamburger” (Marchand 1969: 213) – is
commonly used in English as the second element in compounds
denoting types of hamburgers (e.g. beefburger, cheeseburger,
fishburger,10 nutburger, vegeburger  vegetable, etc.).
Yet since the early 1980s, it has also formed American slang
words with the meaning ‘people characterized by the initial element’.
The progenitor is probably mouseburger, coined by Gurley Brown to
denote ‘a person who does not have a particularly good-looking
10 See Warren (1990: 119) for the semantic analysis of cheeseburger vs. fishburger.
122 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

appearance or high I.Q., but can nevertheless achieve professional

and personal success through determination’. Since then, it has been
attached to various bases to obtain similar humorous formations, such
as cheerfulburger, nothingburger and psychoburger.
3.2.4.3. The combining form -fest
The American English combining form -fest (from G. Fest
‘festival’, as in Oktoberfest, Sängerfest and Turnfest), is interpreted
as an allomorph of E. feast. It attaches to nouns or verbs to denote
‘a festival or special occasion’, qualified by the accompanying
word, as in hen fest, songfest ‘an informal session of group-singing’,
talk fest, and bookfest, eatfest, smokefest, stuntfest, walkfest reported
in Marchand (1969: 212).
This combining form is analogously used in American slang
gabfest ( gab ‘talk’) ‘a gathering for talk; a prolonged conference
or conversation’, and slug-fest ( v slug ‘hit’) ‘a hard-hitting contest,
spec. in boxing and baseball’.
3.2.4.4. The combining form -ville
The final combining form -ville (from F. ville ‘town’) is appended
to nouns (which frequently have a plural suffix) or adjectives to
form the names of fictitious places with reference to a particular
(often unpleasant) quality.
In American slang, an adjectival derivative with -ville is Dullsville
‘an imaginary town characterized by extreme dullness or boredom’,
and nominal ones are Cubesville denoting ‘a group or set of
extremely conventional or conservative persons’, Endsville/Endville
‘the imaginary home of good things or people’, Niggerville, used in
the negative sense of ‘a neighbourhood with predominantly black
residents’ (cf. Niggertown), and Squaresville, a synonym of
Dullsville (see also Bauerle 1960). But there are other jocular
nonce-formations reported in the OED, such as Boneheadville (e.g.
I’m telling you you’re the biggest bonehead from Boneheadville),
Jaguar-threepointfoursville (e.g. It offers an enjoyable evening out
in Jaguar-threepointfoursville), etc.
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 123

3.2.5. Infixation
Infixation is the process whereby an affix (called an infix) is
inserted in the middle of a word. Morphologists generally agree that
English has no infixes, other than within extra-grammatical
morphology of inserting expletives into words for additional
emphasis, as in absolutely
abso-blooming-lutely (Aronoff 1976,
Siegel 1979, Bauer 1983, Plag 2003, Dressler 2005). McCarthy
(1982) relevantly observes that there are some phonological
constraints on expletive infixes: first, they must precede a vowel
bearing some degree of stress, and, second, they must fall to the left
of the syllable-initial consonant cluster. Thus, fan-fuckin-tastic is
correct, but *fant-fuckin-astic and *fa-fuckin-ntastic are not.
The infixation process is frequent in slang, its most common
expletive infixes being -bally-, -blessed-, -bloody-, -blooming- and
-fucking-, often as -fuckin- (pronounced [n] rather than [#] after the
dropping of final g). The infixed base may be an adjective (e.g.
fantastic
fan-bloody-tastic), an adverb (e.g. absolutely

abso-bally-lutely, perhaps
per-bloody-haps), a verb (e.g.
advance
ad-bloody-vance), a noun (e.g. defence
de-fuckin-
fence), a pronoun (e.g. nobody
no-bloody-body in McGrath’s
1978 Yobbo Nowt, yourself
your-bloody-self), or an exclamation
(e.g. Jesus Christ
Jesus-fucking-Christ in A Scanner Darkly
2006). In some cases, the infix is not inserted into the word but after
the prefix (e.g. un-believable
un-fuckin-believable, un-touchable

un-fucking-touchable in COLT).
The infix -bloody- is also in jocular triple bloody glazing (after
double-glazing), in blasphemous Christ all bloody mighty (
Christ Almighty) (both from The Full Monty 1997), and in Jehovah
bloody Witnesses (from Mickey Blue Eyes 1999).11 Most such
formations are anyway produced spontaneously by speakers, and
often remain nonce-words,12 such as unfuckingtouchable, occurring
only once in COLT.

11 See Wierzbicka (2002) and Biscetti (2004) for the pragmatic meaning of bloody.
12 Bauer (2001: 38-39) draws a distinction between ‘nonce-word’ and ‘neologism’
according to which the former “fails to become part of the norm, and is not generally
seen as part of the lexicographer’s brief”, but the reverse is true for the latter.
124 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

3.2.6. Conversion
Conversion (also called “zero-derivation”, “zero-affixation” or
“functional shift” in the literature) is a process consisting of the
syntactic change of a word without any corresponding formal
change (e.g. v run
n run, n bottle
v bottle). Thus, since there
is no overt marker distinguishing the base from the derivative, this
process poses the problem of determining which member of the
couple comes first. The question is often complicated, but at least
two criteria may be used to establish the antecedence of the base
over its derivative. First, the diachronic criterion, according to
which the base should be the earlier word. Second, the semantic
criterion, which imposes that the derivative is the word whose
meaning includes the base word (cf. “directionality of conversion”
in Plag 2003: 108).
Marchand (1969: 361) distinguishes the most common types of
standard English conversion, namely, from noun into verb (n bridge

v bridge) or vice versa (v look
n look), from adjective into
verb (adj idle
v idle), and from particle into verb (adv out
v
out).
Besides the standard types, in slang we distinguish some extra
types. For instance, nouns may also be obtained from adjectives
(busy, queer), adverbs (down), proper names (Jack, Jane), numerals
(forty), pronouns (it) and interjections (wow), adjectives may be
obtained from nouns (cuckoo, shoe), prepositions (on), and
combining forms (mega), and adverbs may be, in turn, obtained
from prepositions (inside) or adjectives (dead). For almost any type,
we also distinguish two main subtypes, according to whether the
base belongs to standard English or English slang. What follows is
an overview of the slang illustrative types and subtypes in the
formation of verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs.
3.2.6.1. Verbs
Slang verbs derived by a zero affix are from nouns, adjectives or
adverbs.
3.2.6.1.1. The pattern from nouns is extremely frequent. Some are
nouns of standard English: e.g., oil ‘bribe’, souvenir (orig. Military)
‘take as a ‘souvenir’; steal’, submarine (U.S.) ‘put out of action in
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 125

an underhand or covert way’, word (Austral.) ‘speak to; pass word

to’, and, from a compound noun, moonlight (orig. U.S.) ‘do paid
work in addition to one’s regular employment’.
For the most part, however, they are slang nouns, as in chicken
(orig. U.S.) ( chicken ‘cowardly person’) ‘fail to act from motives
of cowardice’, chin (U.S.) ( chin ‘a talk; conversation’) ‘chat,
chatter’, coke (orig. U.S.) ( coke ‘cocaine’) ‘drug oneself with
cocaine’, dope (orig. U.S.) ( dope ‘narcotics’) ‘stupefy with a
drug’, fag (U.S.) ( fag ‘a cigarette’) ‘smoke; supply with a
cigarette’, funk ( funk ‘cowering fear’) ‘flinch or shrink through
fear’, goof ( goof ‘a mistake’) ‘make a mistake’, graft ( graft
‘work, esp. hard work’) ‘work hard’, grass ( grass ‘a police
informer’) ‘betray (someone); inform the police about (someone)’,
heist (orig. U.S.) ( heist ‘a hold-up, a robbery’) ‘hold up, rob,
steal’, jazz ( jazz ‘sexual intercourse’) ‘have sexual intercourse
(with)’, jive (orig. U.S.) ( jive ‘talk or conversation; spec.
misleading’) ‘mislead; talk nonsense’, jug ( jug ‘a prison’) ‘shut
up in jail; imprison’, naughty (Austral. and N.Z., rare) ( naughty
‘an act of sexual intercourse’) ‘have sexual intercourse with’, pansy
( pansy ‘a male homosexual; an effeminate man’) ‘clothe or
adorn in an affected or effeminate manner’, rap ( rap ‘a criminal
accusation’) ‘charge, prosecute’, rocket (orig. Military) ( rocket
‘a severe reprimand’) ‘reprimand severely’, shelf (Austral.) (
shelf ‘a police informer’) ‘inform upon’, speed ( speed ‘an
amphetamine drug’) ‘be under the influence of an amphetamine
drug’.
Some such converted words are compound verbs derived from a
complex noun, therefore considered “pseudo-compounds” by
Marchand (1969: 101; cf. § 3.2.1.3.4 here). Some examples include
fat-mouth (U.S.) ( fat-mouth ‘one who talks extravagantly’) ‘talk
a great deal about something’, freebase (orig. U.S.) ( freebase
‘cocaine purified by heating with ether’) ‘make a ‘freebase’ of
(cocaine)’, king-hit (Austral.) ( king-hit ‘a knock-out blow’)
‘punch hard or knock out’, mainline (orig. U.S.) ( main line ‘a
principal vein, into which drugs can readily be injected’) ‘inject a
drug intravenously’, sin-bin (orig. Austral., Sport) ( sin-bin ‘an
area set aside for players temporarily withdrawn from a game’)
‘send (a player) off the field’.
126 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Verbs converted from irregular nominal bases are especially

significant: e.g., O.D. (orig. U.S.) ‘take an overdose of a drug’,
from the initialism O.D., and snafu ‘mess up, play havoc with’,
from the acronym snafu ( situation normal: all fouled/fucked up).
3.2.6.1.2. The patterns from adjectives and adverbs are less
common. Verbs from standard adjectives are special ‘work as a
special correspondent for a newspaper’, ‘attend continuously to (a
single patient)’, and total (chiefly N. Amer.) ‘damage beyond repair
(esp. a motor vehicle, in an accident)’, whereas hip (orig. U.S.)
‘inform’ is from a slang adjective (hip ‘well-informed’).
Verbs from adverbs are fully ‘commit (a person) for trial’, off
(chiefly U.S.) ‘turn off, shut down’, ‘kill’, and out (Boxing) ‘knock
out or defeat (an opponent)’, but also (orig. U.S.) ‘expose the
undeclared homosexuality of (esp. a prominent or public figure)’.
3.2.6.2. Nouns
Converted nouns may be derived from a variety of base categories,
verbs and adjectives being the most frequent.
3.2.6.2.1. The verb
noun pattern is found uniquely with slang
bases: e.g., grind/lay ( v grind/lay) ‘(an act of) sexual intercourse’,
and pop ( v pop) ‘an injection of a narcotic drug’. The base is
complex (i.e. a phrasal verb) in clean-up (orig. U.S.) ‘a profit; an
exceptional financial success’, come-on (orig. U.S.) ‘(the victim of) a
swindler; an inducement’, cut-out ‘a person acting as a middle-man,
esp. in espionage’, drop-in (U.S.) ‘something which is easy; easy
money’, freak-out ‘an intense emotional experience, esp. one
resulting from the use of hallucinatory drugs’, hang-out ‘a residence;
a lodging’, (Amer. University) ‘a feast; an entertainment’, hash-up ‘a
hastily cooked meal’, have-on (Farmer) ‘a swindle; a take-in’, hop-
over (Army) ‘an assault’, knock-down ‘something overpowering, e.g.
strong liquor’, (U.S., Austral. and N.Z.) ‘an introduction’, knock-off
‘a robbery’, nosh-up (Brit.) ‘a hearty or lavish meal’, pay-off
(Criminals’) ‘the proceeds of a criminal operation’, pig-out (orig.
U.S.) ‘a bout of excessive eating; a feast’, poke-out (U.S.) ‘a parcel of
food given to a tramp; a lunch’, rave-up ‘a lively party’, ready-up
(Austral.) ‘a conspiracy or swindle’, ride-out (Jazz) ‘a final chorus’,
ring-in (Austral.) ‘a fraudulent substitution’, roll-up (orig. Prisoners’)
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 127

‘a hand-rolled cigarette’, rough-up ‘an informal encounter or

contest’, rub-out (U.S.) ‘a murder, an assassination’, run-in
(Criminals’) ‘a hiding place for stolen goods’, sit-down (N. Amer.,
Tramps’) ‘a free sit-down meal’, smoke-up (U.S.) ‘an official notice
that a student’s work is not up to the required standard’, sort-out ‘a
fight or dispute’, wipe-out (Surfing) ‘a fall from one’s surfboard as
a result of a collision with another surfer or a wave’.
3.2.6.2.2. Nouns from standard adjectives represent a rather
frequent pattern, even if the semantic relation between onset and
outset is sometimes metaphorical or opaque: e.g., busy ‘a detective’,
frail (chiefly U.S.) ‘a woman’, mad (chiefly U.S.) ‘fury, anger’,
mental ‘a person who is mentally ill’, moody (Brit., orig.
Criminals’) ‘flattery or lies intended to persuade or elicit
compliance’, previous (Brit., Criminals’) ‘a criminal record’, ready
‘ready money, cash’, single (U.S.) ‘a one-dollar bill’, and verbal
‘insult or abuse’.
The same pattern with slang bases is found in gaga ( gaga
‘doting, exhibiting senile decay; mad’) ‘a doting or senile person; a
madman’, grey ( grey ‘white-skinned’) ‘a white-skinned person’,
and queer ( queer ‘homosexual’) ‘a (usu. male) homosexual’,
which, by contrast, display a transparent onset-outset relation.
3.2.6.2.3. An exclusive slang pattern is provided by the shift from
proper names into common nouns. The name may be a family or
Christian name: e.g., Jane/jane (orig. U.S.) ‘a woman, girl,
girlfriend’, jasper (U.S.) ‘a person, fellow’, Jones ‘a drug addict’s
habit’, (U.S.) ‘symptoms of withdrawal from a drug’, ‘any intense
craving or desire’, Mary (Austral.) ‘a woman, esp. an Aboriginal
woman’, roscoe (U.S.) ‘a gun’, and peter, with a variety of
meanings ranging from cant ‘portmanteau, trunk, or other piece of
baggage’ to Criminals’ slang ‘a safe or cash box’, and from
Australian ‘a cell in a prison’ to American slang ‘a hypnotic drug’.
The shift is from a nickname in Jack ( John or James) ‘a
policeman or detective’ and Joe (Canad.) ( Joseph) ‘a French
Canadian’ (cf. other examples with the -ie/-y suffix in § 3.2.3.12).
128 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

3.2.6.2.4. Another distinctive pattern is adverb
noun, as in down

‘a depressant or tranquillizing drug’, in ‘an introduction to someone
of power, fame, or authority’, out ‘an outpatient department in a
hospital’, outside ‘the world existing beyond a prison’, up ‘a
stimulant drug (esp. an amphetamine)’, (U.S.) ‘a prospective
customer’, and, from the comparative of soon, sooner (U.S.) ‘one
who acts prematurely’, (chiefly Austral.) ‘an idler, shirker’.
3.2.6.2.5. Less frequent but equally distinctive slang bases are
numerals (e.g. forty ‘a thief, sharper’, thirty chiefly Journalistic ‘the
last sheet, word, or line of copy or of a despatch’), interjections
(e.g. wow ‘a sensational success’), pronouns (e.g. it ‘sexual
intercourse’), or prefixes (e.g. ex ‘a former husband, wife or lover’;
cf. ex-wife).
3.2.6.3. Adjectives and adverbs
Conversions into adjectives and adverbs are quite rare but are
attested in slang. Adjectives, for instance, may be obtained from
nouns (e.g. shoe ‘conforming to the dress, behaviour, or attitudes of
students at exclusive educational establishments’, cuckoo ‘crazy’ 
cuckoo ‘a silly person’), from prepositions (on ‘under the influence
of drink or drugs’), or, unusually, from combining forms, as in
mega ‘huge, great, substantial’, from the classical combining form
mega- (cf. megastar).
Adverbs are mostly derived from adjectives, especially when
conveying an intensified sense (e.g. dead ‘utterly, completely’,
dirty ‘very, exceedingly’), or they may be from prepositions (e.g.
inside ‘in prison’; cf. outside above).

3.2.7. Back-formation
Back-formation (called “backderivation” by Marchand 1969: 391)
is a rather infrequent mechanism in standard English. According to
Marchand (1969), this mechanism has only diachronic relevance: it
is indeed through a diachronic approach that we may derive the
verb peddle (1532) from the noun peddler, pedlar (1377) (see
Aronoff 1976: 27). Bauer (1988a: 238) rather considers back-
formation as a special case of clipping, and redefines it as “the
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 129

formation of words by the deletion of actual or supposed affixes in

longer words”.
In line with Bauer (1988a) and Plag (2003), I consider back-
formation the process of extraction of a new (simple or compound)
word from a non-existent base, which, however, is recreated
analogically. For example, editor appears to be a derivative from a
non-existent base edit, which is created by analogy with, e.g., (v)
confess ( confessor) or (v) baby-sit ( baby-sitter).
This word-formation process is quite frequent in slang. Examples
mainly include verbs back-formed from nouns (baby-snatch  baby-
snatcher), or, rarely, from adjectives (lay back  laid-back), and
nouns back-derived from adjectives (with -y, -ed or -ish endings), as
in dill ( dilly), pea-brain ( pea-brained), Yid ( Yiddish).
Remarkably, slang may also delete a word part which does not
correspond to any suffix, as in (v) hoke ( hokum) (see § 3.2.7.1).
A wider illustration of these patterns is given below.
3.2.7.1. Verbs
Slang verbs back-formed from nouns generally delete the -er
agentive suffix, as in grice ( gricer ‘a railway enthusiast’), hook
(chiefly U.S.) ( hooker ‘a prostitute’) ‘solicit as a prostitute’, ring
(Austral.) ( ringer ‘the fastest shearer in a shed’) ‘beat (a shedful
of men) at sheep-shearing’, and swamp (Austral.) ( swamper ‘one
who obtains a lift’) ‘make (one’s way) by obtaining a lift from a
traveller’. This type is also found with compound bases, such as
baby-snatcher and gold-digger, which respectively back-form
baby-snatch ‘enter into an amorous relationship with a much
younger member of the opposite sex’ and gold-dig ‘extract money
from’.
As anticipated, the verb hoke (Theatrical) ‘overplay (a part)’ is
obtained from hokum ‘speech, action, etc., on the stage, designed to
make a sentimental or melodramatic appeal to an audience’. Yet
there is no -um suffix in English, hokum being a blend ( hocus-
pocus and bunkum) rather than a suffixed word.
Verbs from adjectives are obtained by substituting the inflected
form of the verb with its uninflected equivalent form, as in sozzle
‘imbibe intoxicating drink’, deleting the -ed suffix from sozzled
130 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

‘intoxicated, drunk’, or in lay back ( laid-back ‘relaxed’) ‘do

nothing, relax’.
3.2.7.2. Nouns
Slang nouns are usually back-formed from adjectives with an -y
suffix, which is deleted in dill (Austral. and N.Z.) ( dilly
‘foolish’, prob. a blend from daft + silly) ‘a fool or simpleton’,
dinge ( dingy) ‘dinginess’, drear ( dreary) ‘a dreary person’,
flake (chiefly U.S.) ( flaky ‘crazy; feeble-minded’) ‘one who is
liable to act in an eccentric or crazy manner’, glitz (orig. and chiefly
N. Amer.) ( glitzy ‘extravagant’) ‘an extravagant but superficial
display’, grot (Brit. and Austral.) ( grotty ‘unpleasant’, shortened
from grotesque) ‘an unpleasant, dirty, or ugly person’, grunge
(chiefly N. Amer.) ( grungy ‘unpleasant, bad’) ‘someone or
something that is repugnant or odious’, lair/lare (Austral.) (
lairy/leary ‘flashily dressed; vulgar’) ‘a flashily dressed man, one
who ‘shows off’’, shonk (Austral.) ( shonky ‘unreliable,
dishonest’) ‘one engaged in irregular or illegal business activities’,
sleaze ( sleazy ‘dilapidated; sordid’) ‘squalor; dilapidation’, spike
( spiky ‘of a particularly ritualistic or High-Church Anglican
character’) ‘an Anglican who practises Anglo-Catholic ritual and
observances’.
Less common types are from adjectives ending in -ed (e.g. pea-
brain  pea-brained, ‘a stupid person; a fool’), or in -ish (e.g. Yid
 Yiddish, ‘a (usu. offensive) name for a Jew’).
Sometimes slang bases back-form more than one derivative. For
instance, the slang agent-noun joy-popper (orig. U.S.) ‘an
occasional taker of illegal drugs’, back-forms, by deletion of the -er
suffix, the corresponding verb joy-pop and also the noun joy-pop
‘(an inhalation or injection of) a drug’. Similarly, the slang
adjective rorty (orig. Londoners’) ‘coarse, earthy’ back-forms, by -y
deletion, the noun rort ‘a trick; a fraud’, and the corresponding verb
(‘complain loudly; shout abuse’). However, such cases may also
involve conversions (v joy-pop
n joy-pop; n rort
v rort).
Some cases still remain of uncertain attribution, although, from a
diachronic and semantic point of view, they seem to be classifiable
as back-formations: e.g., crumb (1918) ( crumby 1859 ‘dirty,
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 131

untidy’) ‘a lousy or filthy person’, (v) duff (1869, Austral.,

Thieves’) ( duffer 1851) ‘steal (cattle), altering the brands’.

3.2.8. Reduplicatives
In Merlini Barbaresi’s (forthcoming) classification, English
reduplicatives (or echo-words) belong to four main patterns:
 Ablaut (or apophonic) reduplicatives, exhibiting vowel
gradation (i.e. a systematic alternation of the stressed vowel),
as in chit-chat, tick-tock;
 Rhyming reduplicatives, exhibiting rhyming constituents
and apophony of the initial consonant, as in fuzzy-wuzzy;
 Rhyming compounds, in which both bases are meaningful,
as in funny bunny;
 Copy (or exact) reduplicatives, in which the two constituents
are identical, as in bye-bye.
Slang reduplicatives are classifiable according to the same criteria.
3.2.8.1. Ablaut reduplicatives
English ablaut reduplicatives may be obtained from either a left-
hand (handy-dandy) or right-hand base (dilly-dally), or have no
existing base at all, as in zig-zag, with the two vowels suggesting
the two different directions. The most productive vowel alternations
are / /~/æ/ and / /~/ /, as in slip-slap and ping pong (Marchand
1969: 429, Bauer 1983: 213). Many English ablaut reduplicatives
are slang combinations.
Slang apophonic combinations based on the first element
include ding-dong ‘a heated argument; a quarrel’ and nig-nog (
nigger) ‘a black or dark-skinned person’, whereas the elements are
unexplained in jim-jams ‘delirium tremens’, ning-nong (Austral.
and N.Z.) ‘a fool, a stupid person’ (cf. nigmenog ‘a fool, an idiot’),
tick-tack ‘applied to a system of ‘telegraphy’’, zig-zag (Military,
chiefly U.S.) ‘drunk’.
3.2.8.2. Rhyming reduplicatives
English rhyming reduplicatives are twin forms consisting of two
rhyming elements, one of which reproduces the other by changing
132 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

its initial consonant. Rhyme is mainly obtained via familiarity

suffixes (e.g. -ie/-y, -sie/-sy, -ers, -dy or -ty), which playfully extend
the bases.
The largest part of slang twin forms have the first member as
base: e.g., argy-bargy ( argue) ‘disputatious argument’, arty-farty/
artsy-fartsy ( art) ‘pretentiously artistic’, easy-peasy (orig. and
chiefly Brit., Children’s) ‘extremely easy, very simple’, jeepers-
creepers ( Jesus) ‘an exclamation of surprise or enthusiasm’,
killer-diller (orig. U.S.) ( killer) ‘an impressive, formidable, or
excellent person or thing’, pee-wee (Children’s) ‘an act of
urination’ (cf. wee-wee), rumpy-pumpy (Brit.) ( rump) ‘sexual
intercourse’, tootsie-wootsie or tootsy-wootsy (chiefly U.S.) (
toots ‘a woman’) ‘a woman, a girl; a sweetheart’, wingding (U.S.)
‘a fit or spasm’, ‘a wild party’. The base is an initialism in okey-
dokey ( O.K.).
The base is or underlies the second member only in nitty-gritty
(U.S.) ( gritty) ‘the realities or practical details of a matter’, and
in zoot suit (orig. U.S.) ‘type of man’s suit of exaggerated style
popular in the 1940s’.
Twin words formed by merely fanciful sound clusters, and
therefore entirely unmotivated by linguistic signs, include hanky-
panky (prob. related to hocus pocus) ‘jugglery; trickery’, heebie-
jeebie(s) (orig. U.S.) ‘a feeling of discomfort, apprehension, or
depression’, hotsy-totsy (coined by an Amer. cartoonist) ‘comfortable,
satisfactory’, ricky-ticky ‘of musical rhythm: repetitive, monotonous’,
soogee-moogee (Nautical) ‘a mixture used for cleaning paintwork and
woodwork on ships’.
3.2.8.3. Rhyming compounds
Rhyming compounds are distinguished from the afore-mentioned
type because, rather than having one meaningful base (the other
being its rhyme germination), they are motivated by two bases. On
the other hand, they are also distinguished from regular compounds
because the relationship between the two bases is different from
that induced by canonical rules of compounding, and no syntactic
paraphrase is identifiable.
Slang reduplicative rhyming compounds are illustrated, for
example, by mellow yellow (chiefly U.S.) ( mellow ‘inducing a
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 133

pleasant euphoria’) ‘banana peel dried for smoking as a narcotic’,

nitwit (orig. U.S.) ‘a stupid person’, poppa stoppa (U.S., Black E.)
( poppa ‘a father’, variant of papa, after momma, and stopper) ‘a
person, esp. a man’, and razzle-dazzle ‘bewilderment or confusion’.
In such reduplicative compounds, hardly any syntactic paraphrase is
possible, and no headedness can be assigned to any member of the
doublet, although identifiable as a meaning constituent, i.e. a
mellow yellow is not ‘a type of yellow’.
We can compare this set of reduplicative rhyming compounds
with a large number of regular slang compounds exhibiting a
rhyming pattern, but which comply with grammatical rules.
Examples are endocentric chill pill (orig. U.S.) ‘a (notional) pill
used to calm or relax a person’, cop-shop ( cop ‘policeman’ and
shop ‘place’) ‘a police station’, gang-bang (orig. U.S.) ( bang ‘an
act of sexual intercourse’) ‘an occasion for multiple intercourse’,
pop shop ( v pop ‘pawn’) ‘a pawnshop’, rag-bag ( bag ‘a
disparaging term for a woman’) ‘a sloppily-dressed woman, a
slattern’, and exocentric culture vulture ‘a person who is voracious
for culture’, fender-bender (chiefly U.S.) ( fender ‘vehicle’s wing
or mudguard’) ‘a (usu. minor) motor accident’, gender-bender ‘a
person (esp. a pop singer) who deliberately affects an androgynous
appearance’, jelly-belly ‘a fat person’. In cases of endocentric
compounds, we have no difficulty in identifying the syntactic head
– a chill pill is ‘a type of pill’ – but we may have difficulty in
identifying the semantic head because of its slang sense, i.e. a rag-
bag is not ‘a type of bag’, but ‘a type of woman’.
In rhyming compounds, the relationship between the bases may
also be metaphoric, as in fat cat (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ‘a political
backer’, sin bin (chiefly N. Amer.) ‘an area set aside for players
temporarily withdrawn from a game as a penalty’, town clown
(U.S.) ‘a policeman working in a village or small town’, and in the
endocentric toy boy ‘the younger partner of an older woman’.
Sometimes the bases rhyme thanks to a hypocoristic -y suffix, as
in arsy-versy ( arse and versus) ‘upside-down, contrariwise’, silly
billy (Brit.) (Billy is a nickname from William) ‘a foolish or feeble-
minded person’, Wavy Navy (Brit.) ‘the Royal Naval Volunteer
Reserve’. Abbreviation is another way to make the bases rhyme, as
in fave rave ‘a special favourite piece of music, film, etc.’, in which
134 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

favourite is shortened into fave, or in repple depple ( replacement

depot), in which the bases are shortened (rep dep), and then
extended (rep-p-le dep-p-le). These types have fuzzy boundaries,
i.e. they can be located between reduplicative and canonical
compounds. Their bases are actual words, but their shortening
confines them to extra-grammatical morphology.
The rhyming interjection hell’s bells ‘an expression of anger or
annoyance’, with an underlying possessive form, is a rhyming
phrase rather than a compound (see § 3.2.1.4.5).
3.2.8.4. Copy reduplicatives
English copy reduplicatives commonly have a basic constituent,
with the second member being its exact copy. The following slang
copy reduplicatives have a recognizable base: boo-boo (orig. U.S.)
( boob) ‘a foolish mistake or blunder’, chin chin ( v chin
‘chat’) ‘insolent talk’, dumb-dumb or dum-dum (N. Amer.) (
dumb) ‘a foolish or stupid person’, gee-gee ( gee ‘a command to
a horse to go faster’) ‘a horse’, goo-goo ( googly) ‘of the eyes or
glances: amorous’, never-never ‘the hire-purchase system’, no-no
(orig. U.S.) ‘something which is forbidden or unacceptable’, yen-yen
(U.S.) ( Chinese yīn ‘opium’) ‘opium addiction’, yum-yum ( yum
‘an exclamation of pleasurable anticipation’) ‘love-making’.
The bases are extended in footy-footy or footsy-footsy ( foot)
‘amorous play with the feet’, Jacky-Jacky (Austral.) ( the pet
form of Jack, itself from John) ‘a white man’s name for an
Aboriginal’, wakey-wakey (orig. Services’) ( v wake) ‘reveille’,
yackety-yackety ( yack ‘incessant talk’) ‘expressing the sound of
incessant chatter’.
They may also be shortened, as in ju-ju ( marijuana) ‘a
marijuana cigarette’ and rah rah (orig. U.S.) ( rah, aphetic for
hurrah) ‘a shout of support or encouragement’.
Exact reduplicatives may be coined by onomatopoeic
reproduction of sounds, and therefore have no identifiable base, as
in bling-bling ‘ostentatious jewellery’, representing the visual effect
of light being reflected off precious stones or metals, hubba-
hubba/haba-haba (U.S.) ‘used to express approval or enthusiasm’,
jig-jig (see jig-a-jig below) ‘sexual intercourse’, expressing
reiteration of short and jerky movements, mau-mau (chiefly N.
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 135

Amer.) ‘intimidate, harass; terrorize’, pip-pip ‘goodbye’, from the

sound of a motor-horn at departure, Woop Woop (Austral. and N.Z.)
‘the name of an imaginary place in a remote area’, and yo-yo (U.S.)
‘a stupid person, a fool’, from the earlier sense ‘a toy that goes up
and down’.
3.2.8.5. Marginal cases of reduplication
A small group of less prototypical slang reduplicative forms
exhibits a linking element, as in ding-a-ling (N. Amer.) ‘one who is
crazy or insane’, jig-a-jig (also jig-a-jog) ‘sexual intercourse’, and
in coordinated odds and sods (orig. Services’) ‘miscellaneous
people or articles’.
Some binomials do not conform to the above patterns of ablaut,
rhyme or copy germination, but exhibit a sort of internal phonic
resemblance via assonance, consonance or rhyme. Such slang
binomials with a lower degree of reduplication include, for instance,
hunky-dory/-dorey (U.S.) ‘satisfactory, fine’, jiggery-pokery ‘deceitful
or dishonest ‘manipulation’’, lovely jubbly ‘money’, ram-sammy
(orig. dial.) ‘a family quarrel’, razzmatazz (orig. U.S.) ‘a type of rag-
time or early jazz music’ (cf. razzle-dazzle), ridgy-didge (Austral.)
( ridge) ‘good, all right, genuine’.

3.2.9. Acronyms and initialisms

Acronyms and initialisms are words coined by taking the initial
letters of the words in a title or phrase (see Marchand 1969, Makkai
1972, Cannon 1989, Algeo ed. 1991, and recent studies such as
López Rúa 2002 and Merlini Barbaresi 2007). Still, they represent
two different word-formation processes, since acronyms are words
pronounced as full words (i.e. by applying the regular reading rules),
while initialisms are pronounced as sequences of letters (i.e. by
naming each individual letter of the abbreviated words) (see Bauer
1983: 237).13 Both can be spelt with either capital or lower-case
letters, but, intuitively, only initialisms can have dots (see Plag 2003:
127), though there seems to be a tendency towards avoiding them.
Thus, Nato/NATO /ne .t / ( North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is

13 Cf. López Rúa (2002), who proposes the term ‘initialisms’ for a general category
comprising acronyms (e.g. laser) and alphabetisms (e.g. BBC).
136 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

an acronym, whereas U.S.A. /ju.ese / ( United States of America)

is an initialism. Another comment concerns the orthographic basis of
acronyms, whose pronunciation depends on their orthography rather
than on the phonetic value of each initial letter in the original words,
i.e. the vowels in Nato are diphthongs, but the initial letters of
Atlantic and Organization are not (see Aronoff 1976, Bauer 1983,
Merlini Barbaresi 2007).
Although acronymic formations and initialisms are rather frequent
in standard English and English slang, their predictability and relative
productivity are still controversial issues (see Bauer 1983: 237-238).
The low predictability of such formations principally stems from the
fact that sometimes they may keep more than one letter in a word (cf.
Aronoff’s 1976: 20 “syllable words”). Hence, we may have
borderline cases between acronyms and clipped compounds (see §
3.2.11.3), as in wop (R.A.F.) ( wireless operator) ‘a radio operator’.
Or we may have peripheral cases of initialisms which take more than
one letter from the same word, as in P.I. (U.S.) ( pimp), Q.T./q.t.
( quiet), T.B./t.b. (U.S.) ( tubercolosis) ‘a confidence trickster’,
TV (orig. and chiefly N. Amer.) ( transvestite; cf. St. E. TV 
television).
Another reason for low predictability is that the phrase from
which the acronym is taken is treated with a certain amount of
freedom to permit the acronym to arise. For instance, the slang
acronym Wren ( Women’s Royal Naval Service) is made
pronounceable by inserting a vowel e, so that it conforms to the
regular phonological patterns of English (cf. Wrac and Wraf below).
Still another reason is that the initialism may include entire
particles (e.g. coordinators or prepositions), as in U.S. of A. (
United States of America), or M. and V. (Services’) ( meat and
vegetables).
3.2.9.1. Acronyms
Slang acronyms are quite numerous. Some examples are dink (orig. N.
Amer.) ( double/dual income no kids) ‘either partner of a usu.
professional working couple who have no children’ (cf. jocular
oink/OINK  one income no kids), DOM ( dirty old man),
fubar/FUBAR /fub&/ (U.S. /fub&r/, orig. Military) ( fouled/fucked
up beyond all recognition) ‘ruined, messed up’, Nimby/NIMBY ( not
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 137

in my back yard) ‘used as a slogan objecting to the siting of something

considered unpleasant in one’s locality’, snafu/SNAFU /snæfu/
(chiefly U.S., orig. Military) ( situation normal: all fouled/fucked up,
fogged in Marchand 1969: 453) ‘confused, chaotic’ (also n), sug (Brit.)
( sell under guise) ‘(attempt to) sell (someone) a product under the
guise of conducting market research’, SWA(L)K ( sealed with a
(loving) kiss), viff ( vectoring in forward flight), Wrac/WRAC (
Women’s Royal Army Corps), Wraf ( Women’s Royal Air Force).
In most such examples, the acronyms arise by taking the first letter
of each word in the phrase. But this is not always the case. Compare,
for instance, AWOL /e .w l/ ( absent without leave) with
Tewt/TEWT /tjut/ (Army) ( tactical exercise without troops) and
twoc/Twoc/TWOC /tw k/ (Brit., orig. Police) ( taking without
owner’s consent). In the former (AWOL), the preposition without
provides two letters (w, o) for the acronym, whereas in the latter (Tewt,
twoc), it provides only one (w). This leaves the question open about the
underlying phrase deriving the acronym: that is to say, twoc may
plausibly be derived from ‘taking without consent’ instead of ‘without
owner’s consent’, with no semantic shift of the derivative. As
anticipated, this morphotactic opacity and the irregularity governing
the formation of acronyms make them good candidates for extra-
grammatical morphology.
3.2.9.2. Initialisms
Initialisms (or “alphabetisms” in Quirk et al. 1985: 1581; cf. López
Rúa 2002) are likewise free and not rule-governed in their
formation. The following are slang instances: AC/DC, AC-DC (orig.
U.S.) (humorously  alternating current, direct current) ‘bisexual’,
A-OK (chiefly U.S.) ( all (systems) OK), BLT (orig. U.S.) (
bacon, lettuce, and tomato (sandwich)), D.T. (vulgar) ( delirium
tremens), G.I. ( galvanized iron, used chiefly in G.I. can), MCP
( male chauvinist pig), m.o. ( modus operandi), OAO (Military)
( one and only), O.K./OK/ok ( oll/orl correct) ‘all right’,
‘fashionable, modish’, O.O. (U.S.) ( once-over), O.P./O.P.’s
(chiefly U.S.) ( other people’s (cigarettes or alcoholic drink)),
OPM (U.S.) ( other people’s money), P.B.I./p.b.i. ( Poor
Bloody Infantry(man)), P.D.Q./p.d.q. ( pretty damn(ed) quick),
138 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

PFC/Pfc (U.S., chiefly Military) ( poor foolish/forlorn civilian),

Q.B.I. (R.A.F.) ( quite bloody impossible), S.A./s.a. ( sex
appeal), S.F.A. ( Sweet Fanny Adams, also F.A.) ‘nothing at all’,
TCB (U.S., Black E.) ( take care of business), W.P.B./w.p.b. (
waste-paper basket).
As anticipated, there are several irregularities in the production
of such formations. Some of these irregularities, however, appear to
be particularly remarkable. First, some initialisms are not obtained
from phrases but rather from complex words (e.g. B.S.  bullshit,
DL  down-low, O.D.  overdose). Still, they keep more than one
letter of the composite, and precisely the initial letters of each
underlying base. Second, they tend to keep the initial letters of
function words, such as over and the in over the top (
OTT),
though these are less salient than lexical words and less preferred
bases within NM. Third, they do so arbitrarily: for instance, in
S.O.B./s.o.b. ( son of a bitch; cf. sob ‘a pound’) the initial letter of
the preposition of is kept, but the determiner a is not.

3.2.10. Blending
Blending is a common derivational process in English. Blends, also
called contaminations or “portmanteau words” (after Carroll), are
formed by merging parts of words into one word, as in smog, from
smoke and fog. Since they are made up of curtailed members,
whose original bases are often unrecognizable (Bauer 1983, 1988a),
they are less natural than composites (having full bases) on the
basis of the parameter of morphotactic transparency. Hence, they
are classified among the language “oddities” by Aronoff (1976: 20),
and generally excluded from canonical morphological grammar.
Blends, like acronyms and initialisms, are not rule-governed,
since they cannot be assigned a regular specific pattern and their
final segmental make-up is unpredictable (Dressler 2000). For
instance, we do not know exactly which part of a word is retained,
nor do we know where the word is curtailed, especially when there
is an overlap between the first and the second member of the blend,
as in slanguage ( slang and language).
Yet blending exhibits some preferences. Blends are preferentially
formed by taking the beginning (head) of a word and the end (tail) of
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 139

another one (as in smog above).14 But also less typical blends exist,
which are formed by combining two heads (as in modem 
modulator + demodulator), or a word with a tail (as in guesstimate 
guess + estimate, fanzine  fan + magazine) (cf. Thornton’s 1993:
145-148 “partial blends”). In English slang, we distinguish
prototypical from partial blends.
3.2.10.1. Prototypical blends
Some slang blends prototypically consist of the head of one word
and the tail of another one. They are often adjectives formed from
two standard or colloquial adjectives having a similar or related
meaning, as in dilly (chiefly Austral.) ( daft + silly) ‘foolish’,
fantabulous ( fantastic + fabulous) ‘of almost incredible
excellence’, ginormous ( gigantic + enormous), grungy (chiefly
N. Amer.) ( grubby + dingy), mingy ( mean/mangy + stingy)
‘mean, stingy; disappointingly small’ (see “pleonastic blends” in
Cacchiani 2007: 109-111).
This pattern is also found in some slang nouns, as in glob (
gob + blob) ‘a mass or lump of some liquid or semi-liquid
substance’ and revusical (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ( revue +
musical) ‘a theatrical entertainment that combines elements of the
revue and musical’.
3.2.10.2. Partial and less prototypical blends
Partial blends behave as typical blends, though one of the two bases
remains intact. The first base is a word followed by a word head in
kidvid (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ( kid + video) ‘a television
programme or video made for children’ (cf. rhyming compounds).
Examples of a word followed by a tail are to be found in gaydar
( gay + radar) ‘an ability, attributed esp. to homosexual people,
to identify a (fellow) homosexual person’, sexational (orig. U.S.)
( sex + sensational), sexcapade ( sex + escapade), squadrol

14 Hence the German name “Kopf-Schwanz-Wort” (lit. ‘head-tail-word’, Dressler

et al. 1987: 126, see also Thornton 1993). Dressler (in Dressler et al. 1987: 117)
explains that “the beginning and the end of a word are more salient than what
comes in between. Accordingly a general abbreviation device is to take the head of
the first member of a compound/juxtaposition/phrase and the tail of the last
member but never the other way round. E.g. motor hotel has become motel, but not
*torhot”.
140 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

(U.S.) ( squad + patrol) ‘a small police van’, and in shagadelic

( shag + psychedelic) ‘sexy, esp. in a psychedelic or ‘retro’ way’,
with a variant vowel a instead of e, in any case, both pronounced as a
schwa, at least in Amer. E. This latter variation is commonly found
across the few formations of the same type (e.g. funkadelic).15
The second base is a word preceded by a head in doohickey
(orig. and chiefly U.S.) ( doodad + hickey, also doojigger) ‘any
small object, esp. mechanical’, gazunder (Brit., humorous) (
gazump + under) ‘of a buyer: lower the amount of an offer made to
(the seller) for a property’, tab show (U.S.) ( tabloid show) ‘a
short version of a musical’.
The word of a partial blend is inserted within another word in
the humorous formation ambisextrous ‘bisexual’, from sex and
ambidextrous, favoured by the similarity between dex and sex.
Many slang blends simply merge where the two words overlap,
as in nerk (Brit., deprec.) ( nerd + berk/jerk) ‘a foolish or
objectionable person’, scuzz (perh.  scum + fuzz, but also
considered a corrupted abbrev. of disgusting) ‘contemptible or
despicable person’, sexpert (orig. U.S.) ( sex + expert) ‘an expert
on sexual matters’, squiz (Austral. and N.Z.) ( squint + quiz) ‘a
look or glance’, swingle (N. Amer.) ( swinging + single) ‘a
‘swinging’ single or unaccompanied person’, vidiot (orig. and
chiefly U.S., derog.) ( video + idiot) ‘a habitual viewer of
television or player of video games’, yatter (orig. Sc. dialect) (
yammer + chatter) ‘talk idly and incessantly’. Sometimes the
overlap is only in pronunciation, but not in orthography, as in
Sloane Ranger ( Sloan (Square) + Lone Ranger) ‘an upper class
conventional young woman in London’, and Trustafarian (chiefly
Brit.) ( trust + Rastafarian) ‘a wealthy young (white) person who
adopts aspects of the appearance and culture of Rastafarians’.

15 According to the OED, -adelic/-edelic (or -delic after a vowel or y) (

psychedelic) has become an English combining form obtaining adjectives with the
meaning ‘embodying the quality denoted or implied (by the first element) in a
psychedelic way’. Yet its productivity is debatable: first, it is attested in a small
number of formations (e.g. pimpadelic, scallydelic, etc.) which are mere
occasionalisms, and, second, it does not reinterpret psychedelic (secretion), but
simply abbreviates it, including its meaning in the new word (see Mattiello 2007b).
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 141

Sometimes slang blends have an acronym or an initialism as one

of the two members, thus originating mixed formations, as in
Amerikkka (orig. U.S.) ( G. Amerika ‘America’ + the initial
letters of Ku Klux Klan), buppie (orig. U.S.) ( black + yuppie),
guppie ( gay + yuppie) ‘a homosexual yuppie’, and guppie (
green + yuppie) ‘a yuppie concerned about the environment’.

3.2.11. Clipping
Clipping is a process which abbreviates a word to one of its parts.
The most common pattern is back-clipping, in which the beginning
of a base lexeme is retained (e.g. lab  laboratory). Other possible
patterns include fore-clipping, in which the final part of the word is
retained (e.g. phone  telephone), clippings in which the middle of
the word is retained (e.g. flu  influenza), and clipped compounds
(e.g. cablegram  cable telegram), which differ from partial
blends because their bases have a composite rather than
independent meaning (see § 3.2.11.3).
As many present-day English colloquialisms show, clipping is a
frequent process in familiar language (e.g. auto  automobile, bus
 omnibus, prof  professor).
It is also common in slang.16 In particular, it develops slang
terms of special private groups, in which an allusion is sufficient to
indicate the whole. For instance, American college students use frat
instead of fraternity, Oxford or Cambridge University students call
‘an officer’ prog, abbreviated from proggins or earlier proctor, pecs
is used among bodybuilders to refer to pectoral muscles, post is a
medicine slang term used in the place of post-mortem, prop is used
by criminals to refer to property (as in prop game, man, etc.), ump
stands for umpire in baseball slang, scorp and scram are military
slang terms for scorpion ‘a civil inhabitant of Gibraltar’ and
scramble ‘depart quickly’.
Semantically, clippings do not add any new information to the
original lexemes, but, pragmatically, they express a particular
attitude of the speaker and lower the stylistic level of discourse to

16 Partridge (1933, in the OED), for instance, observes that “slang delights to curtail
(clip, abbreviate, shorten) words” (see Jespersen 1942, Marchand 1969, Bauer 1983,
1988a for related positions).
142 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

less formal speech. This allows the standard word criminal and the
slang word crim to co-exist and select different registers.
From the morphological point of view, clippings are however
unpredictable, in the sense that, analysing their form, we cannot
determine how much of the base word has been deleted (cf. spec 
specialist vs. specification). Yet we can approximately determine
how much of it has been retained. Indeed, especially in back-
clippings (truncations), there seems to be a certain tendency to
shorten words at the end of the first (less frequently, second)
syllable, which normally carries stress. Hence, most clippings are
monosyllabic or disyllabic (e.g. schiz or schizo  schizophrenic)
(more in Plag 2003: 116-121).
On the other hand, length and stress are not helpful criteria to
explain the formation of fore-clippings, which are not necessarily
obtained by preserving the stressed syllable within a word, as gator
/e t/ from alligator /æl e t/ attests.

3.2.11.1. Back-clipping
Slang back-clippings are numerous. They are primarily shortenings
of nouns and adjectives: e.g., caff ( café), coke (orig. U.S.) (
cocaine), con (Criminals’) ( convict/conviction, but also abbrev.
of confidant, conformist, contract, conundrum), cred ( credit/
credibility), crim (U.S. and Austral.) ( criminal), ex-con ( ex-
convict), fave (orig. U.S.) ( favourite), Fed ( federalist) ‘a
federal official, esp. an FBI agent’, fla(d)ge ( flagellation), flip
( flippant), gen (orig. Services’) ( perh. abbrev. of general in
the official phrase for the general information of all ranks)
‘information, facts’, hyper (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ( hyperactive),
hypo ( hypodermic) ‘a hypodermic needle or injection’, klepto
( kleptomaniac), lat ( latrine), Merc ( Mercedes, now
Mercedes-Benz), Mex ( Mexican), mo (Austral. and N.Z.) (
moustache), narc/narco (U.S.) ( narcotic), Nip (orig. Military,
offens.) ( Nipponese) ‘a Japanese’, nitro ( nitroglycerine),
nuc/nuke ( nuclear), obs (chiefly Military) ( observation; cf.
obbo under suffix -o, § 3.2.3.20), Paki (orig. and chiefly Brit.) (
Pakistani), ped (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ( pedestrian), perp (U.S.)
( perpetrator), post ( postgraduate), pug ( pugilist), rehab
( rehabilitation), scally (chiefly Lancashire and Liverpool) (
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 143

scallywag) ‘a roguish, self-assured male (esp. from Liverpool)’, seg

(chiefly U.S.) ( segregation), skell (U.S.) ( skeleton) ‘in New
York, a homeless person or derelict’, sod (coarse) ( sodomite),
spec (orig. U.S.) ( speculation/spectacle), stipe/stip (
stipendiary), terr (Rhodesian) ( terrorist), tick ( ticket), toup
( toupee), tranq/trank ( tranquillizer), trog ( troglodyte) ‘a
lout, an obnoxious person’, vag (Austral. and N. Amer.) (
vagrancy/vagrant), vent (Theatrical) ( ventriloquist), vet (
veterinarian) ‘a doctor of medicine’.
A few shortenings are verbs (e.g. frat  fraternize, prep 
prepare, psych  psychoanalyse, veg  vegetate ‘pass the time in
mindless or vacuous inactivity, esp. by watching television’), or
interjections (lor  lord).
Some back-clippings, however, stand for words belonging to
different syntactic classes, with a consequent ambiguity or
vagueness of the derivatives. For instance, cert stands for the noun
certainty, but also for the adjective certain, dif/diff for difference or
different, fash for fashion or fashionable, glam for glamour,
glamorous and glamorize, homo for homosexual (n and adj),
(il)legit for (il)legitimate (n and adj), perv/perve for perversion,
pervert or perverted, psycho for psychopath or psychopathic, recon
(U.S., Military) for reconnaissance or reconnoitre, and sus/suss for
suspicion or suspicious, or for suspect (adj and v).
Some clippings may be exclusive shortenings of slang rather
than standard words, as in boob (orig. U.S.) ( booby) ‘a dull,
heavy, stupid fellow’, ‘a lock-up or cell’, dig (Austral. and N.Z.)
( digger) ‘an Australian or New Zealander’, fag (U.S.) (
faggot) ‘a (male) homosexual’, flim ( flimsy) ‘a bank-note’, griff
( griffin) ‘news; reliable information’, hood (orig. U.S.) (
hoodlum) ‘a youthful street rowdy’, hum ( humbug) ‘an
imposition, a hoax’, mack ( mackerel) ‘a procurer or procuress; a
pimp’, mech (N. Amer. and Austral.) ( mechanic) ‘a person who
cheats at gambling games, spec. cards’, mike ( microgram) ‘a
microgram of a drug, esp. LSD’ (cf. colloq. mike  microphone),
mob ( mobile) ‘the mob; the common people’, mog (Brit.) (
moggie/-y) ‘a cat’, mong (Austral.) ( mongrel) ‘a person of low or
indeterminate status’, mush ( mushroom) ‘an umbrella, from the
shape’, nig (derog. and offens.) ( nigger) ‘a dark-skinned person’,
144 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Pape (Sc. and Ir., derog.) ( papist) ‘a Roman Catholic’, peb

(Austral., now rare) ( pebble) ‘a tough or indomitable person or
animal’, pleb ( plebeian) ‘a new cadet at a military or naval
academy’, Pom/pom (Austral. and N.Z.) ( Pommy) ‘an immigrant
to Australia or New Zealand from Britain’, pro ( professional) ‘a
prostitute’, pud ( coarse pudding) ‘the penis’, rad (N. Amer.,
orig. Surfers’) ( radical) ‘remarkable; amazing’, razz (orig. U.S.)
( razzberry, altered from raspberry) ‘a refusal; a reprimand’, roz
( rozzer) ‘a policeman or detective’, sawn (Austral.) ( sawney)
‘a simpleton, fool’, scoot ( scooter) ‘a fast vehicle, esp. a train or
car’, simp (U.S.) ( simpleton) ‘a fool’, spaz/spas (with voiced /z/)
( spastic) ‘one who is uncoordinated or incompetent’, swizz
(chiefly Schoolchildren’s) ( swizzle) ‘a disappointment’, tab (
tablet) ‘a tablet or pill, spec. one containing an illicit drug’, tab (
tabby) ‘an (attractive) young woman or girl’.
Many slang back-clippings are now considered part of colloquial
language, due to their frequency in everyday use or among
members of the same group. They include, e.g., ag (chiefly N.
Amer.) ( agricultural), arb ( arbitrageur), bi ( bisexual, also
in bi-guy), brill ( brilliant), cat ( catalytic) ‘a catalytic
converter’, dis ( disconnected) ‘broken, not working’, divi. (
dividend), ex ( expense, always in pl., as exes), fab ( fabulous),
hash ( hashish), info ( information), Jag ( Jaguar, name of a
motor car), jock ( jockey), jolly ( jollification; cf. jollo under
suffix -o, § 3.2.3.20), ma ( mama), max (chiefly U.S.) (
maximum), merc ( mercenary) ‘a soldier paid to serve in a
foreign army’, meth ( methamphetamine/Methedrine), Metho
(Austral.) ( Methodist), mo ( moment), obit (orig. Journalistic)
( obituary), oke (orig. U.S.) ( okey), op ( operative/operator)
‘a detective; esp. a private investigator’, pen (N. Amer.) (
penitentiary), pep (orig. U.S.) ( pepper) ‘energy and high spirits;
liveliness’, phenom ( phenomenon), phy (chiefly Brit.) (
Physeptone) ‘the drug methadone’, pi (dated) ( pious), plute
(chiefly U.S.) ( plutocrat), pol (N. Amer.) ( politician), preg
(orig. U.S.) ( pregnant), prog ( progressive/programme),
pros/pross ( prostitute), Prot (chiefly Ir.) ( Protestant), rec (
recreation), seg (U.S.) ( segregationist), sov ( sovereign), spec
( speculative), specs ( spectacles), speedo ( speedometer),
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 145

stew (U.S.) ( stewardess), stupe ( stupid), teach ( teacher),

thou ( thousand), trat/tratt ( trattoria), Uni/Univ (chiefly
Austral. and N.Z.) ( University), ute (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.)
( utility) ‘a utility vehicle’, vis (orig. Military) ( visibility),
Yank ( Yankee).
A very unusual type of slang back-clipping preserves only the
first letter of the base word, with a certain similarity with the word-
formation pattern of acronyms and initialisms. This type is
illustrated by b/B ( bugger/bastard), D. ( detective),17 E (
ecstasy), G. (U.S.) ( grand) ‘a thousand dollars’, H. ( heroin),
K ( ketamine; cf. Special K, a punning after a proprietary name
for a breakfast cereal), and, in combination with a full word, by big
C ( cancer) and big E (Brit.) ‘a personal rejection or rebuff’,
abbreviated from elbow.
Slang back-clippings may shorten initialisms to their first
abbreviated letter, as in W obtained from W.C. ( water-closet) and
Y (chiefly U.S.), from the well-known initialism YMCA ( Young
Men’s Christian Association). They may also shorten reduplicative
formations, as in fud (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ( rhym. reduplicative
fuddy-duddy) ‘an old-fashioned person’, and heebies (orig. U.S.) (
heebie-jeebies) ‘a state of nervous depression or anxiety’.
3.2.11.2. Fore-clipping and other marginal cases of clipping
Fore-clippings are far less numerous in slang. Examples are mostly
nouns: e.g., gator (orig. U.S.) ( alligator), loid (Criminals’) (
celluloid), Nam ( Vietnam), nana ( banana) ‘a foolish or silly
person’, Scouse ( lobscouse) ‘a native or inhabitant of Liverpool’,
tache/tash ( moustache), Tab (University) ( Cantab) ‘a
member of the University of Cambridge’, tato ( potato), Ville (
Pentonville, a Prison in London), za (U.S.) ( pizza). But there are
also verbs (e.g. niff chiefly Brit.  sniff).
The middle of the word is retained in slang script (orig. U.S.)
( prescription, esp. one for narcotic drugs) and tec ( detective).
A small group of (essentially back-)clippings not only
abbreviate the original word but also alter its spelling. Yet they are

17 Cf. the drug name D ( Death) in A Scanner Darkly (2006) and D ( LSD) in
Dalzell & Victor (eds) (2007a).
146 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

not proper altered forms (see alteration in § 3.2.14.5), since they do

not vary in pronunciation. They include chizz /t z/ ( chisel
/t zl/), Jeez/Jese/Jez or Geez/Geeze /d(iz/ ( Jesus /d(izs/),
jelly /d(el / ( gelignite /d(el na t/), mensh/mench /men / (
mention /men n/), natch /næt / (U.S.) ( natural /næt rl/),
noov/noove /nuv/ (Brit.) ( F. nouveau riche /nuv ri /; cf.
clipped compounds in § 3.2.11.3 below), nuff /nf/ (orig. U.S.) (
enough / nf/), ork /!k/ (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ( orchestra
/!k str/), pash /pæ / ( passion /pæ n/), phiz /f z/ (now arch.)
( physiognomy /f z  nm /), profesh /prfe / ( profession
/prfe n/), sesh /se / (orig. Services’) ( session /se n/), sheen
/ in/ (U.S.) ( machine /m in/) ‘a car’, and siff /s f/ ( syphilis
/s f l s/; cf. syph).

3.2.11.3. Clipped compounds

Slang clipped compounds (called “clipping-compounds” by Marchand
1969: 445) reduce a compound to one of its parts. They are kept
separate from the usual patterns of clippings because, like blends,
they are made up of two or more bases. Nevertheless, at the same
time they differ from blends because, while in blends the bases
have an autonomous sense, in clipped compounds they were
originally compound members, with a composite meaning. Hence,
motel ( motor + hotel) is a blend, while pulmotor ( pulmonary
motor) is a clipped compound. Furthermore, clipped compounds
differ from prototypical blends (but not from partial blends)
because one of their bases may remain intact.
Slang clipped compounds with the first element intact are after
( afternoon), common ( common sense), fag ( fag-end) ‘the
end of a cigarette’, hard ( hard labour), jock (N. Amer.) ( jock-
strap) ‘an athletic man’, moon (U.S.) ( moonshine) ‘illicitly
distilled liquor’, mother (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ( coarse
motherfucker) ‘an obnoxious or contemptible person’, natural (
natural life), pay (Navy) ( paymaster) ‘an official responsible for
dispensing pay, settling debts, etc.’, skin (U.S.) ( skinflint) ‘one
who would skin a flint to save or gain something’, or (Brit.) (
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 147

skinhead) ‘a youth (often one of a gang)’, and speak ( speakeasy)

‘a shop or bar where alcoholic liquor is sold illegally’.
The previous pattern with part of the second element retained is
found in street cred ( street credibility) ‘familiarity with
contemporary trends, fashions, social issues, etc.’, and Wingco
(R.A.F.) ( Wing Commander).
The compound may be reduced to a part of the first element, as
in artic ( articulated lorry), choco (Austral.) ( chocolate
soldier) ‘a militiaman or conscripted soldier’, lat (orig.
Bodybuilding) ( latissimus dorsi), mutt ( mutton-head) ‘an
incompetent, a fool’, oppo (orig. Services’) ( opposite number) ‘a
partner, a counterpart’, peck (U.S., Black E.) ( peckerwood) ‘a
white person regarded as poor’, sub ( subsistence money) ‘an
advance of money’, torp ( torpedo juice) ‘intoxicating liquor
extracted from torpedo fuel’. Some such abbreviated compounds
also involve conversion: adj
n, as in feeb (U.S.) ( feeble-
minded) ‘a feeble-minded person’, or n
v, as in frag (U.S.,
Military) ( fragmentation grenade) ‘throw a fragmentation
grenade at one’s superior officer’.
Clipped compounds with the second element intact are less
numerous, as the following examples show: bin ( loony bin) ‘a
mental hospital’, Groper (Austral.) ( sand groper) ‘a jocular
appellation for a native West Australian’, jug (orig. U.S.) ( stone-
jug) ‘a prison, jail’, Kraut ( Sauerkraut) ‘a German’, pike (chiefly
N. Amer.) ( turnpike) ‘a road on which a toll is collected at a toll
gate’, twenty (orig. and chiefly U.S., Citizens’ Band Radio) ( 10-
20) ‘one’s location or position’ (cf. ten-four/10-4 ‘message
received’). With a shortened second element we have only shrink
(orig. U.S.) ( head-shrinker) ‘a psychiatrist’.
The pattern with two shortened elements is particularly frequent
when the beginning of both elements is retained, as in des res (
desirable residence), Mespot (chiefly Military, now arch.) (
Mesopotamia), misper (Brit., chiefly Police) ( missing person),
rigmo ( rigor mortis), slomo (Cinematography, chiefly U.S.) (
slow motion), spag bol ( spaghetti Bolognese), sysop (orig. U.S.,
Computing) ( system operator; cf. acronymic wop § 3.2.9).
148 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Less recurrent patterns are found in B-girl (U.S.) ( bar-girl),

greycing, from the three-member compound greyhound racing, and
shouse (Austral.) ‘a privy’, syncopated form of shit-house.

3.2.12. Elliptic rhyming slang

Wilson: I’m gonna ’ave a butcher’s round the house.
Ed Roel: Who you gonna butcher?
Wilson: Butcher’s hook… look.
(The Limey 1999, emphasis added)

Many rhyming slang formations are no longer used in their full form,
but rather as elliptic forms which often drop the final element (see
Kermas 2005: 134-135). For instance, in everyday conversation, the
full form butcher’s hook, rhyming slang for ‘look’, is often reduced
to its elliptic counterpart butcher’s, as in the above quote. The main
consequence of such an ellipsis is loss of rhyme, and therefore of
iconicity between onset (hook) and outset (the rhyming referent
‘look’). Another consequence of elliptic forms is ambiguity, since
the same form may correspond to more than one referent, as in
apples, which is obtained both from apple(s) and pears (rhym.
slang for ‘stairs’) and, in Australian, from apples and rice/spice (for
‘nice’). Therefore, only after contextualizing the elliptic form may
we distinguish the noun (as in up the apples ‘the stairs’) from the
adjective (as in she’s apples ‘nice’).
Since back-clipping is more widespread than the other clipping
patterns, elliptic forms which drop the rhyming element are the
most common, as the following examples demonstrate: barnet (
Barnet fair rhym. slang for ‘hair’) ‘the head’, boat ( boat-race)
‘face’, brass ( brass nail for ‘tail’) ‘a prostitute’, Bristols (
Bristol Cities for ‘titties’) ‘the breasts’, China ( china plate)
‘mate’, flowery ( flowery dell) ‘cell’, grumble ( grumble and
grunt for ‘cunt’) ‘women regarded as objects of sexual attraction’,
Hampsteads ( Hampstead Heath) ‘teeth’, iron ( iron hoof for
‘poof’) ‘a homosexual’, Khyber ( Khyber Pass) ‘arse’, lakes (
Lakes of Killarney for ‘barmy’) ‘mad, crazy’, mince ( mince-pie,
usu. in pl.) ‘eye’, Moreton Bay (chiefly Austral.) ( Moreton Bay
fig for ‘fizgig’) ‘an informer’, oscar (Austral. and N.Z.) ( Oscar
Asche, the Australian actor) ‘cash’, Pat (chiefly Austral.) ( Pat
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 149

Malone) ‘own’, plates ( plates of meat) ‘feet’ (cf. the full form
plate of meat for ‘a street’), potato (Austral.) ( potato peeler for
‘sheila’) ‘a girl or woman’, rabbit ( rabbit-and-pork) ‘talk’ (n
and v), Richard ( Richard the Third for ‘bird’) ‘a girl or woman’,
Sweeney ( Sweeney Todd for ‘Flying Squad’) ‘a member of the
Flying Squad’, tod ( Tod Sloan) ‘own’ (in on one’s tod ‘alone’),
turtle ( turtle-dove) ‘a glove’, twist (chiefly U.S., often derog.)
( twist-and-twirl) ‘a girl’.
Ambiguous elliptic forms belonging to the above pattern include
Jack ( Jack Jones for ‘alone’, or Jack’s alive for ‘five’) and
Jimmy ( Jimmy O’Goblin for ‘sovereign’, or Jimmy Riddle for
‘piddle’), whereas the following forms have two different senses
which developed from the same phrase: loaf ( loaf of bread for
‘dead’ or ‘head’), raspberry ( raspberry tart for ‘the heart’ or ‘a
‘fart’’), Rory ( Rory O’More for ‘the floor’ or ‘a door’).
When the full form is a single word, it may be reduced to its
initial part, as in amster (or ampster with intrusive p) (Austral.) (
Amsterdam for ‘ram’) ‘a trickster’s accomplice’, nav ( navigator
for ‘tater’) ‘a potato’, tiddly ( tiddlywink) ‘a drink’, tom (
tomfoolery) ‘jewellery’.
The elliptic form may undergo a slight change in spelling
compared with the full phrase, as in chiv(v)y ( Chevy Chase) ‘the
face’. It may also be contracted, as in titfa/titfer/titfor ( tit for tat)
‘a hat’, esp. with a possessive case becoming a sort of -s suffix
(cobblers  cobbler’s awls for ‘balls’, elephants  elephant’s
trunk for ‘drunk’), or it may exhibit a familiarizing suffix, as in
porky ( pork pie) ‘a lie’, rammies (Austral. and S. Afr.) (
round-the-houses) ‘trousers’, rubbedy/rubberdy/rubbidy (Austral.)
( rub-a-dub) ‘pub’.
The second member is rarely kept in abbreviated rhyming slang.
An example would be kelly ( Derby/Darby Kelly) ‘belly’.

3.2.13. Reversed forms

Reversed forms in slang may appear similar to cases of semordnilap.
This latter is a term coined in recent years (from a reverse spelling of
palindromes) to refer to words and phrases which make sense when
read backwards: e.g., the term live is a semordnilap of evil.
However, unlike semordnilap, which has a different meaning from
150 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

when it is read forwards, in slang the word obtained is created on

purpose, and is only a different connoted variant of the original
word. Hence, yob was initially used in the sense of ‘a boy, a youth’,
but, in modern use, it has also taken on the derogatory sense of ‘a
lout, a hooligan’.
Slang reversed forms are typical of back-slang, i.e. “a kind of
slang in which every word is pronounced backwards; as ynnep for
penny” (OED; cf. French verlan in Méla 1991). Back-slang words
primarily belong to the language of criminals and are especially
used for reasons of secrecy: e.g. neves /nev s/ for seven ‘a prison
sentence of seven years’, and rouf /r f/ for four ‘four shillings or
pounds; a four-year prison sentence’.

3.2.14. Variation
By ‘variation’ I mean the slang formation mechanism which
modifies a word base by varying (part of) its spelling. It is an
umbrella term for different processes, viz. analogy (e.g.
Bananaland  Queensland), malapropism (e.g. basket  bastard),
metathesis (e.g. prad  Dutch paard), letter pronunciation (e.g. gee
 the initial letter of guy), alteration (e.g. Canuck  Canada),
extension (e.g. nope  no), and, sometimes, their combination (e.g.
jeepers, altered and extended from Jesus). The difference between
malapropism and alteration is that the former relies on existing words
(basket is an autonomous word of English), whereas the latter does
not (Canuck does not correspond to any standard English word).
Variation covers a range of processes that are not merely
morphological, but also pertain to the phonological system of English
(hence “marginal” in morphology, Dressler 2000). For instance, letter
pronunciation is based on the pronunciation of word letters, which
are reproduced at the written level, as in Beeb ( B.B.C.). Alteration
likewise reproduces dialect variants of words (as in loverly, from a
Cockney pronunciation of lovely), or contractions which are made in
spoken English (as in wotcher  what cheer?), or otherwise
reinterprets borrowings from foreign languages (as in vamoose  Sp.
Vamos). But let us now explore each process.
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 151

3.2.14.1. Analogical formation

Analogical formation refers to the creation of a new word using
constructive processes which resemble existing ones. Such
formations are often humorous, as in Bananaland (Austral.) (after
and to designate Queensland), glitterati (orig. U.S.) ( glitter, after
literati) ‘the celebrities or ‘glittering’ stars of fashionable society’,
humongous (orig. U.S.) (after hugeous and monstrous) ‘extremely
large, huge’, jigaboo (U.S., coarse) ( jig, after bugaboo) ‘a Black
person’, Jixi (dated) ( Jix, nickname of Joynson-Hicks, after taxi)
‘a two-seated taxi-cab licensed in 1926’, neatnik (chiefly N. Amer.)
(after beatnik) ‘a person who is (excessively) neat in personal
habits’, orthopod (Medicine) ( orthopaedic, after taxonomic
words in -pod ‘foot’, such as epipod) ‘an orthopaedic surgeon’,
prex (U.S., now rare) ( president with subsequent alteration after
rex ‘a king’), Randlord (after landlord) ‘the owner or manager of a
gold-mine on the Rand in South Africa’, squillionaire/zillionaire ‘a
multimillionaire’, from two altered bases (squillion/zillion), after
millionaire (see § 3.2.14.5).

3.2.14.2. Malapropism
Malapropism is the ludicrous and often deliberate misuse of words,
esp. in mistaking a word for another resembling it (cf. folk
etymology in Aronoff & Fudeman 2005). Some English slang
examples are basket (euphem.) ( bastard), dick ( detective),
Jumble ( John Bull) ‘a Black man’s nickname for a white man’,
me-and-you, a facetious adaptation of colloquial pronunciation
/minju/ of menu, pencil ( penis), and jocular shampoo (
champagne), trick cyclist ( psychiatrist). The word to be adapted
may be one of foreign origin, as in matlow/matlo (Nautical) ( F.
matelot) ‘a sailor’ and olive oil ( F. au revoir) ‘good-bye’.
The new word is a fictitious personal name or a name of place in
Adam (orig. U.S.) ( MDMA), (sweet) Fanny Adams ( (sweet)
fuck all) ‘nothing at all’, Gordon Bennett ( Gor blimey), jake
(orig. U.S.) ( Jamaica ginger) ‘an alcoholic beverage made from
Jamaica ginger’, Jerry (orig. Military) ( German), Maggie Ann
(Brit., Army) ( margarine), Mary Ann/J/Jane or Mary Warner
( marijuana) ‘marijuana; a marijuana cigarette’, Pompey (
Portsmouth) ‘Portsmouth (Football Club)’, Sam Hill (N. Amer.) (
152 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Hell), toc emma (Military) ( T.M., an initialism from trench

mortar), Victor Charlie (U.S., Services’) ( Viet Cong) ‘a Vietcong
soldier’. Such formations usually have a euphemistic character (e.g.
Fanny Adams, Gordon Bennett), or they are used for cryptic
reasons (e.g. Adam, Mary Ann and other drug names).
3.2.14.3. Metathesis
Metathesis is the process that transposes sounds or letters in a word,
or, occasionally, whole words or syllables. Some examples are prad
(now chiefly Austral.) ( Dutch paard) ‘a horse’, rass (Jamaican,
coarse) ( arse), and yok (derog.) ( Yiddish goy, with unvoicing
of the final consonant) ‘a pejorative Jewish term for a non-Jew’.
3.2.14.4. Letter pronunciation
Letter pronunciation is the process which reproduces the pronunciation
of the initial letters of a word to represent the whole word, as in eff (
fuck), gee (U.S.) ( guy), key (U.S.) ( kilo) ‘a kilogram of a drug’,
pee ( v piss) ‘urinate’ (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 1582).
This process is common after abbreviation. For instance, it
occurs after initialisms (e.g. Beeb  B.B.C. ‘British Broadcasting
Corporation’, veejay  V.J. ‘video jockey’, by analogy with D.J.,
veep  V.P. ‘vice-president’), acronymic formation (e.g. okay/okey
 O.K. ‘oll/orl korrect’, also reversed as kayo), or clippings (e.g.
dee  D ‘detective’).
3.2.14.5. Alteration
Alteration is the respelling of a word, whereby a novel item which
alliterates or rhymes with it is formed. Slang amply instances this type
of variation process: e.g., Canuck ( Canada) ‘a Canadian; spec. a
French Canadian’, Chink (derog.) ( China) ‘a Chinaman’, clobber
( clothes), crickey/cricky/crikey ( Christ) ‘an exclamation of
astonishment’, cripes ( Christ, in the exclamation (by) cripes!), def
(orig. U.S.) ( death) ‘excellent; fashionable’, dodger (Austral.) (
snodger ‘excellent’) ‘good, excellent’, doozy/-ie (orig. and chiefly N.
Amer.) ( daisy) ‘remarkable; amazing’, flick ( film) ‘a film’, pl.
‘the cinema’, git ( get ‘a fool, idiot’) ‘a worthless person’,
Gorblimy/-ey ( God blind me!), grift (U.S.) ( graft) ‘the
obtaining of profit or advantage by dishonest means’, groise (Public
School) ( grease) ‘a hard worker, a swot’ (also v), hep (orig. U.S.)
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 153

( hip ‘fully informed or aware’) ‘well-informed, knowledgeable’,

innards ( inwards) ‘intestines’, jiggered ( buggered) ‘used in
mild oaths’, juggins (dated) ( muggins) ‘a fool, simpleton’, lawk
( lack/lord) ‘Lord!’, leaf/leef (Services’) ( leave) ‘leave of
absence, furlough’, lummy ( (Lord) love me, via lumme), luvvy
(Brit.) ( lovey) ‘an actor or actress’, mush ( mouth), nerts (orig.
and chiefly U.S.) ( nuts), nurd ( nerd) ‘an insignificant or
socially inept person’, pecker (chiefly U.S.) or pego ( penis), pod
( pot) ‘marijuana’, rookie ( recruit) ‘a raw recruit’, ruddy (
bloody) ‘damnable, blasted’, scarf (U.S.) ( scoff) ‘food’, shov(v)er
( chauffeur), smack (orig. U.S.) ( Yiddish schmeck) ‘a drug, esp.
heroin’, squillion/zillion ( million) ‘a very large number of
millions’, tarnation (chiefly U.S.) ( damnation), tits ( teat) ‘a
woman’s breasts’.
Alteration is often accompanied by shortening of the base or
contraction, e.g. of a phrase or composite word: e.g., chutty/chuddy
(Austral. and N.Z.) ( chewing gum), frosh (N. Amer.) ( freshman),
gaffer ( godfather) ‘a foreman or boss’, grody (U.S.) ( grotesque)
‘disgusting, revolting’, guv ( governor) ‘used as a term of address to
a man’, jaundy/jaunty (Nautical) ( gendarme) ‘the master-at-arms on
board ship’, klick (orig. U.S., Army) ( kilometre), kook ( cuckoo)
‘a cranky or crazy person’, moffie (S. Afr.) ( hermaphrodite) ‘a male
transvestite’, nabe ( neighbourhood), preem (orig. and chiefly U.S.)
( F. première) ‘a first showing or performance, esp. of a film’, Prod
(chiefly Ir. and Sc., derog.) ( Protestant), recce/recco (Military) (
reconnaissance), skeeter (chiefly U.S. and Austral.) ( mosquito), sob
( sovereign; cf. sov) ‘a pound’, strides ( trousers), wotcher (
what cheer?) ‘a familiar greeting’.
The altered form often represents a colloquial, dialect, regional or
standard word pronunciation, as in Jock ‘a Scottish sailor; any
Scotsman’, representing the Scotch equivalent of Jack, ho /h /
(chiefly U.S.) ‘a sexually promiscuous woman’, reflecting a
pronunciation of whore /h!r/ frequent in African-American usage, larn
‘teach; give (a person) a lesson’, from a dialect form of learn,
loverly/lovally, from a Cockney pronunciation of lovely, meeja (chiefly
Brit.) ‘the mass media’, from a colloquial pronunciation of media,
missus (regional) ‘a wife’ or ‘used as a form of address to any woman’,
154 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

representing a spoken form of the abbreviation Mrs, nah (Brit.),

representing a colloquial pronunciation of no/now, nigra /n r/ ‘a
Black person’, from a colloquial Southern U.S. pronunciation of
Negro, plurry (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.), from an Australian
pronunciation of bloody, polis (Sc. and Ir.), from a regional
pronunciation of police, sez from says, vulg. shaddup from shut up!,
Taffy ‘a Welshman’, from a supposed Welsh pronunciation of the
name David, zac (Austral.) ‘a sixpence’, from Scottish dialect
saxpence.
The altered form is an adaptation of a foreign word in au
reservoir ( F. au revoir), johndarm ( F. gendarme) ‘a
policeman’, kaput ( G. kaputt) ‘finished; dead or destroyed’, nix
( G. and Dutch nichts) ‘nothing’, O.D.V. ( F. eau-de-vie)
‘brandy’, omee/omie (Polari slang) ( It. uomo ‘man’) ‘a landlord;
a man’, potzer (Chess) ( G. Patzer ‘inveterate bungler’) ‘a poor
player, a novice’, san fairy ann ( F. ça ne fait rien ‘it doesn’t
matter’) ‘an expression of indifference or resigned acceptance’,
scarper ( It. scappare ‘escape’) ‘depart quickly’, simoleon (U.S.)
( F. napoleon ‘a French coin’) ‘a dollar’, swy (Austral.) ( G.
zwei ‘two’) ‘a two-shilling coin or a two-year prison sentence’, trey
( Anglo-Norman trei, F. trois, Sp. tres, It. tre) ‘three’, vamoose
(orig. and chiefly U.S.) ( Sp. vamos ‘let us go’) ‘depart’.
3.2.14.6. Extension
Extension designates the addition of one or more syllables to a word,
which do not correspond to any existing suffix. Examples of possible
slang extensions are -bie/-bee/-by (as in freebie/freebee/freeby  free)
and -pe (as in nope  no; cf. yep). Extensions with previously
modified bases are found in jazzbo/jasbo ( Jasper) ‘a person;
spec. a Black person’, and jeepers (orig. U.S.) ( Jesus) ‘a mild
expression of surprise, delight, etc.’, but the latter cases remind us
of the respective suffixes -o and -ers illustrated in sections 3.2.3.20
and 3.2.3.7.

3.2.15. Word manufacture and fanciful formations

“Word manufacture” (a term used by Bauer 1983: 239, after
Marchand’s 1969: 452 “word-manufacturing”) consists in creating
words ex nihilo, with no morphological motivation, as in Kodak, an
3. Grammatical and Extra-grammatical Morphology 155

arbitrary word invented by Mr. G. Eastman for trade-mark

purposes. In ordinary English, this process is commonly used in the
formation of brand names and scientific words. A slang example
illustrating this process is scag/skag (U.S.) ‘a cigarette (stub)’,
‘heroin’, which is neither an acronym nor a blend, but a term of
unknown origin.
The origin of fanciful formations is likewise unknown. They
have no recognizable base, in fact, but a fantastic odd shape, which
mostly reproduces a blurred indistinct meaning, as in Amer. whang-
doodle denoting ‘something unspecified’. Fanciful formations are
mainly nouns: e.g., lallapaloosa (U.S.) ‘something outstandingly
good of its kind’, skeezicks (U.S., dated) ‘a good-for-nothing’,
slumgullion (chiefly U.S.) ‘muddy deposit in a mining sluice’,
spondulicks (orig. U.S.) ‘money, cash’, whifflow (Nautical) ‘an
unnamed gadget’. But some such formations may also belong to a
different syntactic category, such as verbs (e.g. skedaddle ‘go away
or depart hurriedly’), or adverbs (e.g. lickety-split ‘at full speed’).

3.3. Conclusion

This investigation on slang word-formation mechanisms and patterns

has confirmed my expectations about the grammaticality of the
phenomenon. On the one hand, some slang formations appear to
exploit and re-activate many canonical derivational and compounding
patterns of standard English. They can be assigned to conventional
morphological rules and conform to many of the universal preferences
on naturalness parameters established within NM (Dressler 2005). On
the other hand, many slang formations expand the potential of word-
formation means, developing new patterns that exhibit various
violations of basic properties of morphological grammar and fail to
correspond to many of the parameters on which traditional
derivation and compounding are based, becoming less preferred
choices within NM.
In defence of my claims we have explored the preferential suffixes
of slang (i.e. -ie/-y, Brit. -er/-ers, rarely -ock, Amer. -eroo/-aroo,
Austral. -o), with a familiarizing rather than derivational function. Such
suffixes are in fact used to convey morphopragmatic meanings (see
156 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Dressler & Merlini Barbaresi 1994, 1997). We have also seen

slang expletive infixes (e.g. -bally-, -blessed-, -bloody-,-blooming-
and -fuckin(g)-), used for additional emphasis, and a set of
abbreviatory operations (acronyms, initialisms, blending, clipping,
elliptic rhyming slang) and other extra-grammatical mechanisms
(reversed forms, variation) which create colloquial or in-group
variants, but no new words.
In relation to the structural properties of slang formations, the
patterns so far observed seem to validate the various generalizations
made on the extra-grammaticality of slang (see § 3.1.2). For example,
the variability of the base category and of the derivatives/compounds
is abundantly confirmed, and it is in fact much larger than admitted
for standard English. Virtually all grammatical classes of words
(including particles, proper names and interjections) can be bases of
slang formations, and a majority can be outputs. Aronoff’s (1976)
Unitary Base Hypothesis is clearly contradicted by this “promiscuity
with regard to input category” (Zwicky & Pullum 1987: 336; cf. Plag
2004), and so is Scalise’s (1988) Unitary Output Hypothesis.
Furthermore, slang provides exceptions to the Word-based
Hypothesis (Bauer 1979), due to the irregularity of the bases, which
are often smaller (abbreviated), or larger (combined or inflected)
word forms rather than autonomous words, with a consequent
morphotactic opacity and obstruction for the output perception or
interpretation.
These irregularities are counterbalanced by slang uniformity in
functions and effects, which are mostly familiarity or intimacy, if
not irony, sarcastic opposition, or exclusion. My conviction is
indeed that slang uses new morphological patterns – patterns which
I have tried to categorize, since they represented descriptive gaps in
morphology (cf. Bauer 1988b) – to serve a cryptic function. Newly
coined words formed by means of unproductive irregular
morphological mechanisms obstruct ease of perception, and
therefore word access to outsiders (see Aronoff & Anshen 1998).
They are therefore deliberately used by speakers to stop people
other than in-group members from understanding their private
speech.
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization

It has been stated over and over again that slang, much more so than
other language variants, has a tendency towards the creation of a
lexicon of its own. (Sornig 1981: 22)

4.1. The slang lexicon: hypotheses and aims

The main aim of this chapter is to establish whether the slang

lexicon organizes conceptual material in accordance with the
factors and dimensions of the lexicon of standard English, and can
hence be viewed as one of its sub-systems, rather than an
autonomous dynamical system, with its own internal organization,
or, more plausibly, disorganization.
My investigation therefore aims to determine whether the slang
lexical system exhibits a certain regularity (in terms of schemata,
regular patterns, rules, structures, etc. which act as constraints for
the system behaviour), or whether there is no rational logic that can
predict the system dynamics. After a closer investigation on this
topic, I would like to give an answer to the following questions:
 Is there any organization within the slang lexicon?
 If so, is this organization the same as found in standard
English? Or is it rather an independent self-regulating
organization?
 If not, what else?
158 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

I can anticipate that no generalizations are possible for the whole

slang lexicon, but tendencies can be identified within specific areas
of slang and for certain slang terms.
My core hypothesis is that slang refuses the standard
organization, and either develops a different one, with its own
forms, dimensions and interactions among the system components,
or substitutes it with disorganization, showing a tendency towards
randomness and unpredictability.
A finer-grained analysis is in order now.

4.2. Lexical organization

The key question from which my research starts is ‘How are words,
meanings and concepts organized within the slang lexicon?’.
Semantic theories develop various approaches to meaning
description and lexical organization. Two approaches which appear
particularly relevant to our semantic description view the lexicon as
structured into either semantic fields or conceptual frames. Within
semantic field theories (e.g. Grandy 1992, Kittay 1992), words
applicable to a common conceptual domain are organized within
semantic fields by paradigmatic relationships (synonymy, antonymy,
hyponymy, meronymy, etc.), called ‘meaning (or sense) relations’.
Meaning relations connect members of selected sets of lexical
items: e.g., the names of the days of the week (Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, etc.) can be defined by means of the ‘part of’
relationship (meronymy) that they hold to the word naming the
entire cycle of seven days, i.e. week.
By contrast, within frame semantics (Fillmore 1985, Fillmore &
Atkins 1992), words are not related to each other directly, but by
way of their links to common background frames (also called
‘domains’ or ‘knowledge schemata’). That is, in a frame-based
description, the above terms would be related to the more complete
system of Calendric Terms, including common nouns (day, week),
as well as the names of the days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
etc.), special categories such as fortnight and week-end, and wider
categories (month, year).
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 159

Barsalou (1992) provides a further development of the fillmorean

notion of frame as consisting of attribute-value sets, structural
invariants and constraints. In his view, frames are not rigid
configurations of independent attributes, but they are rather dynamic
relational structures whose form is flexible and context-dependent.
In line with Barsalou’s (1992) model, Bertuccelli Papi & Lenci
(2007) describe the frame as a dynamic structure whose format is the
emerging result of external pressures, not built in relation to some
pre-established intention, but rather resulting from the interplay of
different sorts of constraints, both intra-linguistic (syntactic,
morphological, textual) and extra-linguistic (encyclopedic knowledge,
contextual input, cognition).
In Bertuccelli Papi & Lenci’s (2007) approach, organization
therefore entails the existence of redundancies, i.e. schemata, regular
patterns and rules that act as constraints for the system behaviour,
allowing us to capture the spectrum of word meaning modulations,
and to reduce the amount of information necessary to describe the
system itself:
Organization enables the system to stay away from total randomness,
makes some states impossible or highly improbable given certain
constraints, and reduces the overall complexity of the system.
(Bertuccelli Papi & Lenci 2007: 18)

Let us now investigate whether the slang lexical system accepts this
type of structural organization, and, if so, whether its behaviour is
in any way predictable and describable in terms of established
meaning relations and regular patterns.

4.2.1. Organization via meaning relations

Within an organized lexical area, each lexeme (or micro-system)
can be first of all described in terms of its relations with the other
system components. Moving from Croft & Cruse (2004), the
primary paradigmatic relations that I have found useful for my
research include:
 Relation of identity, similarity or synonymy (X equals Y, as
in happy = glad);
160 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

 Relation of opposition or exclusion (X is the opposite of Y),

in which X and Y may be:
• Simple antonyms or complementaries, bisecting a domain
into two subdomains (dead/alive, girl/boy);
• Gradable antonyms, denoting different degrees of some
property (long/short, good/bad);
• Reversives or directional opposites, denoting changes in
opposite directions (rise/fall, up/down);
• Converses: describing a relation between two entities from
alternative viewpoints (employer/employee, parent/child);
 Relation of inclusion: hyponymy (X is a kind of/type of Y, as
in daffodil > flower), and meronymy or partonymy (X is a
part of Y, as in arm > body).
4.2.1.1. Synonymy
Synonymy is a relation of affinity which links two phonologically
different words having a very similar meaning. In English slang
synonymy is a profuse phenomenon. Consider, for instance,
examples (21)-(24), all drawn from BNC:

21. Heroin (smack, horse, H, Chinese – when combined with

cocaine it is called a snowball). May be sniffed, or burned
and then inhaled (chasing the dragon) or injected.
22. Cocaine (coke, snow, freebase, crack). Psychologically
addictive.
23. LSD (acid, trips, blotters, blue, smileys). A powerful
hallucinogen. Few try it more than once.
24. From left to right: amphetamines (or speed); cannabis
(grass, marijuana or pot); hashish resin (which is derived
from the Indian hemp plant like cannabis) and ecstasy tabs.

Following Lyons (1977), the meaning of an expression (sense) is a

property of language, and is not to be equated with the object or
concept the expression may be used by speakers to refer to
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 161

(reference): i.e., the Morning Star and the Evening Star have
different meanings (senses) but both refer to the planet Venus.
Similarly, the slang expressions smack and horse have different
senses, but both refer to heroin, i.e. denote heroin in the real world.1
Extracts (21)-(24) above show that each standard drug name (i.e.
amphetamines, cannabis, cocaine, heroin, LSD) corresponds to a
set of slang terms. For instance, heroin is called Chinese, H, horse
or smack by drug addicts, cocaine is often referred to as coke,
freebase or snow,2 and cannabis as grass or pot. Such slang terms
can be considered exact, absolute or perfect synonyms because they
have the same referent in the real word, belong to the same
syntactic category, and are therefore mutually substitutable, or,
more precisely, they are interchangeably used in drug addicts’
conversations.3 On the other hand, they are not exact synonyms to
the comparable standard English words. Cf.:

25. Tests were being carried out on suspected drugs thought to

include heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, LSD and cannabis. (BNC)

In effect, none of the standard drug names in (25) can be substituted by

a slang co-referent without making the sentence appear anomalous, as
in Tests were being carried out on suspected drugs thought to include
heroin, ecstasy, *snow, LSD and cannabis.4
Nor are the afore-mentioned slang terms exact synonyms for
other slang words used in a different context, which may highlight
different shades of meaning. For example, junk, a slang word
referring to drugs in general or heroin in particular, assumes
negative connotations which are not present in H or smack, and it is
in fact used by non-addicts, as in (26):

1 Lyons (1977: 207) defines the denotation of a lexeme as “the relationship that
holds between that lexeme and persons, things, places, properties, processes and
activities external to the language-system”.
2 See hyponymy (§ 4.2.1.3) for crack.
3 According to Lyons (1977: 202), two expressions are fully synonymous over a
certain range of utterances iff “they are substitutable in the utterances without
affecting their descriptive meaning”.
4 With regard to this, Partridge (1947: 289) claims that “most slang words are
unconventional synonyms of conventional words”.
162 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

26. ‘It’s an article on junk,’ he said. ‘Junk?’ ‘Drugs. It’s for the
features department.’ (BNC)

Synonymy in slang is a rather intricate sense relation, and many

factors may enter at play when establishing whether or not two
slang words are totally synonymous. For instance, the geographical
collocation or the origin of the words under examination may
determine their perfect (vs. partial, near or quasi) synonymy. In
fact, two different regional variants are not mutually substitutable.
Compare furphy with scuttlebutt in (27)-(28) below:

27. The persistent rumour that they were introduced to check

ragwort is a furphy. (OED)
28. The scuttlebutt says their contracts were not yet signed and
that the pair were holding out for better terms and conditions.
(BNC)

Both terms have the same meaning/referent – i.e. ‘a false report or

rumour’ – but furphy is Australian slang, while scuttlebutt is
American slang, or at least, it was originally. Hence, the two words
are not perfect but partial synonyms.
On the other hand, motormouth and big mouth, which both
originated and are used in American English to mean ‘a very
talkative or boastful person’, are perfect synonyms, as (29)-(30)
show:

29. ‘Stow it, motormouth,’ she said, smiling sheepishly, ‘and

drink your coffee.’ (BNC)
30. ‘You big mouth! Get out! Get out of here!’ (BNC)

Another crucial criterion which may determine perfect synonymy is

the morphological form of the words. For instance, the two
adjectives fubar and snafu meaning ‘confused, messed up’ are both
American acronymic formations (see § 3.2.9.1), and therefore
perfect synonyms:
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 163

31. This was my grandfather’s and it works just fine... My

wristwatch, on the other hand, is still FUBAR. (OED)
32. Last week U.S. citizens knew that gasoline rationing and
rubber requisitioning were snafu. (OED)

Following the same criterion, the lexical phrases dog’s breakfast

and dog’s dinner meaning ‘a mess’ are likewise synonymous:

33. He can’t make head or tail of it... It’s a complete dog’s

breakfast. (OED)
34. The influential Georgian Group described the main frontage
of the scheme as a dog’s dinner yesterday. (ODMS)

and so are the exocentric compounds oddball and screwball used as

nouns to denote ‘an eccentric or odd person’ or, attributively, to
mean ‘eccentric, strange’:

35. Bernie was seen as a bit of an oddball – although not by me.

(BNC)
36. He was a scientist, but whether brilliant or a screwball
nobody ever knew. (OED)

4.2.1.2. Antonymy
Antonymy is a relation of sense oppositeness between two words.
In English slang, however, this oppositeness relation is not always
between two phonologically different words, but may also be
between two different uses of the same word. That is, the same
slang term can assume two opposite senses depending on the
context: e.g., the slang adjective chuffed, commonly used with the
positive meaning ‘pleased, satisfied’, is sometimes used in the
contrary negative sense of ‘displeased, disgruntled’, as respectively
in (37) and (38):

37. I’m really chuffed (‘pleased’) because this is the third goal
I’ve scored in half an hour as a striker this season. (BNC)
164 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

38. Don’t let on they’re after you, see, or she’ll be dead chuffed
(‘displeased’), see? She don’t like the law. (OED)

But, clearly, these two pragmatically distinct uses of the same slang
word cannot illustrate prototypical antonymy.
Another remarkable aspect concerns the relationship between
the standard and the slang sense. In fact, the slang sense of a word
may turn out to be diametrically opposite to the standard sense of
the same word. Thus, if bad in standard English means ‘lacking
good or favourable qualities’, and is therefore the contrary of good,
as in (39):

39. There were bad times as well as good. (BNC)

in English slang it is assigned the opposed meaning ‘possessing an

abundance of favourable qualities’, as in (40):

40. I say read these poets of the Seventies. They got something
bad (‘good’) to say. (OED)

More prototypical slang antonyms are complementaries, expressing

two alternatives that exhaust the possibilities in some given domain,
as male and female counterparts of the same concept. The following
pairs of excerpts show this opposition type:

41. ‘And the other homeboy (‘group member’)?’ Boyle asked.

‘He got a gun and shot himself right in the head.’ (BNC)
42. Homegirls (a form of address), for once forget you got
class, See a guy you like… (from the song Doowutchyalike,
OED)
43. It’s not his fault. It’s that Paula Bristow – Lady Muck
(‘pompous woman’) herself. Who does she think she is?
(BNC)
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 165

44. Hey, Lord Muck (‘pompous man’)! May we have the

honour of introducing ourselves! (OED)
45. The other rumour she heard was that she was a drag queen
(‘a male homosexual transvestite’). (BNC)
46. [She] had experimented once with a drag-king friend (‘a
woman dressed up as a man’), passing as a man on the
street. (OED)
47. For all those for whom Baywatch just isn’t enough, 7
Sport’s World Beach Volleyball Championship in Rio de
Janeiro features sun and sand, bronzed babes and beachboy
beefcake (‘display of sturdy masculine physique’), and
occasionally a little sport. (BNC)
48. In flickering torchlight the scenes probably appeared to
move. Some of them clearly included cheese-cake (‘display
of attractive females’) and leg shows. (OED)

It is perhaps interesting to observe that one term of each couple is

coined first, and the other is formed, often humorously, as an
antonym.
Slang adjectives can also be complementaries, as way-out ‘far
removed from convention’ and, after it, way-in ‘conventional’:

49. Many artists have sought refuge in way-in or way-out

religious conversions. (OED)

Reverse terms, expressing the same for opposite directions on some

axis, are exemplified in (50) by the slang verbs gazump ‘of a seller:
raise the price of a property after having accepted an offer by (an
intending buyer)’ and gazunder ‘of a buyer: lower the amount of an
offer made to (the seller) for a property’:

50. The risk of disappointment through being gazumped, or in

the current property slump, gazundered. (OED)
166 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

4.2.1.3. Hyponymy
Hyponymy is a relation of inclusion, say, X is a hyponym of Y iff
the meaning of Y is part of the meaning of X and X is a logical
subordinate of Y. The more general term (Y), called superordinate
or hypernym, may be the head of a compound, and the modifier
may determine the kind of Y the whole compound represents, as in
St. E. apple juice (X) is a type of juice (Y) (see Löbner 2002: 85-
87).
This hyponymic relation is illustrated by the slang head, taking
on the meaning of ‘a drug addict’, and its subordinate terms, with
the modifier specifying the type of drug or substance one is
addicted to, namely:

 acid head ‘an LSD addict’

 coke-head ‘a cocaine addict’
 crackhead ‘one who is addicted to crack cocaine’
 hophead ‘an opium-smoker’
 meth head ‘a habitual user of methamphetamine’
 pill-head ‘a person addicted to pills’
 pothead, tea-head or weedhead ‘one who is addicted to
marijuana’.

Of the subordinate terms above, some stand in a relation of co-

hyponymy (e.g. acid head and meth head). Others are themselves in
a hypernym-hyponym relation (e.g. coke-head and crackhead),
because crack is a type of coke. Still others are in an identity
relation (e.g. pothead, tea-head, weedhead), because pot, tea and
weed are three synonymous drug names for ‘marijuana’.
The resulting semantic networks form a logical hierarchy or
taxonomy which, moving from Lyons’ (1977: 295) model, we can
represent schematically:
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 167

acid head
crackhead

coke-head

hophead

HEAD
meth head

pill-head

pothead weedhead
tea-head

Figure 1. A taxonomy of drug addict slang terms.

This does not imply that every slang compound with head as its
second element belongs to the taxonomy illustrated in Fig. 1.
Compare acid head with the offensive term dickhead in (51) below:

51. If you go down to the woods today, make sure it’s not the
Forest Of Dean. Because every angel-dust dealer, acid
head, mushroom freak, rugby player and total dickhead in
the world lives there, apparently. (BNC)

in which dickhead is not ‘a type of drug addict’, but ‘a type of

person’, even if the general category ‘person’ includes the
subcategory ‘drug addict’.
The case of head is not isolated in slang. Some analogous
examples include closet queen ‘a secret male homosexual’ and drag
queen ‘a male homosexual transvestite’, which specify the type of
queen ‘male homosexual’ one is referring to, or muscle Mary ‘a
muscular homosexual’, which is from the hypernym Mary ‘a
168 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

homosexual’, or else rag-bag ‘a sloppily-dressed woman’, from

bag ‘a woman’.
4.2.1.4. Meronymy
Meronymy (or partonymy) describes a part-whole relationship
between lexical items. Starting form Löbner’s (2002: 97) meronymy
of standard body part terms, I have constructed a similar meronymy
of slang body part terms. However, since some standard items have
no slang comparable form (e.g. body or trunk), I have organized the
slang meronymy as follows, with some items remaining unnamed
(hence, indicated by variables Y and X):

lug ‘ear’

lemon lamp ‘eye’

‘head’

clock sniffer ‘nose’

‘face’

wing ‘arm’ kisser ‘mouth’

Y ‘body’ melon chopper

‘breast’ ‘tooth’

X ‘trunk’ bread-
basket
‘stomach’

wheel ‘leg’
bender
‘knee’

Figure 2. A meronymy of body part slang terms.

The incomplete meronymy in Fig. 2 shows that, although the slang

lexicon lacks some lexemes that the standard lexicon owns (cf.
“lexical gaps” in Lyons 1977: 301), meronymic relations can be
established with other co-meronyms and subordinate terms (e.g.
lamp-sniffer-kisser > clock), which are mutually interrelated and
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 169

therefore give organization and stability to the system. The same

terms are also relevant from a cognitive perspective. Indeed, they
activate a series of metaphors (e.g. lamp = eye of a lighthouse,
wheel = leg of a car, wing = arm of a bird) or metonymies (e.g.
bender, chopper, sniffer, etc.) which can help us identify additional
patterns of organization (this aspect will be expanded in § 4.2.2.7).
Let us inspect more closely how meaning is assigned to slang
terms, and which cognitive operations are necessary to retrieve it.

4.2.2. Organization via regular patterns

Words denote concepts. In line with Fillmore’s (1982, 1985) frame
semantics model, some such concepts are related by human
experience into frames. Hence, words index or evoke a frame (in the
speaker/hearer’s mind), and the interpreter invokes that frame to
understand the underlying concept.5
This is, per se, a very naïve simplistic view. In fact, a person who
encounters a slang word for the first time and invokes its standard
frame of reference, will not necessarily understand the word
meaning, since the concept conventionally associated to that word
does not correspond to the concept that slang associates to it. For
instance, if the word bread is traditionally related to the Food Frame,
in slang it would be rather related to the Commercial Transactional
Frame (cf. Petruck 1996), since the concept it denotes is ‘money’.
Conversely, it is possible to retrieve the actual slang meaning via
explicatures, calling upon complementary (co- and con-textual)
information, and inferences, calling upon supplementary information,
e.g. derived by metaphorical and figurative extensions (cf. Sperber &
Wilson 1986). Inferences may indeed activate a sequence of
cognitive operations allowing our mind to associate the slang item

5 Croft & Cruse (2004) propose a dynamic construal approach to conceptual

categories. Since the idea of fixity of meaning seems to be a mere illusion, they
formulate the Dynamic Meaning Construal Hypothesis, according to which meaning
is not steady but context-sensitive, and each lexical item is associated with a body of
conceptual content (a non-semantic entity called “purport”) transformed into
contextualized meaning by means of a series of processes (“construal operations”).
As a result, the categories are inherently variable, and created on-line as and when
needed.
170 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

bread with its slang meaning ‘money’. For instance, a proportion

such as:

bread stands for < physical survival >

LIKE
money stands for < economic survival >

which implies that slang meaning is not, at least not always,

assigned arbitrarily. As a corollary, slang words are not randomly
chosen to denote such meaning.
What I expect to find from a closer examination of the slang
lexicon is a set of regular associative patterns which will enable us
to reduce the complexity of the system, imposing structures and
levels of organization, and to enhance the predictability of its
dynamics. In particular, I expect that some slang items (signantia)
pertaining to the same conceptual domain will exhibit some
stability in their association to implicated meaning (signata).
The lexemes that I have identified and selected to verify such
hypotheses include items referring to animate and inanimate
concepts, namely:
 drug addicts;
 homosexuals;
 foreign people;
 attractive women;
 drugs and narcotics;
 alcoholic drinks;
 body parts.
They have primarily been chosen on the basis of their relevance in
terms of frequency and productivity within the English slang
lexicon.
Let us now proceed with the examination of these lexical sets.
4.2.2.1. Terms for drug addicts
Terms used to name drug addicts appear to exhibit three main stable
associative patterns, specifically:
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 171

 The Object Pattern: drug addicts are named after the drug or
substance they are addicted to;
 The Action Pattern: they are named after the precise action
they perform when taking the drug, substance, etc.;
 The Instrument Pattern: or after the instrument used to
perform the action.

4.2.2.1.1. The Object Pattern is itself distinguished into two sub-

patterns. The first includes terms derived from general names for
drugs and narcotics:
 dopester ( dope ‘drug which is not specifically named’)
‘one who uses or is addicted to drugs’,
 druggie/-y ‘one who takes or experiments with illegal drugs,
a drug addict’,
 junkie/-y/junker ( junk ‘any narcotic drug’) ‘a drug addict’,
 narco ( narcotics) ‘a drug addict’.
Access to the above terms is clearly more direct when the object is a
standard word (e.g. drug, narcotics, though abbreviated into narco)
than when it is a slang word, such as dope or junk. This statement is
likewise valid for terms derived from specific drug names:
 cokey/-ie ‘a cocaine addict’,
 hoppy ‘an opium addict’,
 muggler ( muggle ‘marijuana’) ‘a person who smokes
marijuana’,
 reefer ( reefer ‘marijuana’) ‘one who smokes marijuana’,
 schmecker ( schmeck ‘heroin’) ‘a heroin addict’,
 snow-bird ( snow ‘cocaine’) ‘one who sniffs cocaine’,
 speed freak ( speed ‘an amphetamine drug’) ‘a person
addicted to an amphetamine drug’,
 teaman ( tea ‘marijuana’) ‘one who smokes marijuana’.
For the respective drug names, see also § 4.2.2.5.
172 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

4.2.2.1.2. The Action Pattern is primarily based on actions performed

by drug addicts when they inject or inhale the object (drug):
 popper/joy-popper ( v pop ‘swallow or inject (a narcotic
drug)’) ‘a drug-taker’,
 sniffer ( v sniff ‘inhale cocaine through the nose’) ‘one
who sniffs a drug’.
In-between terms which, besides to the action, allude to the object are:
 glue-sniffer ‘a person who inhales the fumes of plastic
cement for their narcotic effects’,
 snifter ( snifter ‘a small quantity of cocaine inhaled
through the nose’) ‘a cocaine addict’.
The following terms allude to actions connected to the experience
of drug-taking:
 freak ( v freak out ‘undergo an intense emotional
experience, esp. under the influence of hallucinatory drugs’)
‘a drug addict’,
 tripper ( v trip (out)) ‘one who experiences hallucinations
induced by a drug, esp. LSD’ (cf. (down) trip ‘the experience’).

4.2.2.1.3. The Instrument Pattern associates the drug addict to the

tools used for the injection, especially the hypodermic needle of the
syringe:
 hypo ( hypo ‘a hypodermic needle or injection’) ‘a drug
addict’,
 needle man ‘a drug addict who takes drugs by injection’ (cf.
St. E. needlewoman).

4.2.2.2. Terms for homosexuals

Terms used to name homosexual people likewise exhibit some
regularity. They are indeed coined after three preferential semantic
patterns:
 The Attitude Pattern: which concerns the ways and manners
that characterize the homosexual behaviour;
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 173

 The Action Pattern: concerning the homosexual practices

and acts;
 The Instrument Pattern: concerning the sexual organs
involved in homosexual intercourses.

4.2.2.2.1. The Attitude Pattern is the most productive in associative

slang relations. The predominance of homosexuals over lesbians
and their natural distinction from heterosexuals makes their attitude
be characterized by the features of effeminacy, delicacy and
anomaly.
The effeminacy feature associates ‘male homosexuals’ or
‘effeminate men’ to female proper names, especially nicknames
(see also § 3.2.3.12):
 Jessie/-y, Lizzie, Mary, molly, nancy, nelly,
or to general appellations normally used in slang for women or girls,
which however presuppose previous knowledge of their slang use:
 quean (cf. slang ‘a woman, a female’),
 queen ‘the effeminate partner in a homosexual relationship’
(cf. slang ‘an attractive woman; a girl-friend’),
 tart ‘the young homosexual companion of an older man’ (cf.
slang ‘a wife or girl-friend’),
 weeny (cf. slang ‘a girl’).
The association of homosexuals’ names to standard (pro)nouns
denoting female gender is more explicit:
 queenie/-y,
 she-male ‘a passive male homosexual or transvestite’ (cf.
colloq. ‘female’),
 sister ‘used by homosexual men to denote a fellow
homosexual’ (cf. St. E. brother used between friends or
fellows),
 wife ‘the passive member of a homosexual partnership’.
174 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

The delicacy feature associates homosexuals to terms which exhibit

the same feature, such as names of flowers, or of breath, food, etc.
that is light or soft in character:
 flit (cf. ‘a light touch’),
 pansy/pansy boy (derog.) (cf. the flower),
 puff or its variant poof (cf. puff ‘a short impulsive blast of
breath or wind’),
 pretty-boy (cf. pretty ‘good-looking, esp. in a delicate way’),
 twinkie/-y (cf. Twinkie ‘a brand of cup-cake with a creamy
filling’).
The feature of anomaly rather connects homosexuals to terms
which are intrinsically or extrinsically related to strangeness, such
as supernatural beings, deities, unexplainable events, or to
adjectives denoting something strange, peculiar, etc.:
 fairy (cf. ‘one of a class of supernatural beings, in popular
belief supposed to possess magical powers’),
 freak (cf. ‘a sudden causeless change or turn of the mind’),
 moffie ( hermaphrodite ‘a human being in which parts
characteristic of both sexes are to some extent combined’) ‘a
male transvestite’,
 queer/-ie (cf. queer ‘strange, peculiar, eccentric’).

4.2.2.2.2. A less widespread pattern, the Action one, relates

homosexuals to their usual acts and behaviour, commonly viewed as
out of the ordinary by heterosexuals. This pattern originates such
words as:
 pronk ( v prank ‘dress in a smart, bright, or ostentatious
manner’) ‘an ineffectual or effeminate person’,
 shirtlifter,
 sod ( sodomite) ‘one who practises sodomy’ (cf. sodomy
‘an unnatural form of sexual intercourse, esp. that of one
male with another’).
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 175

4.2.2.2.3. Similarly infrequent is the Instrument Pattern, alluding to

the sexual organs involved in homosexual intercourses:
 bum-boy ( bum ‘the buttocks’) ‘a young male homosexual,
esp. a prostitute’,
 jocker ( jock ‘the male genitals’),
 pussy (cf. ‘the external female organs’).

4.2.2.3. Terms for foreigners

Foreign people are mostly renamed with critical or offensive
intentions. The slang terms used to obtain such effects pertain to the
following patterns:
 The Product Pattern: which is related to the product (e.g.
food) typically consumed or used by foreigners;
 The Name Pattern: related to their most common Christian
names;
 The Appearance Pattern: related to some distinctive feature
of their physical appearance.

4.2.2.3.1. In accordance with the Product Pattern, foreign people are

associated with terms for food or similar goods which they
habitually use, or are reputed to use:
 frog/froggy/frog-eater (offens.) ‘a Frenchman’,
 herring choker ‘a native or inhabitant of the Maritime
Provinces’, ‘a Scandinavian’,
 Kraut/Sauerkraut, sausage ‘a German’,
 macaroni, spaghetti ‘an Italian’,
 pea-soup ‘a French Canadian’,
 Spud Islander ( spud ‘potato’) ‘a native or inhabitant of
Prince Edward Island, which is noted for its fine potatoes’,
 Woodbine ‘an Englishman, esp. a soldier, considered as a
habitual smoker of Woodbine cigarettes’.
176 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

4.2.2.3.2. Another quite recurrent association, which I have called

the Name Pattern, correlates foreign people with their most frequent
male proper names, especially in their hypocoristic or pet forms:
 dago ( Sp. Diego) ‘a Spaniard, a Portuguese, an Italian’,
 Fritz ( Friedrich) ‘a German’,
 Heinie ( Heinrich) ‘a German (soldier)’,
 Hymie ( Jewish Hyman) ‘a Jewish person’,
 Ikey ( Isaac) ‘a Jew’,
 Pat (Patrick) ‘an Irishman’,
 Sammy ‘an American soldier’.

4.2.2.3.3. The Appearance Pattern is based on some of the most

salient physical features of foreign people, e.g., the colour of their
skin:
 blacky ‘a Black, a Negro’,
 smoke (offens.) ‘a Black’,
 whity/-ie/-ey ‘a white person’,
the shape of their body:
 grease-ball (derog.) ‘a foreigner, esp. one of Mediterranean
or Latin American origin’,
or the form of their eyes:
 roundeye ‘a European’,
 slant-eye ‘a slant-eyed person, esp. an Asian’,
 slope/slopy/slopehead ‘an oriental; spec. a Vietnamese’
(from Asians’ stereotypically slanting eyes).

4.2.2.4. Terms for attractive (young) women

Attractive women are often called by bizarre, curious names, esp. in
young people’s slang (or “slanguage”, see Stenström 2000,
Mattiello 2005, forthcoming b). The terms used by young men to
define a woman’s attractiveness mainly belong to:
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 177

 The Appearance Pattern: connected to some feature of

attractive women’s physical appearance;
 The Attitude Pattern: connected to some feature of their
behaviour;
 The Effect Pattern: connected to the effects they can produce
upon men.

4.2.2.4.1. Following the Appearance Pattern, attractive women are

named after their good-looking aspect:
 beaut ( beauty) ‘a beautiful or outstanding person or thing’,
 doll ‘a very beautiful or attractive woman’,
 dolly/dolly-bird ‘an attractive and stylish young woman’ (cf.
bird ‘girl’).

4.2.2.4.2. A far more common association is found between

attractive women and their attitude, hence, the Attitude Pattern.
According to people of the opposite sex, beautiful women often
show a puerile, immature attitude, as in:
 babe ‘an attractive young woman’,
 bimbo/bim/bimbette ‘a young woman considered to be
sexually attractive but of limited intelligence’.
They are generally weak, frail, and may love cuddles:
 jelly ‘a pretty girl’,
 snuggle-pup/snuggle-puppy/snuggle-pupper ‘an attractive
young girl’.
They may be supple or sensual:
 fox ‘an attractive woman’ (cf. foxy),
elegant:
 queen ‘an attractive woman’,
sometimes even clever, acute:
 cutie/-ey ‘an attractive young woman’.
178 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

But they normally attract men by their sexy attitude:

 sex kitten ‘a young woman who exploits her sex appeal’.

4.2.2.4.3. The Effect Pattern associates attractive women with the

effects they produce upon men. For instance, they commonly rouse
men’s sexual desire, hence the names:
 hottie/-y ‘a sexually attractive person’ (cf. hot ‘of a person
(originally a woman): sexually attractive’),
 sexboat/sex-bomb/sexpot ‘a sexually exciting person, esp. a
woman’.
Metaphorically, they also tempt men’s appetite, and are therefore
comparable to tasty, delicious food, e.g.:
 cookie ‘a woman, esp. an attractive girl’,
 dish ‘an attractive person, esp. a woman’ (cf. dishy ‘very
attractive’),
 peach ‘an attractive young woman’ (cf. peachy ‘attractive,
desirable’),
 pippin ‘an excellent, pleasing, or beautiful person’ (from the
name of the apple),
 tomato ‘an attractive girl’.
Lastly, they may have strong, negative and destructive effects on
men, who also use the following labels:
 purler ‘a beauty’ (cf. earlier sense ‘a knock-down blow’),
 ripper ‘an attractive young woman’,
 smasher ‘a very pretty or attractive woman’.

4.2.2.5. Terms for drugs and narcotics

Drug names, as anticipated, represent one of the richest lexical
areas of slang. Many associative patterns can therefore be identified
relating terms to their referents, the most stable being:
 The Appearance Pattern: concerning the prominent features
which characterize the external aspect of the drug;
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 179

 The Constituent Pattern: concerning the constitutive elements

of the drug;
 The Way/Instrument Pattern: related to the way the drug is
taken or to the instrument used for its taking;
 The Effect Pattern: related to the effects produced upon the
drug addict by the drug inhalation or injection.

4.2.2.5.1. The Appearance Pattern associates the drug with some

feature of its aspect, such as colour, consistency/texture, quantity/
weight or shape. The following terms evoke the drug colour:
 Acapulco gold ‘a variety of marijuana grown in the vicinity
of Acapulco’,
 black bomber ‘an amphetamine tablet’ (see also § 4.2.2.5.4),
 black tar ‘a pure form of heroin originating in Mexico’,
 brown sugar ‘a drug consisting of heroin diluted with
caffeine’,
 French blue ‘the name for a non-proprietary mixture of
amphetamine and a barbiturate’,
 grass ‘marijuana’,
 green ‘marijuana of poor quality’,
 ice ‘a potent, crystalline form of the drug methamphetamine’
(from the drug’s colourless, crystalline appearance (like
crushed ice) during the manufacturing process),
 mellow yellow ‘banana peel dried for smoking as a narcotic’
(from the colour of the peel),
 minstrel ‘a tablet containing amphetamine, coloured black
and white’ (from its black-and-white colour, with reference
to the Black and White Minstrels, a troupe of British variety
entertainers of the 1960s-70s),
 mud ‘opium; heroin’ (cf. slang ‘coffee, esp. strong or black
coffee’),
 pink lady ‘a barbiturate’,
180 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

 purple/purple haze ‘LSD’,

 purple heart ‘a tablet of the stimulant Drinamyl’,
 rainbow ‘a capsule containing the barbiturates Amytal and
Seconal, one end of which is red and the other blue’,
 red/red bird/red devil ‘the drug Seconal; also, a tablet of this
drug (coloured red)’,
 snow ‘cocaine; occas. heroin or morphine’,
 white ‘morphine’, ‘an amphetamine tablet’,
 white stuff ‘morphine, heroin, or cocaine’,
 yellow jacket ‘a pentobarbitone capsule’.
In some such terms, the colour of the drug is included in its name
(e.g. green, red, white), so there is an overt association with its
aspect. In others, the association is instead covert, mediated by an
object having the same colour as the drug: e.g., grass and
marijuana have the same green colour, and snow is as white as
cocaine is.
The following names more or less explicitly allude to the drug
consistency or texture:
 angel dust ‘the drug phencyclidine used as a hallucinogen’,
 grass ‘marijuana’ (cf. the leaves of marijuana with herbage
in general),
 Indian hay ‘marijuana’ (cf. hay ‘grass cut or mown’),
 rock ‘a crystallized form of cocaine’,
 sugar ‘a narcotic drug, esp. heroin’,
 weed ‘marijuana; a marijuana cigarette’.
The quantity or weight of the drug is instead evoked by:
 charge ‘a dose or injection of a drug; marijuana’,
 load ‘a dose of narcotics’,
 mike ‘a microgram of a drug, esp. LSD’,
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 181

 nickel ‘five dollars’ worth of a drug’ (cf. ‘a five-cent piece’

and U.S. slang trey ‘a three-dollar packet of a narcotic’),
 piece ‘a quantity of a drug approximately equal to an ounce
in weight’,
 weight ‘an illegal drug’ (cf. slang ‘a measure of an illegal
drug’).
Lastly, the drug shape is suggested by:
 crack ‘a potent, crystalline form of cocaine broken into
small pieces’ (cf. ‘a break or breaking of various kinds’),
 crystal ‘any of various narcotic drugs in crystalline form’,
 line ‘a dose of a powdered narcotic, esp. cocaine, laid out in
a thin line for inhalation’,
 pill ‘a pill of a drug, spec. a barbiturate or amphetamine’,
 purple heart ‘a tablet of the stimulant Drinamyl’,
 rope ‘marijuana’ (cf. ‘a quantity of some material twisted
together in the form of a rope’),
 stick ‘a cigarette made with marijuana’,
 tab ( tablet) ‘a tablet containing LSD or another illicit
drug’.

4.2.2.5.2. The Constituent Pattern is relatively less productive. It

associates the drug with one of its constitutive elements, generally
the chief one, as in:
 acid ‘the hallucinogenic drug LSD’ (cf. LSD ‘Lysergic acid
diethylamide’),
 bromo ‘a dose of a sedative drug containing a bromide
mixture’,
 coke ‘cocaine’ (from the leaves of coca plants),
 dex/-ie ‘the drug Dexedrine’,
 meth ‘methamphetamine/Methedrine taken as a stimulant
drug’,
182 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

 morph ‘morphine’,
 poppy ‘opium’ (cf. the opium poppy or its extract used as a
medicine, from the flower).

4.2.2.5.3. The Way/Instrument pattern creates an association

between the drug and the drug-taking process, alluding to the
instrument used (needle), the action performed (snifter, snort), the
passage of the injection (main line) or of the inhalation (nose
candy). A more complete list includes:
 main line ‘an intravenous injection of drugs’ (cf. slang ‘a
principal vein, into which drugs can readily be injected’),
 needle ‘a measure of a drug for injecting’ (cf. ‘a hypodermic
injection of an illegal drug’),
 nose candy ‘a drug that is inhaled through the nose; spec.
cocaine’,
 schmeck ( Yiddish schmeck ‘sniff’) ‘a drug, esp. heroin’,
 snifter ‘small quantity of cocaine inhaled through the nose’
(cf. v snifter ‘sniff’),
 snort ‘a dose of cocaine or heroin which is taken by
inhalation’,
 spike ‘a drug injected’ (cf. slang ‘a hypodermic needle or
syringe used for the injection of an intoxicating drug’),
 sugar ‘LSD (taken on a lump of sugar)’,
 tea ‘marijuana brewed in hot water to make a drink’,
 toot ‘cocaine’ (cf. slang ‘inhale cocaine’).

4.2.2.5.4. The Effect Pattern is a profuse one, as a result of the

variety of effects that a drug can produce upon its addict, and also
of the speaker’s point of view. Drug users tend to stress the
immediate – stimulant or tranquillizing – effects that a drug has,
while non-users rather focus their attention on the negative aspects
of drug-taking, mainly destruction, intoxication and dependence.
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 183

The destructive effects of drugs motivate many slang adjectives

meaning ‘intoxicated’, as frequently observed in the literature (see
Eble 1996, Munro ed. 1997), but also many drug names, such as:
 bang ‘a ‘shot’ (of cocaine, etc.)’ (cf. St. E. ‘a nuclear
explosion’, slang ‘excitement, pleasure’),
 black bomber ‘an amphetamine tablet’,
 bomber ‘a marijuana cigarette’, ‘a barbiturate drug’,
 dynamite ‘heroin or a similar narcotic’ (cf. ‘a high explosive
prepared from nitro-glycerine’),
 hit ‘a dose of a narcotic drug’ (cf. ‘a blow given to
something aimed at’),
 jolt ‘a quantity of a drug in the form of a cigarette, tablet,
etc.’ (cf. ‘an abrupt shock or jerk’),
 pop ‘an injection of a narcotic drug’ (cf. ‘a blow, a knock’).
Other negative effects of narcotics are a sort of foolishness, which
is hinted at in:
 goof ball/goof pill ‘(a tablet of) any of various drugs, spec.
marijuana’ (cf. slang ‘a silly or stupid person’),
 loco weed ‘marijuana’ (cf. Sp. loco ‘mad, crazy’),
but, above all, intoxication and inevitable dependence, as in:
 junk ‘any narcotic drug, esp. heroin’ (cf. ‘rubbish’),
 fix/fix-up ‘a dose of a narcotic drug’ (cf. ‘a position from
which it is difficult to escape’),
 scat ‘heroin’,
 shit/shite ‘an intoxicating or euphoriant drug’.
As expected, the positive effects of drugs (e.g. euphoria, happiness,
liveliness, vigour) are alluded to in a number of terms typically
used by insiders:
 ecstasy ‘a powerful synthetic hallucinogenic drug’ (cf. ‘the
state of being ‘beside oneself’, thrown into a frenzy or a
stupor’),
184 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

 happy dust ‘cocaine’,

 joy-pop ‘(an inhalation or injection of) a drug’,
 pep-pill ‘a pill containing a stimulant drug, taken to increase
a person’s energy or enthusiasm’ (cf. pep  pepper ‘energy;
liveliness’),
 speed ‘an amphetamine drug freq. taken intravenously’,
 speedball ‘a dose of a drug, esp. a mixture of cocaine and
morphine (or heroin)’,
 up/upper ‘a drug which has a stimulant or euphoric effect’.
We can imply information about the depressant or tranquillizing
effects of some drugs in:
 down/downer ‘a depressant or tranquillizing drug’,
 mojo ‘any narcotic drug, esp. morphine’ (cf. ‘magical
power’ and the use of morphine as a narcotic analgesic).

4.2.2.6. Terms for alcoholic drinks

Alcoholic drinks represent another prolific lexical area of slang.
Many of the associative patterns established for drug names are
actually suitable for this area as well (e.g. appearance, constituent,
effect), while other patterns are developed specifically to name
drinks. Overall, we distinguish the following patterns:
 The Nature Pattern: connected with the main features which
characterize the intrinsic nature of the drink;
 The Appearance Pattern: connected with the features
characterizing the external aspect of the drink;
 The Constituent Pattern: connected with the constitutive
elements of the drink;
 The Effect Pattern: involving the effects upon the alcoholic
or drunkard after too much drinking;
 The Container Pattern: involving a container-for-contained
(metonymic) relationship.
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 185

4.2.2.6.1. The Nature Pattern focuses on the intrinsic nature of

drinks. For instance, some drinks are characterized by their
unlawfulness:
 Sneaky Pete ‘an illicit or cheap intoxicating beverage’ (cf.
sneak ‘one who robs or steals in a sneaking manner’);
by their poor quality:
 lunatic soup ‘alcoholic drink of poor quality’ (cf. lunatic
‘insane’),
 scrap iron ‘an alcoholic drink of poor quality’ (cf. ‘iron
which has already been wrought and broken up or cast aside
for re-casting or re-working’),
 smoke ‘cheap whisky’,
 tarantula-juice ‘inferior whisky’;
by their strength:
 alky ‘(illicit) alcoholic liquor’,
 heavy-wet ‘malt liquor’ (see also here below),
 jolt ‘a drink of liquor’ (cf. ‘a blow in boxing’),
 King Kong ‘cheap alcohol’ (cf. the ape-like monster’s
strength),
 panther juice ‘strong, esp. bootleg, liquor’;
or by their wetness:
 heavy-wet ‘malt liquor’,
 wet ‘liquor, drink’.

4.2.2.6.2. The Appearance Pattern focuses on the external aspect of

drinks, especially on their colour, quantity, and, less frequently, on
their consistency. As in drug names, colour may be included in the
name of the alcoholic drink (as in pink lady, red ink), or it may be
implicitly referred to by calling the drink by the name of an object
or thing having the implied colour (as in neck-oil ‘beer’ having the
same colour as oil) (see Bertuccelli Papi 2000). Only rarely does
the colour refer to the reddening of the nose caused by excessive
186 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

drinking (as in nose paint ‘intoxicating liquor’). A list of drink

names centred on colour includes:
 amber fluid/liquid/nectar ‘an alcoholic drink of an amber
colour, spec. lager’,
 black and tan ‘a drink composed of porter (or stout) and
ale’,
 neck-oil ‘an alcoholic drink, esp. beer’,
 pinkers ‘pink gin’,
 pink-eye ‘cheap or home-made alcoholic drink’ (cf. red-eye
‘coarse fiery whisky’),
 pink lady ‘a cocktail usually consisting of gin, egg white,
and grenadine’,
 red biddy ‘a drink consisting of methylated spirits and cheap
red wine’,
 red ink ‘cheap red wine’,
 Red Ned ‘inferior red wine or other similar drink’,
 rosiner ( rosin ‘resin’) ‘a drink of spirits; a stiff drink’
(from the colour of resin, gen. yellow or brown),
 tincture ‘an alcoholic drink’,
 turps ‘intoxicating liquor, esp. beer’ (cf. the colour of oil of
turpentine),
 white lady ‘a drink of methylated spirits’,
 white lightning ‘inferior or illicitly distilled whisky’,
 white line ‘alcohol as a drink’,
 white mule ‘a potent colourless alcoholic drink’.
The following names, on the contrary, are centred on the quantity or
size of the alcoholic drink, generally a small one:
 middy ‘a medium-sized measure of beer or other liquor’,
 shortie/-y ‘a short drink’,
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 187

 sippers ( sip ‘a small quantity of some liquid’) ‘a sip (of

rum)’,
 spot ‘a drop of liquor’ (cf. ‘a small quantity; a drop’),
 stubby ‘a short, squat beer-bottle’ (cf. the adj ‘of the nature
of a stub; short and thick’),
 taste ‘an alcoholic drink; alcohol’ (cf. ‘a very small quantity,
a sip’).
Drink names may also allude to the drink consistency, as in:
 sauce ‘alcoholic liquor’,
 slop ‘beer’ (cf. ‘liquid or semi-liquid food’),
 suds ‘beer’ (cf. soapy water and the beer froth).

4.2.2.6.3. The Constituent Pattern associates drinks with one of

their basic constitutive elements. This pattern is not very productive
in English slang, but some examples can illustrate it:
 hop ‘beer’ (cf. ‘a plant used for giving a bitter flavour to
malt liquors’),
 pine-top ‘cheap or illicit whisky, formerly flavoured with the
new shoots of a pine tree’,
 torpedo juice ‘intoxicating liquor extracted from torpedo
fuel’.

4.2.2.6.4. By contrast, the Effect Pattern appears much more

prolific. As previously remarked for drugs, the effects of alcohol
are distinguished into positive and negative. The positive effects of
drinks range from stimulant and euphoric to fortifying:
 giggle-water ‘intoxicating liquor’ (cf. ‘a giggling laugh’),
 joy-juice ‘alcoholic drink’,
 lightning ‘gin; any strong alcoholic spirit’ (cf.
‘enlightenment, illumination’),
 moonshine ‘illicitly distilled liquor, esp. whisky’ (cf. ‘pleasant
distraction’),
188 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

 O.D.V. ( eau-de-vie, lit. ‘water of life’) ‘brandy’,

 popskull ‘inferior whisky’ (cf. colloq. v pop ‘give birth’),
 speedball ‘a glass of wine, spec. when strengthened by
additional alcohol or spirits’,
 stiffener ‘a fortifying or reviving alcoholic drink’ (cf. v
stiffen ‘make stiff or rigid, e.g. by means of starch’).
The opposite negative effects amount to destruction and risk, as
exemplified by:
 jollop ‘strong liquor, or a drink of this’ (cf. slang jalap ‘type
of purgative obtained from a Mexican plant’),
 mother’s ruin ‘gin’,
 poison ‘alcoholic liquor (or drink)’,
 shooter ‘a measure or drink of spirit, esp. whisky’ (cf. slang
‘a shooting instrument, a gun or pistol’),
 snake juice/poison ‘whisky; any alcoholic drink’,
 sting ‘strong drink’ (cf. ‘the wound inflicted by the aculeus
of an insect’),
 wallop ‘alcohol, esp. beer; alcoholic drink’ (cf. colloq. v
wallop ‘beat soundly’).

4.2.2.6.5. The Container Pattern establishes a metonymic relationship

between the container (e.g. the bottle, glass, etc.) and the contained
(i.e. the alcoholic drink inside it), as in:
 jar ‘a drink of beer’,
 long-sleever ( long-sleever ‘a tall glass’) ‘a drink contained
in a tall glass’,
 shant ‘a drink’ (cf. ‘a pot of drink’),
 tank ‘a drink (usu. of beer)’ (cf. ‘an artificial receptacle used
for storing liquids in large quantities’),
 tube ‘a bottle or can of beer’ (cf. ‘a cylindrical body used to
contain a liquid or fluid’).
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 189

4.2.2.7. Terms for body parts

The body part area, as observed in section 4.2.1.4, consists of many
slang lexemes which are related to their referents via figurative
meaning. The privileged associative patterns of this area are:
 The Appearance Pattern: which concerns the distinctive
features of the body part aspect;
 The Function Pattern: concerning the typical function(s) of
the body part;
 The Action Pattern: concerning the acts which are habitually
performed by the possessor via the body part involved.
Additional (less frequent) patterns regulating this area include:
 The Substance Pattern: making allusion to the material of
which the body part is made;
 The Location Pattern: alluding to the spatial position of the
part in relation to the other parts, or to the whole body;
 The Covering Pattern: alluding to the covering (kind of
cloth) standing for the covered body part.

4.2.2.7.1. The Appearance Pattern evokes some attribute of the

body part aspect. However, since the aspect of the various body
parts displays different peculiarities, the attributes evoking them are
heterogeneous. Body part terms are chiefly classifiable in relation
to colour:
 pearlies/pearly whites ‘teeth’;
to roundness:
 bean, crumpet, lemon, melon, nut, onion ‘the head’,
 clock ‘the face’,
 melons ‘large breasts’,
 moon ‘the buttocks’,
 nuts (coarse), pills ‘the testicles’;
190 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

to hardness:
 block ‘the head’ (cf. ‘a solid piece of wood’);
to sharpness:
 pegs ‘teeth’ (cf. ‘a short pin or bolt used to plug a hole’);
to flatness:
 pocketbook ‘the female genitals’,
 tabs ‘the ears’ (cf. ‘a short broad strap or flat loop attached
by one end to an object’);
to length/thinness:
 length ‘the penis’,
 pin ‘a leg’,
 shaft ‘a leg’ (cf. ‘the long slender rod forming the body of a
lance or spear’),
 stems ‘the legs’ (cf. ‘a trunk, stock’);
to hook-shape:
 hooks ‘the fingers or hands’,
 meat-hook ‘a hand or arm’,
 mud-hook ‘a hand or foot’ (cf. slang ‘an anchor’).

4.2.2.7.2. Similarly, the Function Pattern is varied, each body part

having one or more specific functions which distinguish them from
the others. Among the pivotal functions we can identify the bearing
function:
 hat-rack ‘the head’;
the identifying function:
 map ‘the face’;
the visual function:
 lamps ‘the eyes’;
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 191

the passage-way function:

 hole/cake-hole ‘the mouth’;
the containing function:
 bread-basket ‘the stomach’;
the opening/closing function:
 gate ‘the mouth’;
the entrapping function:
 trap ‘the mouth’ (with reference to food);
the protective or defensive function:
 wing ‘an arm’ (cf. a bird’s wings);
the motor function:
 wheels ‘the legs’ (cf. a car’s wheels);
the instrumental function:
 tool ‘the male generative organ’,
 weapon (coarse) ‘the penis’.

4.2.2.7.3. Needless to say, the Action Pattern is likewise varied, due

to the diversity of actions performed by the possessor through the
body parts alluded to. English slang words belonging to this pattern
include:
 bender ( v bend ‘assume or receive a curved form’) ‘a leg
or knee’,
 choppers ( v chop ‘cut into pieces’) ‘teeth’,
 kisser ‘the mouth or face’,
 snappers ( v snap ‘make a quick or sudden bite at
something’) ‘teeth’,
 sniffer ( v sniff ‘inhale cocaine, etc.’) ‘the nose’,
 snorer ( v snore ‘make harsh or noisy sounds in sleep’)
‘the nose’,
 yap ( v yap ‘talk idly or loquaciously’) ‘the mouth’.
192 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

4.2.2.7.4. A marginal pattern uses synecdoche to associate the body

part with the material, the substance it is made of, hence, the
Substance Pattern, e.g.:
 ivory ‘teeth’,
 meat-hook ‘a hand or arm’.

4.2.2.7.5. Equally marginal is the pattern which associates the body

part to its spatial position relative to the other parts or to the entire
body. The Location Pattern is mostly used for euphemistic reasons,
as illustrated by some of the following terms:
 heinie ( behind) ‘the buttocks’,
 middle leg ‘the penis’,
 snoot ‘the nose’ (cf. ‘the nose of an aircraft, a car, etc.’).

4.2.2.7.6. The Covering Pattern, on the other hand, establishes a

metonymic relationship between the type of clothing which covers
the body part and the body part itself, as in:
 lug ‘the ears’ (cf. earlier sense ‘one of the flaps or lappets of
a cap or bonnet, covering the ears’, and lughole ‘ear-hole’),
 mitt ‘a hand’ (cf. boxing sense ‘a boxing glove’).

The above patterns appear to set up correspondences and correlations

between different conceptual domains via such cognitive phenomena
as categorization, metaphor, metonymy, inference, analogy, etc.,
which have been amply discussed in the literature on meaning
construal (e.g. Ruiz de Mendoza & Santibáñez 2003, Croft & Cruse
2004) and blending (e.g. Fauconnier & Turner 2002).
Yet some of them seem to exhibit asymmetries and irregularities,
due to the intricate network of conceptual connections activated. The
concept of ‘alcoholic drink’ is, for instance, much more rapidly
activated by the slang expression amber fluid – by way of such
salient features as bright colour and full-bodied consistency – than by
smoke, whose association to ‘cheap whisky’ requires much more
complicated cognitive operations triggering less salient features,
such as darkish colour, lack of density, etc. In fact, Croft & Cruse
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 193

(2004) state that meaning is something that we construe, on-line,

using the properties of linguistic elements as partial clues, alongside
linguistic knowledge and information available from the context.
Many of the afore-mentioned slang words provide only partial
clues to their meanings, since they foreground components which
may be latent in the corresponding standard words (cf. fox St. E.
‘cunning animal/person’ and slang ‘attractive person’). However,
other slang words are even more difficult to disambiguate, since
there are no logical connections between the standard and the slang
frames of reference of the words. That is, the same signans appears
to belong to two completely different conceptual domains, with no
evident shared attributes relating the two. Expectably, such words
are the source of lexical disorganization.

4.3. Lexical disorganization

[…] slang semantics is a kind of secondary semiotics which is
motivated by the wish to distinguish itself from the ‘ordinary’ use of
words and consequently might be interpreted from both its semantic
distance from its object and from the ‘ordinary’ semantic function of a
certain word. (Sornig 1981: 21)

In this section, I wish to validate the opening assumption that in

slang, lexical organization via regular connections and logical
patterns is sometimes substituted by disorganization. I also wish to
explain the modalities in accordance with which such disorganization
thwarts meaning access and conceptualization, and to investigate
whether or not there are different degrees of disorganization.
At this stage of the survey, I can hypothesize that lexical
disorganization is the result of irrational word-meaning associations.
Indeed, the associative patterns identified hitherto are not applicable
to any slang word, because sometimes there is no logic assigning
signantia to slang signata, and inferential work turns out to be
unsuccessful in facilitating meaning access. This latter hypothesis
appears to be extremely interesting from our point of view, as its
verification would effectively distinguish slang from the standard
lexical system.
194 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

An additional hypothesis concerns the degree of the

disorganization. Indeed, I hypothesize that, in slang, there are cases
of: (a) partial disorganization, with some meanings assigned
arbitrarily to words and others still motivated by regularity and logic,
and (b) total disorganization, with no actual possibility to identify
connections with the corresponding standard meanings. Total
disorganization entails overall randomness, prevents the macro-
system from finding any stable configuration, and sometimes brings
it to the edge of chaos, or, in Bertuccelli & Lenci’s (2007) terms, to
the highest degrees of complexity. The aim of my research is to
verify the validity of these hypotheses.
For this research, I have selected a set of polysemous slang
terms which provide challenging cases of meaning reconstruction,
and which, therefore, seem to be functional to investigate both
partial and total disorganization.

4.3.1. Partial disorganization

Partial disorganization involves a redefinition of words on the basis
of some semantic features which were not in the standard
meaning(s), but which are acquired in slang. Slang preserves some
of the original standard features and confers new ones on words.
Hence, words are loaded in terms of information provided, their
conceptual representation is complexified, and their interpretation is
made much more complicated.
Let us examine a few tricky cases.
4.3.1.1. The case of bird
In standard English, the term bird is normally used to refer to:
 ‘the young of the feathered tribes’.
Another St. E. meaning of this term fore-grounds the role of birds
in hunting:
 ‘prey, object of attack’.
Slang adds an extra meaning to this word, but the association with
the standard meaning is still evident:
 ‘an aeroplane’ (Appearance Pattern: a bird has wings, tail;
Action Pattern: a bird flies).
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 195

However, it also adds a variety of meanings which have no evident

connection with the original one:
 ‘a girl, woman’;
 ‘an exceptionally smart or accomplished person’;
 ‘a prison sentence; prison’;
 ‘an obscene gesture of contempt’.
In fact, the association of a bird to the meanings ‘woman’ or ‘smart
person’ is hard, and its association to inanimate objects (prison,
obscene gesture) or even abstract entities (a prison sentence) has no
tenable explanation. Hence, slang meanings integrate the semantic
description of bird with new semantic features, which are
sometimes in contradiction with previous ones (e.g. animate vs.
inanimate, non-human vs. human, concrete vs. abstract).
4.3.1.2. The case of bomb
Another case of difficult interpretation is provided by bomb. This
term is commonly used to refer to:
 ‘an explosive projectile’.
Hence, by means of the Effect Pattern discussed above, we can
explain the following slang meanings of bomb:
 ‘a failure’ (destructive effect; cf. the opposite Brit. sense of
‘a success’);
 ‘a large sum of money’ (dangerous effect);
 ‘a (large) marijuana cigarette’ (destructive and dangerous
effect).
On the other hand, there are no patterns which can explain why
slang associates the word bomb with:
 ‘an old car’,
or can help us associate the word with this concept.
4.3.1.3. The case of dog
The case of dog is even more complicated, since in slang it acquires
specific features which blatantly clash with the standard ones. As
196 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

everybody knows, in the standard language dog refers to:

 ‘a quadruped of the genus Canis; a hound’.
In slang, it acquires an extra meaning which is explainable in terms
of the Attitude Pattern:
 ‘a gay or jovial man; a fellow’ (see the joyful and playful
attitude of a dog),
but also an array of incomprehensible meanings:
 ‘a worthless, despicable, or cowardly fellow’ (cf. guard
dogs, police dogs, rescue dogs, watch-dogs);
 ‘an informer; a traitor; esp. one who betrays fellow
criminals’ (cf. a dog’s fidelity to its owner);
 ‘an unattractive woman, girl or man’;
 ‘something poor or mediocre; a failure’ (cf. guide dogs, dogs
kept for company);
 ‘a horse that is slow, difficult to handle, etc.’ (cf. a dog’s
agility, obedience, etc.).
When the word is used in the plural form, it takes on the sense of:
 ‘sausages’ (see hot dog ‘a hot sausage enclosed in a bread
roll’);
 ‘feet’.
This latter sense is explainable by way of the rhyme between the
original full form dog’s meat and the signatum ‘feet’, but this
phonic similarity is lost in the elliptic form, thus obstructing
meaning access.
4.3.1.4. The case of fish
Generally-speaking, the term fish refers to:
 ‘any animal living exclusively in the water’.
In nautical slang, the term also takes on more specific senses:
 ‘a torpedo’;
 ‘a submarine’,
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 197

the former of which is a hyponym of the general category, whereas

the latter is a metaphorical extension based on a similarity in form
and location.
However, a less transparent slang sense also exists, i.e.:
 ‘a dollar’,
which implies a semantic shift from animate to inanimate.

4.3.1.5. The case of gas

A different case is found in gas, which in standard language refers
to a concrete entity:
 ‘any aeriform or completely elastic fluid’,
but in slang refers to abstract entities, as in:
 ‘empty or boastful talk’;
 ‘showy pretence’;
 ‘humbug, nonsense’ (see the insubstantiality, triviality,
intangibility of gas);
 ‘fun; a joke’,
and, intriguingly, to animate ones:
 ‘someone who is very pleasing, exciting, admirable, etc.’.

4.3.1.6. The case of ice

In standard English, ice has a literal interpretation:
 ‘frozen water’,
and a figurative one:
 ‘a congelation or crystalline appearance resembling ice’
(with allusion to the slippery, cold nature of ice).
In criminals’ slang, it has a transparent meaning, which alludes to
the clearness and brittle nature of ice:
 ‘diamonds; jewellery’ (see also the drug name in § 4.2.2.5.1),
but also opaque meanings, which are disambiguable only via slang
itself, e.g. referring to the preciousness of jewellery:
198 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

 ‘profit from the illegal sale of theatre, cinema, etc., tickets’;

 ‘protection money’.

4.3.1.7. The case of iron

Another polysemous English word is iron, which in standard use
refers to:
 ‘a metal’,
to a mixture or object containing this:
 ‘a preparation of iron, used in medicine as a tonic’;
 ‘any meteorite which contains a high proportion of iron’,
to a thing made of this:
 ‘an instrument, appliance, tool, utensil, etc. made of the
metal’,
or, metaphorically, to the hard, strong nature of iron itself:
 ‘a type of extreme hardness or strength’.
In criminals’ and general slang, we find meanings which are easily
explainable by means of the Material Pattern:
 ‘a portable fire-arm; a pistol’;
 ‘a jemmy used in housebreaking’;
 ‘an old motor vehicle’.
On the other hand, we also find meanings which are obscure, e.g.:
 ‘money’,
or accessible only in terms of the original rhyme, lost in the elliptic
form:
 ‘a homosexual’ (see iron hoof, rhyming slang for ‘poof’; cf.
a homosexual’s delicacy).

4.3.1.8. The case of joint

The term joint is unambiguous in standard English:
 ‘a junction’,
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 199

but polysemous in slang. Some slang meanings are traced back to

the standard one by way of regular associative patterns:
 ‘a partnership or union, or a place of meeting or resort, esp.
of persons engaged in some illicit occupation’ (see joining
function);
 ‘a stall, tent, etc., in a circus or fair’ (see joining function);
 ‘a song, a recording; an album’ (see the American film
director Spike Lee’s use of joint to mean ‘New York street
talk’, hence, the substance (words) songs are made of).
However, other slang meanings exhibit no connection with the
original sense:
 ‘a marijuana cigarette’;
 ‘prison’.

4.3.1.9. The case of kick

In standard English, kick is used to refer to both:
 ‘a blow or knock with the foot’,
and:
 ‘opposition, objection, repugnance’ (see the function of
kicks to show hostility, aggression, etc.).
Similarly, in slang, it refers to an action which evokes the function
of removal of kicks:
 ‘discharge, dismissal’.
Yet slang adds a range of “senses of which the relationship is
obscure” (OED):
 ‘the fashion, the newest style’;
 ‘a sixpence’;
 ‘a pocket’;
 ‘breeches, trousers’ (pl.);
 ‘shoes’ (pl.),
200 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

which, as a result, contribute to the lexical disorganization of the

concept.
4.3.1.10. The case of nut
The standard meanings of nut, viz.:
 ‘a fruit or seed with a hard or leathery shell’;
 ‘something of trifling value’;
 ‘a difficult question or problem; a person hard to deal with,
conciliate, etc.’ (with allusion to the difficulty of cracking
hard-shelled nuts),
display features (e.g. roundness, smallness, hardness) which are
reproduced in the following slang meanings:
 ‘the head’;
 ‘a testicle’.
On the other hand, these features are not retained by other slang
meanings:
 ‘a source of pleasure or delight’ (pl.);
 ‘an excellent or first-rate person or thing’ (pl.);
 ‘a person’;
 ‘a fashionable or showy young man’;
 ‘a mad or crazy person; an eccentric, a crank’;
 ‘the amount of money required for a venture’;
 ‘any sum of money; a bribe or payoff’.
Such meanings inevitably add new traits (e.g. pleasure, excellence,
fashion, craziness) to the semantic description of the word, and are,
again, a source of partial disorganization.
4.3.1.11. The case of skin
The last example of partial disorganization I propose is skin, i.e.:
 ‘the integument of an animal stripped from the body’.
Slang assigns a variety of new meanings to this label, which are
justifiable on the basis of the Material Pattern:
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 201

 ‘a purse, a money bag, a wallet’ (see an animal’s skin; cf.

leather);
 ‘a drum’;
 ‘the skin of the palm of the hand, as making contact in
slapping hands in friendship or solidarity’;
of the Function Pattern, esp. protective function:
 ‘a paper for rolling cigarettes (esp. in smoking marijuana)’;
 ‘a condom’;
of the Action Pattern:
 ‘an avaricious; a miser’ (see one who would skin a flint to
save or gain something);
of the Appearance Pattern:
 ‘a youth (often one of a gang), a skinhead’ (from his having
a bald head);
or of a part-whole relationship:
 ‘a horse or mule’.
Again, slang also adds meanings which are not explainable using
the above criteria:
 ‘a dollar’;
 ‘a tyre’.

This survey shows that the slang lexicon is not entirely organized in
terms of meaning relations and regular patterns, but exhibits a
tendency towards arbitrariness: words acquire new meanings which
are not connected with the standard one(s), and which cannot be
inferred by making reference to ordinary features. Slang meanings
often entail new features which are added to existing ones,
increasing the amount of information necessary for semantic
description.
New slang semantic features may even clash with standard ones
(as in dog), and entail inconsistencies between the standard system
and the slang system. This is symptomatic of an independence of the
202 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

latter from the former, and from what is conventional, predictable

and stable.

4.3.2. Total disorganization

Total disorganization occurs when none of the regular features of a
word are preserved in slang, and no rational pattern can activate the
slang concept in our mind using universal processes, such as
metaphor, metonymy, etc., or using traditional inferential work (see
Grice’s 1989 notion of implicature, Sperber & Wilson’s 1986
expectations of relevance, etc.).
Total disorganization does not imply an expansion and
reorganization of the standard domain to include slang meanings,
but rather a shift to a completely different domain, with a range of
features which depart from the standard ones, which make
conceptualization and interpretation challenging tasks.
Let us observe a few relevant examples.
4.3.2.1. The case of bag
The features that we normally confer on the term bag come from its
standard meaning:
 ‘a receptacle made of some flexible material closed in on all
sides except at the top’.
The form and function of a bag justify the additional meanings that
the word has in standard:
 ‘an udder, a dug’;
 ‘a sac (in the animal body) containing honey, poison, etc.’;
 ‘a fold of loose skin beneath the (human) eyes’;
 ‘the stomach, entrails’.
On the other hand, such salient features do not justify the following
slang meanings:
 ‘a preoccupation, mode of behaviour or experience’;
 ‘a characteristic manner of playing jazz or similar music’;
 ‘an unattractive or elderly woman’.
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 203

These meanings imply a shift from concrete to abstract entities (a

preoccupation, a music style), and from inanimate to human ones (a
woman), and also the acquisition of new traits (e.g. anxiety, old
age) which are not present in the standard meanings. Here slang
imposes a totally new set of features.
4.3.2.2. The case of bottle
In the case of bottle, the semantic shift is, again, from concrete
standard entities:
 ‘a vessel with a narrow neck for holding liquids’;
 ‘the quantity (of liquor) which a bottle can hold’ (container-
for-contained),
to abstract slang ones:
 ‘a reprimand’;
 ‘courage, spirit’,
and back to concreteness, but with completely new features (e.g.
value) and a different frame of reference (Commercial Transaction
Frame):
 ‘a collection or share of money’.

4.3.2.3. The case of cat

Semantic shift also intervenes in the polysemic word cat,6 which in
standard English refers to an animal:
 ‘a well-known carnivorous quadruped (Felis domesticus)’
(also short for catfish, cat-o’-nine-tails),
or to concrete objects, such as:
 ‘a double tripod with six legs’;
 ‘a small piece of wood tapering at each end, used in the
game of tip-cat’.
By contrast, in slang, the word cat applies to human beings, e.g.:
 ‘an itinerant worker’;

6 See Iamartino (2006: 112-114) for the polysemy of cat and its difficult translation.
204 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

 ‘a fellow, man’;
 ‘a spiteful or backbiting woman’;
 ‘a prostitute’;
 ‘an expert in jazz’,
and, as such, it entails features (e.g. instability, professionality,
expertise, etc.) which are not in its standard meaning.
4.3.2.4. The case of monkey
Another polysemous word, monkey, is used in standard English for
the animal:
 ‘the primate’,
as well as for humans who, as a result of their attitude or nature, are
comparable to the animal:
 ‘a child; a junior; a foolish person’;
 ‘a person who acts comically’;
 ‘a person performing a task which involves physical agility’
(see a monkey’s vivacity, nimbleness, etc.).
Slang adds some extra meanings which are not motivated by the
standard features. New meanings curiously refer to humans:
 ‘an associate’;
 ‘a chorus girl’,
to non-human, concrete entities:
 ‘500 pounds sterling; 500 dollars’;
 ‘the male or female sexual organs’,
and, finally, to abstract entities:
 ‘addiction to, or habitual use of, a drug’.

4.3.2.5. The case of mug

The word mug is not polysemous in the standard language:
 ‘a (usually large) earthenware vessel or bowl; a pot’,
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 205

but it is in slang, in which it is used to denote:

 ‘a face, esp. an unattractive one’;
 ‘a grotesque or exaggerated facial expression’;
 ‘a photograph of a person’s face, esp. in police records’;
 ‘the mouth’.
Thus, slang meanings are related to one another by similar features,
but they are distant from the original meaning, and from its salient
features.
4.3.2.6. The case of potato
Another common term which in slang is loaded with new meanings
is potato. Indeed, while in standard language it is used for a type of
vegetable:
 ‘the edible, usually oval tuberous root of the plant Ipomoea
batatas’,
or, given its little value, for:
 ‘something insignificant’,
in slang, it is rather used for:
 ‘the (very, real, or proper) thing’;
 ‘money; spec. dollars’ (pl.);
 ‘a girl or woman’ (from potato peeler, rhyming slang for
sheila).
Here slang not only adds new meanings, but also meanings which
are in blatant contradiction with standard ones (cf. the value of
money).
4.3.2.7. The case of rabbit
Again, a common word of English, rabbit, designates an animal in
standard use:
 ‘a burrowing rodent of the hare-family’,
but takes on various meanings in slang, where it designates a
human being:
206 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

 ‘a poor performer at any game; a novice’,

an inanimate, but concrete entity:
 ‘liquor; a bottle of beer’;
 ‘a smuggled or stolen article’,
or even an abstract entity:
 ‘a conversation, a talk; a lingo’ (from rabbit-and-pork,
rhyming slang for ‘talk’).
As in earlier instances, the addition of new slang meanings goes
along with the addition of novel salient features, ranging from
inexperience to strength and danger. Such features appear to belong
to a different lexical system, in competition with the standard one
and with the standard rules.

This analysis of representative cases of polysemy and low or no

transparency seems to support our thesis, and to provide evidence for
prior expectations that the slang lexicon often exhibits disorganization
in terms of meaning associations and predictable patterns. That is to
say, it appears to refuse the standard rules and organizatory criteria,
and to prefer unconventionality and arbitrariness. Hence, while the
content of a standard word is normally constructed on-line, in an ad
hoc context-specific way, using encyclopedic information which
varies in accessibility from individual to individual (Barsalou 1992),
the content of a slang word “is heavily dependent on shared
background knowledge” (Gumperz 1972: 220), and may thus remain
inaccessible to those individuals who are not familiar with its slang
meaning(s).
Disorganization is a gradable notion. Total disorganization does
not rely on rational inferential processes or predictable behavioural
patterns, but rather on the memory of use of individual speakers. It
leads the system to the highest degrees of randomness and ensuing
complexity, where no constraints are given to make some states
impossible or highly improbable, and no prediction can be made,
since, paradoxically, the only certainty is chaos.
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 207

4.4. Conclusion

The three fundamental questions which motivated the lexical

semantic analysis conducted in this chapter were:
 Is there any organization within the slang lexicon?
 If so, is this organization the same as found in standard
English? Or is it rather an independent self-regulating
organization?
 If not, what else?
Our investigation has shown that, in slang, some organization is
identifiable, but it is not always the case, and disorganization often
intervenes to destroy existing rules and favour system instability.
Like the standard lexical system, the slang system has shown a
tendency to organize words into lexical fields, in which they can be
interrelated by means of paradigmatic meaning relations, esp.
synonymy. We have drawn a distinction between perfect synonyms
– i.e. words that denote the same concept and are interchangeable in
the same context (e.g. H, horse, smack for ‘heroin’) – and partial or
near synonyms exhibiting different shades of meanings (cf. smack
and junk). Other factors have proved to be crucial to discriminate
perfect from partial synonymy among co-referents, viz. in-group
usage, word origin and morphological form.
The slang system has also shown a tendency to organize sets of
items pertaining to the same conceptual domain into predictable
behavioural patterns. Accordingly, we observe that non-users employ
names for drug terms which allude to their destructive effects (e.g.
bomber, dynamite, hit), but users choose names which rather allude
to their opposite (stimulant or euphoric) effects (e.g. ecstasy, happy
dust, joy-pop). We likewise observe that body parts are named after
their function (e.g. cake-hole, gate, trap for ‘the mouth’), or after the
action they perform (e.g. kisser ‘the mouth’, snorer ‘the nose’,
choppers ‘the teeth’). The recurrence of rational associative patterns
such as Effect, Function, Action, etc. are symptomatic of the system
attempt to find an autonomous stability, and to maintain integrity via
the development of new forms of (self-)organization, emerging out
of the interactions with the environment (the context and the
208 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

speakers), as well as among the system components (the micro-

systems which make up the domain at issue).
On the other hand, slang has shown a tendency towards
disorganization and irrationality when words are used in senses
which totally depart from the standard ones, and which share no
semantic features with them. Disorganization has turned out to be a
gradable notion, in the sense that some of the original features may
be kept by slang, and therefore impose only a reshuffle and
integration of the standard domain to include slang meanings. This
happens with the word nut. In standard English, this word denotes a
definite concept evoking the Food Frame, belongs to a distinct area
(i.e., Dried Fruit, itself part of the area of Fruit), and is defined by
specific features, such as roundness, smallness, hardness, etc. Such
salient features can help us associate the word with some slang
meanings (e.g. ‘the head’, ‘a testicle’), but are useless with others
(e.g. ‘an excellent person’, ‘a fashionable young man’, ‘a mad or
crazy person’, etc.). Slang therefore adds new traits (e.g. excellence,
fashion, craziness) to the semantic description of the word, which
create partial disorganization, and complexify the word’s conceptual
representation.
When no standard feature is maintained by slang, and
randomness prevails over predictability, disorganization becomes
total, and the entire macro-system collapses, thus excluding any
possibility of a correct decoding by interpreters reasoning on the
basis of the standard lexicon and applying traditional inferential
processes. This happens with a polysemous word such as monkey.
In slang, this word acquires a variety of extra meanings which are
inaccessible by making reference to its standard features. It indeed
implies a semantic shift from a non-human to a human entity (‘an
associate’, ‘a chorus girl’), or even to an abstract one (‘addiction to
a drug’).
A well-grounded theory of Lexical Complexity, as recently
expounded in Bertuccelli Papi & Lenci (2007), can help us interpret
slang data from a dynamical system perspective (cf. Elman 1995,
1998). Bertuccelli Papi & Lenci (2007) view language and the
lexicon as a complex dynamical system, in which lexical items are
themselves conceived as micro-systems which organize conceptual
material in multiple ways depending on the task at issue.
4. Lexical Organization and Disorganization 209

When new semantic features are added to a micro-system, a larger

amount of information is necessary for its semantic description.
Additional information thus complexifies the system itself, increasing
the number of its possible states at different times (tn), and
simultaneously decreasing the extent of predictability of its dynamics.
Moreover, when a micro-system is given features which totally
depart from those commonly ascribed to the standard lexical item, it
becomes completely unstable, and its dynamics unpredictable, to the
point of chaos. This represents the highest degree of lexical
disorganization, in which meaning is (perhaps deliberately) obscured,
hidden or concealed to exclude outsiders, and to establish a secret
linguistic code shared only with insiders.
5. Sociological Properties

[…] slang is indicative not only of man’s earthiness but of his

indomitable spirit: it sets him in his proper place: relates a man to his
fellows, to his world and the world, and to the universe. (Partridge
1947: 291)

5.1. Slang sociology

As the state of the art on slang shows (see chap. 2), slang sociology is
a widely discussed topic and the aspects which play a role in its
sociological characterization have turned out to be as various as the
phenomenon itself. I here wish to give my contribution to the
sociological description of slang by selecting and reorganizing
properties highlighted so far, in order to offer a more systematic
classification.1
The classification I propose, as anticipated at the end of chapter 2,
distinguishes slang sociological properties into speaker- and hearer-
oriented ones:
 Speaker-oriented properties, which qualify the speaker as
belonging to some distinct group, include: group- and subject-
restriction, secrecy and privacy, informality and debasement,
vulgarity and obscenity, time-restriction, ephemerality and
localism;
 Hearer-oriented properties, which produce some effect upon
the hearer, are: playfulness and humour, freshness and novelty,

1 In Mattiello (2007a and forthcoming a) some of the slang sociological properties

have been studied in a contrastive (English-Italian) perspective.
212 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

desire to impress and faddishness, colour and musicality,

impertinence, offensiveness and aggressiveness.
As many of the foregoing criteria are mutually exclusive, slang
words do not meet all of them simultaneously. However, they
should meet at least some of them, as my assumptions are that an
English slang expression should reveal something about its user,
and at the same time achieve some pragmatic effect upon its hearer.
Contextualized excerpts from film dialogues and COLT
conversations can clarify these points:

52. Renton: I’m cookin’ up (‘preparing drug for use’).

Allison: Cook one for me, Renton. I need a hit (‘dose’).
(Trainspotting 1996)
53. Man: A cop (‘policeman’) in the twentieth precinct tipped
(‘informed, alerted’) us. (Mickey Blue Eyes 1999)
54. Boss (wearing Uncle Vito’s glasses): My God, these things
are making me squiffy (‘drunk’). (Mickey Blue Eyes 1999)
55. Jack: Good. Keep your snake (‘penis’) in its cage for
seventy-two hours.
Greg: Okay. (Meet the Parents 2000)
56. Chris: He’s being <unclear> unfuckingtouchable
(‘absolutely untouchable’) […]. (COLT)
57. Chuck: Hey, you the new kid? I’m talkin’ to you. Where’d
your tie go? I thought only pansies (‘homosexuals’) wore
neckties.
Ren: Oh, yeah? See that? I thought only assholes (‘idiots’)
used the word ‘pansy’. (Footloose 1984)
58. Kenickie: Hey Danny, what’s up, do you still think about
that chick (‘girl’)?
Danny: What are you, nuts (‘mad’)? (Grease 1978)
59. Jo: you know, telling him to sit and he was stubbing all the
cigarettes out, drinking all the drinks on the table. He was a
right yobbo (‘lout’)! (COLT)
5. Sociological Properties 213

60. Renton (voice over): Got no money: can’t get pished (‘drunk’).
Got money: drinking too much. Can’t get a bird (‘girl-friend’):
no chance of a ride (‘act of sexual intercourse’). Got a bird:
too much hassle. (Trainspotting 1996)
61. Boy: Rizzo’s been knocked up (‘made pregnant’). (Grease
1978)

As expected, the slang expressions in (52)-(61) above can be

discriminated on the basis of their different functions and
heterogeneous effects.
As for functions, some of them are used by the speaker to
identify with a specific group, be it on the basis of age or gender
(bird, chick, nuts), habits (cook (up), hit, pished), or origin
(asshole). Others rather denote the speaker’s vulgarity (knock up) or
obscenity (ride), or his intention to hide private information (cop,
tip).
As for effects, some of the above expressions may appear fresh
and unconventional (yobbo), playful (squiffy), or humorous (snake)
to the hearer, or may rather impress, offend or challenge him
(asshole, pansy, unfuckingtouchable).
Sociological criteria are however more fluctuating and
controversial than linguistic ones. For instance, it is indisputable
that the slang word yobbo is obtained from a cumulation of two
extra-grammatical mechanisms – i.e. back-slang plus familiar suffix
-o – and it is equally unquestionable that hit is a complex English
word due to its polysemy and, hence, to the large quantity of
information necessary for its semantic description. On the other
hand, it is questionable whether yobbo is a colourful or an offensive
word, and whether hit is simply a faddish expression, or it is rather
an opaque word used to exclude outsiders.
English native speakers are naturally facilitated in the
sociological reading of such slang expressions. But they often turn
out to be unhelpful, since their opinions about the slang functions/
effects are at times conflicting, and their use/perception of slang
words is dissimilar, though they all seem to agree that most slang is
inappropriate for use in ‘polite company’.
214 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Let us first consider each of the selected criteria and then discuss
experimental data drawn from questionnaires submitted to native
informants.

5.2. Speaker-oriented properties

By choosing the right words you show which group you belong to.
(Andersson & Trudgill 1990: 79)

Many slang expressions are in fact deliberately used by speakers to

show their affiliation to a group. Choosing the ‘right words’ therefore
implies using the specific vocabulary of the group affiliates, first, to
maintain a bond and solidarity with them, and, second, not to
conform to people who do not belong there.
The speaker’s purpose is not always that of keeping information
secret, though, since most users of slang wish to be understood and
want other people to recognize, through it, their age, origin, lifestyle,
and their manifest need to escape common neutral vocabulary.
Let us see in greater detail how slang can be indexical of
speakers’ characters, attitudes and intentions.

5.2.1. Group- and subject-restriction

Group- and subject-restriction go hand in hand, since speakers who
adhere to a specific group certainly share the other members’
interests, concerns, values, pastimes and habits, which presuppose
similar conversational topics and related areas for discussion.
For instance, the preferential topics of young men are sexuality
and attraction for the opposite sex, as in this exchange drawn from
Grease (1978):

62. Kenickie: How was the action at the beach?

Danny: It was flipping.
Sonny: Yeah, crazy, huh?
Danny: I did meet this one chick, she was sort of cool.
Sonny: You mean she puts out?
Danny: Come on, Sonny, is that all you ever think about?
5. Sociological Properties 215

This extract shows that the interactants – three high school students
at the Rydell High – are close friends, who are familiar with the
respective summer holiday programmes and curious about their
realization. They share not only such general characteristics as age
and gender, but also socio-cultural traits, such as education and
belonging to the same gang, the ‘T-birds’. Hence, they use slang or,
as I prefer to call it, “slanguage” (Mattiello 2005), as a marker of
social identity and group exclusiveness, and as a means of
expressing the values and experiences of their peer group members.
In (62) in-group distictiveness and cohesion are proclaimed by
derogatory taboo words (e.g. flipping ‘a substitute for a strong
expletive’, put out ‘offer oneself for sexual intercourse’), as well as
by creative meaning associations (e.g. chick ‘girl’, cool ‘excellent’),
which express the boys’ need for differentiation from adult society
and vocabulary. They indeed develop their own terminology to
show off and gain status within society.
Other intriguing topics which are normally favoured in young
men’s conversations are drinking and drugs, as the following extracts
from COLT show:

63. Aaron: Oh look wicked, wicked, wicked I’ve got a wicked

campaign, do a dope campaign yeah, and like the logo is
dope may d= dope may be dear but you pay through the
nose for coke.
Dan: <laugh> ... Where did you nick that from?
64. Jay: But you’re too young to go for girls. We’re drinking
beer, [getting pissed]
Wayne: [No I’m not.]
Jay: out of our nut.
65. Chris: You just said you wanted to get wasted.
Julian: I don’t wanna get wasted, I wanna get, [merry.]

In young men’s terminology, ‘drug’ is called dope, ‘cocaine’

becomes coke, and ‘completely drunk’ is expressed through such
metaphorical expressions as pissed and wasted. Other expressions
dominating their slanguage are nick (‘steal’), out of one’s nut
216 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

(‘insane’) and wicked (‘excellent’), which in some way confirm

their intimacy with the other group members and their need for a
common creative vocabulary.

5.2.2. Secrecy and privacy

Secrecy and privacy are especially peculiar to criminals and drug
dealers, who tend to use secret slang words in their clandestine
traffic. Yet private slang words are also used by (young) drug
addicts, who exploit them to minimize the potential intrusion of
non-users, esp. to hide confidential information from public or
parental authority.
Illustrative examples of covert slang expressions are offered in
the dialogues below, (66)-(68) taken from Trainspotting (1996) and
(69)-(72) from A Scanner Darkly (2006):

66. Sick Boy: There’s a mate of Swanney’s. Mikey Forrester –

you know the guy. He’s come into some gear. A lot of gear.
Renton: How much?
Sick Boy: About four kilos.
67. Renton: So we’ve just come from Tommy’s funeral and
you’re telling me about a skag deal?
Begbie: Yeah.
Renton: What was your price?
Sick Boy: Four Grand.
68. Diane: Are you clean?
Renton: Yes.
Diane: Is that a promise, then?
Renton: Yes, as a matter of fact, it is.
Diane: Calm down, I’m just asking. Is that hash I can smell?
69. Jim: Donna does coke, all right?
Charles: Three dollars doesn’t get you a line of coke.
70. Charles: I heard you have to cold turkey.
Jim: Cold turkey doesn’t even apply to Substance D.
Unlike the legacy of inherited predisposition to addictive
behaviour of substances this needs no genetic assistance.
5. Sociological Properties 217

There’s no weekend warriors on the D. You’re either on it

or you haven’t tried it.
71. Donna: Hey, do you have that money for the stuff? I need it
tonight.
Bob: Yeah. I have it.
72. Bob: How much do you do?
Donna: Not that much. And I don’t shoot up. I never have
and I never will, I – Once you start shooting, you got like
six months, maybe. And even tap water. You get a habit.
Bob: You have a habit.

Marginal or isolated subgroups in society – esp. drug dealers/takers

– use specific slang terms to name ‘drug’ (gear, stuff, (Substance) D
 Death) or types of drugs ((line of) coke ‘(dose of) cocaine’, hash
‘hashish’, skag ‘heroin’), and also rename the actions connected
with drugs (be on it, do, do coke), e.g. ‘injecting oneself with them’
(shoot up), ‘the practice of taking addictive drugs’ (habit), and the
state of being ‘free from’, or ‘the giving up of’ them (clean, cold
turkey). In this way, they intend to create a new restricted language
code which assumes a high degree of shared contextual experience
between speaker and listener, but at the same time preserves secret
talks from being decoded by outsiders.

5.2.3. Informality and debasement

Informality and debasement are chiefly evident in general slang
words, which are deliberately used by speakers to break with the
neutral standard language and to reduce the level of discourse to
familiar or low speech. They signal the speakers’ intention to refuse
conventions and their need to be informal, to ease social exchanges
and induce friendliness.
Consider, for instance, the welcome salutations between old
friends in (73), taken from There’s Something about Mary (1998):

73. Sully: Healy, you dog.

Healy: Sully. Look at you.
Sully: You hot shit. You look fucking pisser.
218 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

The speakers adopt an informal debased vocabulary to express their

closeness and equality. In particular, Sully uses the polysemous
slang words dog and shit as familiar epithets, and then adds that his
friend looks fucking pisser, that is, ‘particularly fine or impressive’.
A similar informality is shown in the conversations below, (74)
taken from The Full Monty (1997) and (75)-(76) from Notting Hill
(1999):

74. Horse: Hey, you get some fit birds in there.

Lomper: Nah, her tits are too big.
75. Spike: There’s something wrong with the goggles, though.
William: No, they were, um… prescription.
Spike: Groovy.
76. Max: Wine?
Tessa: Oh, yes, please. Come on, Willie, let’s get sloshed.

Here slang terminology ranges from debased (tits ‘breasts’) to

familiar (groovy ‘excellent’), to intimate friendly language (birds
‘girls’, sloshed ‘drunk’). It is the vocabulary which people use in
common relaxed conversations, in such contexts as home, pub or
general free time, in which an educated formal register would be
situationally inappropriate and unconventional language is instead
privileged.

5.2.4. Vulgarity and obscenity

Andrew: Are you allowed to swear?
Josie: Yes, that’s the whole point. Give me some of your slang.
(COLT 132902: 19-20)

Vulgarity and obscenity spread through the language of

adolescents, known and referred to as “pubilect” (see Taylor 1998
and the literature therein). Adolescents in fact use dirty, swear or
taboo words to exhibit their strength, power and virility (in the case
of boys), or, in general, to boast with their peers, and to show that,
when parents or teachers are not there, they are free to go to excesses
in their language.
5. Sociological Properties 219

COLT dialogues are the widest collection of improper and

unmentionable slang words. When adolescents are asked to provide
their favourite swear word, they provide a list of options selected
from their repertoire:

77. Josie: Like you, Shell, what’s your favourite swear word.
Saira: Do we want to [read then?]
Shelley: [bastard]
Josie: I like cunt. I like the way it comes out. Cunt! And up
your bum! ... And cock off! And bloody, bastard,
buggery, bum and balls and holes. <laugh> Oh! That
stupid girl. Up your bum!
78. Josie: We come to an agreement and that’s our biggest
word, fuck. I’ve got everyone’s, oi, Mohammed! What’s
your favourite swear word? ...
?: Bollocks! […]
Josie: Mine’s like, cunt and things like that.
Peter: <unclear> this or not?
Alice: Usually shit and fuck, I think are my vocabulary.
Josie: Yeah, or oh shit, you cunt!
Alice: Or shite is also another one.
Josie: Yeah, or, or, or, budging hell cos your mum’s in front
of you.

Predictably, most of the impolite slang words and expressions above

have sexual connotations (balls and holes, bollocks, (up your) bum,
cock off, cunt, fuck). Others have scatological connotations (shit,
shite), and still others are coarse terms of abuse used to insult or
express irritation or anger (bastard, bloody, budging hell, buggery).
COLT adolescents often turn out to be obscene when they make
use of such words to refer to various types of sexual intercourses:

79. Andrew: Thelma and Louise. That was a good bit when he
fucked her up the arse.
Josie: <laugh> Like when he goes, [suck my cock!]
80. Leanne: […] your Mum sucks a black knob.
220 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Craig: A black knob?

Leanne: Yeah.
Craig: Your Mum sucks Chinky knobs. Your Mum’s got a
fanny with a split the wrong way. ... You know [your Mu=]
Leanne: [Yours sucks] her own boobs.

These recordings show the speakers’ naivety, their call for slang
“four-letter words” (arse, boob(s), cock, fuck, knob, suck) (Apte
1998: 987) to appear older than they are, or, for girls, to appear as
wordly-wise as the boys are supposed to be.

5.2.5. Time-restriction, ephemerality and localism

Time-restriction, ephemerality and localism are properties which
deal with the collocation of slang expressions in time or space.
Some slang words are indeed typical of a certain time period, which
may be associated with the speaker’s age. Others disappear as
quickly as they have been created, but they show the speakers’
effort to be novel in his speech. Still others are typical of a region,
normally connected to the speaker’s origin.
As for time-restriction, some slang words are typical of a
generation or age group. Hence, when a person grows older and no
longer belongs to this age group, (s)he generally stops using them.
Consider Mr. De Leon’s words in this excerpt from Frankie and
Johnny (1991):

81. Mr. De Leon: … In my time, I said… tooties, dolls, gals,

chicks, babes… sometimes even broads. That’s when I was
a young man…

As for ephemerality, some words have been slang for a very long
period of time. For instance, the word quid, which was firstly
attested in 1688 with the sense of ‘a guinea’, continues to be used
now, as in COLT below, though in the slightly different sense of
‘one pound sterling’:
5. Sociological Properties 221

82. Matt: How much do you get an hour?

Claire: Three quid. How much [do you get?]
Craig: [Ah no!] He’s been working his time man. Ah! That’s
out of order. Ah nah! <laughing> Ah ha ah!
Jo: Three pound [is right.]

Conversely, other slang words are ephemeral, and they are not
recorded in dictionaries, though their slangy flavour is evident.
Observe, for instance, the following insulting occasionalisms
ending in -head:

83. Selum: What you doing? Peanut head.

Elee: Shut up.
Selum: Peanut head. Bean head.
Elee: No.
Selum: [Boil head.]

As for localism, some slang is associated with a specific region.

The conversations which follow, respectively from Grease (1978)
and Footloose (1984), show examples of regional slang:

84. Boy: What are the Scorpions doing here? This ain’t their
turf.
Danny: Think they wanna rumble? Well, if they do, we’re
gonna be ready for it.
85. Willard: Oh, shit, really?
Ren: No. Yeah, but we did dance. We danced our asses off!

The noun turf, denoting the streets controlled by a juvenile street-

gang and regarded by them as ‘their territory’, and the verb rumble
(‘have a gang fight’) are American English slang, and so is the
expression to dance one’s ass off (‘dance a lot’), which we
distinguish from British slang to dance one’s arse off.
222 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

Another example of local slang is provided by Cockney rhyming

slang, which occurs in its elliptic form in the example below, drawn
from The Limey (1999):

86. Wilson: Eddy… yeah, he’s me new china.

Elaine: What?
Wilson: China plate… mate.

5.3. Hearer-oriented properties

Slang words may be distinguished from the standard language

vocabulary because they normally produce some effect upon the
hearer which the neutral comparable forms would not generate.
The effects of slang words range from positive to negative and
depend to a large extent on the interactants and the context of use.
They may vary in accordance with the participants’ relationship and
their mutual knowledge, or with the situation and the prosody
intervening in the word pronunciation. All these factors guide the
hearer’s interpretation of the slang words and his feeling about them.
Some slang words can, for instance, cause the hearer’s laughter or
amuse him. Others may convey liveliness and vivacity by way of
novel forms, or impress the hearer via creative meaning associations,
or else attract his attention via captivating sounds. But others may
shock the hearer, especially when they sound impudent or rude, and
they may make him feel authorised to adopt the same language to
accept the speaker’s challenge.
The different, even divergent, effects that slang words can
produce motivate the proliferation of slang co-referents, none of
which are actually redundant, but are rather necessary to arouse
some specific reaction on the hearer’s part.

5.3.1. Playfulness and humour

Playfulness and humour are typical features of metaphorical slang
words. Generally, people find a slang word amusing when the
association with its referent sounds unfamiliar, odd, and therefore
out of the ordinary.
5. Sociological Properties 223

For instance, the metaphor snake referring to ‘the male sexual

organ’ sounds rather comical in this extract from Meet the Parents
(2000):

87. Greg: I forgot. I’m not supposed to let the snake out of my
cage.
Pam: You what?
Greg: I told your dad I wouldn’t touch you for seventy-two
hours.

Similarly, the metaphorical expression a bun in the oven for ‘a child

conceived’ would be funny to the reader of this secret dialogue
drawn from Grease (1978):

88. Sonny: Hey Marty, what’s up?

Marty: Rizzo’s pregnant, don’t tell anybody.
Sonny: Rizzo got a bun in the oven.

The humour and playfulness of such expressions are mainly

obtained by means of a subtle play of metaphorical extensions,
which presupposes the hearer’s knowledge of the circumstances to
identify the actual meanings implied.
People also find a slang word funny when it is used across
generation boundaries: e.g., by a speaker who is younger or older
than expected. Consider the word fox used by a child in (89) (from
Footloose 1984), and chick used by an adult in (90) (from Notting
Hill 1999):

89. Wes: Ethel, you sure you’re not too tired?

Ethel: No, Ren did most of the driving.
Amy: If you ask me, Ren is a total fox.
Lulu: Amy!
Wes: Where did you hear that?
90. William: Um, I wouldn’t go outside.
Spike: Why not?
224 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

William: Just take a word for it.

Spike: Oh. How did I look? Not bad. Not at all bad. Well-
chosen briefs, I’d say. Chicks love grey. Nice firm buttocks.

In both cases, the terms used sound anomalous or bizarre, as they

give the impression of being an emulation of teenage language.
Hence, their comical effect upon the hearer.
Furthermore, a slang word may sound humorous when it is felt
as outdated. Consequently, people who continue using it may
appear ridiculous. An example is the old-fashioned word ninny (‘a
simpleton; a fool’) contextualized in this extract from Mickey Blue
Eyes (1999):

91. Michael: I’m sorry, Phillip. Uncle Vito!

Boss: Oh, Michael, I’m a ninny! I quite forgot to tell you
the good news.

5.3.2. Freshness and novelty

Freshness and novelty are distinctive features of slanguage, since
teenagers, and young people in general, tend to be up-to-date and
innovative in their speech.
Consider some original expressions – all from COLT – used by
London teenagers to refer to ‘crazy (people)’:

92. Robert: He’s bloody mad, bloody potty, off his rocker. (into
microphone)
Amanda: Where did you get it?
93. Kath: She’s allergic to alcohol, she ge = she gets really
pissed on like one, two glasses of wine.
Lizzie: Yeah but allergic means you come up in something.
Kath: No I mean, basically it means that, it gets to her head
really quickly, like one, two glasses of wine, and she’s off
her trolley.
94. Orgady: <laugh>
Charlotte: You could go a bit nutty with it.
Obina: What are you two arguing for?
5. Sociological Properties 225

95. Sabrina: Oh he’s such a nutter isn’t he.

Caroline: Oh right.
Sabrina: God he’s such a nutcase.
96. Charitra: yeah, he’s gonna go bonkers.
Sarah: <laugh>

Teenagers’ efforts to invent new words and to modify the form or

meaning of existing ones are evident from the above slang nouns
(nutcase, nutter), and adjectives/phrases (bonkers, nutty, off her
trolley, off his rocker). The young are indeed creative and continually
in search of novel expressions which show that they are fashionable.
They change their way of speaking as quickly as they change their
clothing, hairstyle or make-up, in line with the trends of modern
society (cf. Milroy 1998).
Slanguage originality and inventiveness are confirmed by Josie’s
lesson (again from COLT) on the sense of some words of her own
creation:

97. Josie: Hi Sam! ... I was taping, Sam. ... <speaking quietly
just for the tape> battyman means you’re gay. And
Lezzypal means you’re a lesbian. Okay? <unclear> (break
in tape)

But often modern slanguage runs the risk of appearing obscure to

the hearer who, though perceiving the freshness of a slang word,
may not be able to catch its meaning, as in (98) below:

98. Peter: <unclear> any fags? Got any fags?

Liam: Pardon? ...

The word fag being here used in the place of standard English
‘cigarette’.

5.3.3. Desire to impress and faddishness

Some slang words show the speaker’s desire to impress the hearer,
226 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

and they actually do, because of their faddishness. The extravagance

of the numerous expressions coined for ‘homosexual male or female’
can illustrate this aspect of slang.
We can draw from COLT useful exemplifications:

99. Danny: He’s a bender.

Matthew: Hong Kong and he’s gay bent bastard.
100. Leanne: Your Dad, is a fucking lesy.
Craig: How can my Dad be a lesy? Your Mum’s a lesy. And
your Dad’s gay, so shut up! That’s the end.
101. Josh: Jonathan’s a dancing queen.
Jonathan: <laughing> Yeah, <unclear> you dickhead.
Rob: Jonathan’s a queen, period.
102. Kath: Queer bastard.
Claire: Who’s a que= me?
Kath: Mm.
Claire: I’m not queer!

Bent, lesy, queen, queer (n and adj) and many other unconventional
slang words can strike the hearer, because of their eccentric
character and/or figurative sense.
Another teenage slang word which may shock the hearer is cow.
A small sample from COLT conversations is enough to understand
its use in context:

103. Josie: [Yeah, yeah, yeah] like your mum goes, you stupid
cow!
104. Josie: … what you laughing at you flat chested cow? I was
laughing and you were getting the hump with it ... cos I
knew I had it all on tape.
Wesley: I didn’t call you a flat chested cow.
105. Owain: You’re a fucking flaming cow.
Leon: <laughing> You’re so bad </> beat him up.
106. Sabrina: Good. Ain’t that <name> a big cow.
5. Sociological Properties 227

Caroline: <laugh>
Sabrina: Bloody right cow! And you know yesterday she
had the nerve, to ask me if she could sit, at the end of our
table.

As these extracts show, cow is not properly an offensive slang

word, but it is rather used in jest (as in 103, 104), or to impress the
hearer (as in 105, 106). What is faddish about this word is that it
collocates with unpleasant or intensifying adjectives (big, bloody
right, flaming, flat chested, fucking stupid) and, in spite of this, it is
not necessarily an insulting bad word.

5.3.4. Colour and musicality

Slang words often play with sounds or may display an onomatopoeic
colour. Musicality may be obtained by way of reduplicative formations
or rhyming phrases.
In the following conversation taken from Grease (1978), Marty
uses a copy reduplicative to express her disappointment:

107. Marty: Oh, double doo doo.

Betty: Please.
Jan: What was that?
Marty: One of my diamonds just fell in the macaroni!

and the musicality of doo-doo (‘faeces’) is further reinforced by the

alliterative adjective double.
Other instances of exact reduplication are in the extracts from
COLT reported below:

108. Samantha: a boo boo, got my voice, too big.

Dawn: You’re telling me.
109. Joanne: <whine> <mimicking> pinky boo boo. Oh. Oh I
mean, Lynn, you always…
Lynn: <unclear> cow’s poo poo.
228 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

in which the words boo-boo (‘a foolish mistake or blunder’) and

poo-poo (‘faeces’) exhibit only an internal echo.
Rhyme is another common source of musicality, as the excerpts
below, respectively from Grease (1978), When Harry Met Sally
(1989) and Notting Hill (1999), illustrate:

110. Betty: Okay. So you guys think this is a gang-bang?

Doody: You wish!
111. Harry: […] A ‘Sheldon’ can do you income taxes. If you
need a root canal, Sheldon is your man. But humping and
pumping is not Sheldon’s strong suit. It’s the name. […]
112. William: Oh. Well, great. Fantastic. That’s er… Oh…
shittity brickitty. It’s my sister’s birthday. Shit. We’re
meant to be having dinner.
Anna: Okay, that’s fine.

The compound gang-bang (‘a sexual orgy’), the phrase humping

and pumping, from two vulgar verbs (hump, pump) meaning
‘having sexual intercourse’, and the interjection shittity brickitty,
from shit a brick (‘expressing surprise or amazement’), make the
hearer aware of slang echoic character, which mostly emerges when
the speaker modulates (aggravating or mitigating) the force of his
speech act.
An additional source of musicality is onomatopoeia. Consider
the dialogue below, drawn from There’s Something about Mary
(1998):

113. Detective Stabler: First tell us why you did it.

Ted: Why I did it? Um, I don’t know. Boredom? The guy
turns out to be a blabbermouth. Just would not shut up. I
mean with the, just…

Blabbermouth used here is a colourful expression indicating ‘one

who blabs; a tell-tale’, thus evoking the sound one produces when
‘blabbing’ via the /b/ consonant reiteration.
5. Sociological Properties 229

The consonant cluster / m/ rather denotes someone or something

unpleasant, as in (114) below:

114. Josie: Karen! What are you going to be when you gro=
Karen! Oi! You ugly schmuck!

Indeed, schmuck (‘idiot’) belongs to a set of slang words of Yiddish

origin which normally have bad connotations (e.g. schmeck
‘heroin’, schmooze ‘a chat or gossip’, schmutz ‘filth, dirt’, etc.).

5.3.5. Impertinence, offensiveness and aggressiveness

The impertinence and aggressiveness of some slang words have
offensiveness as an inevitable consequence. Insolent terms of
address, or strong, even cruel slang expressions may be used to insult
other people, in impolite conversations, or to show one’s disapproval
and condemnation of the hearer’s behaviour, way of life, etc.
People sometimes address their friends using impudent
expressions. Below is a series of contextualized examples, some
(115, 116) drawn from The Full Monty (1997), and the others from
COLT:

115. Dave: I try dieting. I do try. Seems I’ve spent most of my

fuckin’ life on a diet. The less I eat, the fatter I get.
Lomper: So stuff yourself and get thin.
Guy: Oh, shut up, saggy tits!
116. Gaz: Dave. Oi, you deaf twat!
Dave: Oh, what d’you want now? I’ve told you, I’m finished
with it.
117. Ian: <unclear> You lard arse. He’s got <unclear> ...
Grace: <laugh> ...
Ian: He’s an old cunt.
Grace: <laugh> So <unclear> as you boy.
118. Vicki: Fuck you arsehole!
Jay: <laugh> ... <laughing> No fuck you arsehole!
230 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

119. Terry: <mimicking cry> I d=, oh no. <whistle> See how

much money you got. <shouting> You fool! You dumb
arse!
Mother: <unclear>
Terry: <shouting> I don’t care! Bloody prick <unclear>!
<sigh>

These brief excerpts show that most slang uncouth expressions

collocate with vulgar taboo words related to male or female genitals
(arse, arsehole, cunt, prick, tits, twat).
Other aggressive nasty slang words are rather related to female
promiscuity. Below are some instances from COLT:

120. Shelley: Shut up you old tart!

Josie: Ooh ooh! Language please!
121. Jay: Your Mum’s a slut.
Craig: Ah! Your Mum’s a slut.
122. Anthony: <mimicking> Now to=, for some fucking dirty
swear! Woooooh! You fucking bitch! You Irish bastard!
Aden and Mandy have it in bed! Wo oh! Bed squeaking! Ah
ha, ah ha, ah ha, ah ah! Fucking slag! Dirty whore!

Still others are related to the animal kingdom:

123. Shelley: [<unclear>] ... <screaming> You rotten bastard!

Josie: <shouting> You ... Shelley ... are a sick fat bitch!
124. Leon: I really hate anybody who’s being horrible to other
people, it makes me feel bad.
Casey: Oh, stuff it pig head.

Notice, finally, how the slang word dog varies across different
regional varieties and turns out to be offensive in British slang (cf.
Amer. slang in 73 above):

125. Samantha: You’re dirty dog.

Romax: You’re dirty dog. [Get lost.]
5. Sociological Properties 231

5.4. The opinion of native speakers

The opinion of native speakers of English2 has been crucial to

confirm our expectations about the sociological factors characterizing
slang. Results from experiments conducted on native informants aged
between 17 and 54, though not relevant statistically, have for the
most part confirmed that the functions/effects of English slang
amount to the speaker-/hearer-oriented criteria just examined. For
instance, in the questionnaires they filled in, natives offered the
following comments about the words/expressions highlighted in (52)-
(61):
 Cook up, hit
The verb cook up and the noun hit turned out to be hardly
comprehensible for most English speakers. Hence, none would use
them, and the majority declared that they consider them faddish
private words essentially used to communicate efficiently among
insiders, and, simultaneously, to exclude outsiders.
The informants who understood the sense of cook up provided
such definitions as ‘prepare a dose/shot of heroin’ or ‘heat heroin’,
describing it as a novel word.
They did not always succeed in disambiguating the sense of hit
either. They attempted such descriptions as ‘a heroin dose’, ‘a shot
of heroin’, or, with a few uncertainties, ‘a dose of drugs’.
Interestingly, a woman from Leicester described hit through another
slang term – i.e. fix – which was probably more familiar to her.
By contrast, an erroneous description of hit was ‘the effect of
heroin’, which however confirmed that this word can be associated
with a drug dose via the negative effects a drug can produce on its
addict (see Effect Pattern in § 4.2.2.5.4).
 Cop, tip
The noun cop was understood by all informants, who provided
definitions such as ‘a policeman’ or ‘a police officer’. A 17-year-
old girl from Liverpool defined it an American English word, but

2 The informants were all speakers from the U.K., but their regional origins were
various, viz. from South East (London) to East Midlands (Leicester), from Northern
England (Liverpool, Manchester) to Scotland (Edinburgh).
232 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

most of the informants affirmed that they would use it in informal

or familiar British English as well.
On the other hand, the verb tip was heterogeneously defined as
‘give some money’, ‘help’, ‘warn; give advice’, ‘tell; give
information’, but this latter is the most appropriate slang
interpretation, as illustrated in (53).
 Squiffy
The adjective squiffy was not clear to many informants, who
consequently would not use it in their everyday speech. Some
speakers interpreted the word sense as ‘dizzy’ or ‘feel sick’, and
only a few provided the more precise definition ‘feel tipsy’ or
‘drunk’.
The adjective was generally described as humorous and playful
at the same time, chiefly because it was regarded as an old-
fashioned colourful expression.
 Snake
The euphemism snake for ‘penis’ was familiar to nearly all
informants, who however stated that they would not use this word.
They generally agreed about the word playfulness and humorous
effect. Some (chiefly young or middle-aged women) also added
comments on the word’s vulgarity/obscenity.
 Unfuckingtouchable
The novel adjective unfuckingtouchable (an occasionalism from
COLT) had never heard before by the informants. Hence, some
were not able to recover the word meaning from the context. Others
asserted that they would not use this word, but tried to find out its
meaning (e.g. ‘refusing contact with others’, ‘aloof’, ‘stand offish’).
As regards the word’s functions/effects, interpretations ranged
from vulgarity and obscenity to playfulness and faddishness.
 Pansy, asshole
The noun pansy was not recognizable to young informants, whereas
middle-aged speakers provided the correct definition (i.e.
‘homosexual man’, ‘effeminate man’, ‘effeminate gay man’, ‘gay’),
though some of them specified that the word is felt as out-dated.
5. Sociological Properties 233

On the other hand, the noun asshole was clear to everyone. Most
speakers gave the definition ‘idiot’ or ‘stupid person’, though some
others tried to be more precise (‘a person with an exaggerated idea
of his own importance’).
Both words were viewed as offensive and aggressive espressions
which are now part of derogatory vocabulary, but asshole was
additionally felt as a vulgar/obscene swear word of American use.
 Chick, nuts
There is discrepancy between the perceptions of the various
informants, who rated as out-dated words like chick and nuts.
The noun chick for ‘girl, woman’ was known by the informants
but not used by them for different reasons. Some claimed it is a
playful/humorous faddish word, but colourful and offensive to the
addressee. Others claimed it is American English, and therefore not
used in Britain. Still other people claimed that chick is late
1960s/70s slang, so, when it is used by adult people who were
young in that period, it produces comical effects.
The adjective nuts was similarly viewed as a humorous/playful
but offensive term for ‘crazy’ or ‘mad’, which has now become
dated slang or has entered into informal language.
 Yobbo
The noun yobbo seemed familiar to most British English speakers.
With a few exceptions – e.g. some did not provide any definition
for the word and one interpreted it as ‘homeless alcoholic’ –
speakers considered yobbo a colourful efficient word for ‘thug’ or
‘brainless aggressive person’, an informal British English term for
‘aggressive man’ or ‘uncouth person’, and some would even use it
in such senses.
 Pished, bird, ride
The adjective pished – from pissed, some informants remark –
would be used as a playful/humorous term for ‘drunk’, or avoided
as a result of its colourful character.
Also the noun bird for ‘girlfriend’, ‘girl’ or ‘woman’ was
considered colourful, and by some people offensive. Others felt it is
now informal British English.
234 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

The verb ride was described as a private word for ‘carried/lift’, a

vulgar American slang term for ‘having sex’, a colourful term for
‘sexual intercourse’, or an offensive word for ‘sex’.
 Knocked up
The participle knocked up was plain to most informants, with the
exception of some young ones. The sense indicated was ‘made
pregnant’, ‘left pregnant’, ‘got pregnant’, and the word’s
characteristics dealt with vulgarity, offensiveness and localism (i.e.
Amer. slang).

5.5. Conclusion

This chapter has confirmed that the functions and effects of slang
are numerous, sometimes divergent, but more often interrelated and
hard to keep separate. They may indeed merge to characterize the
same slang expression and to suggest its different facets, depending
on the conversation participants and situation of occurrence.
Some slang words have turned out to index different speakers or
to generate dissimilar effects in relation to the context. For instance,
in American English the word dog can be viewed as an indicator of
informal or low level discourse, thus implying the speaker’s effort
to establish a close intimate relationship with his hearer. But it can
also be an indicator of the participants’ place of origin, since British
speakers would rather use it as a colourful word for ‘bastard’,
hence, as a means to challenge their hearers.
Similarly, such words as bird for ‘a girl’ and fox for ‘an
attractive woman’ can signal the speaker’s age and gender, since
they are generally used by young men as verbal means of group
cohesion and distinctiveness. Yet when they are used across
generation boundaries – e.g. by adult men – they give the
impression of being bad imitations of teenage slanguage, with a
consequent humorous effect upon the hearer.
An audio-visual context – as in the case of film dialogues – or a
specific data collection with clues about the speakers’ origin, age,
occupation, and interpersonal relations – as drawn from COLT
conversations – has helped us associate sociological properties to
the slang words/expressions investigated.
5. Sociological Properties 235

In addition, experiments on British English native speakers have

wholly confirmed our expectations about slang functions/effects.
Predictably, the only divergencies among the results obtained
originated from the different speakers’ ages, genders and cities of
origin, which are variables we took into account in our sociological
survey.
Hence, it is ultimately in the speaker’s intentionality and in the
hearer’s acceptability that slang acquires its socio-cultural value,
and it is in the speakers’ mutual behaviour and respect that we can
perceive the authentic function that a slang word fulfils, or the
actual effect it produces.
Final Remarks

Is slang a word for linguistics? (Dumas & Lighter 1978, article title)

Thirty years after Dumas & Lighter’s article, this study has tried to
provide confirmation that slang can truly be considered ‘a word for
linguistics’. First of all, it is a word for morphologists who analyse the
word-formation phenomena violating universal principles of English
grammar, hitherto marginalized to extra-grammatical morphology.
Secondly, it is a word for semanticists who study the organization of
the English lexical system, and, particularly, the behavioural
tendencies of items departing from such organization and generating
complexity. Thirdly, slang is a word for sociolinguists who
investigate the interrelations among participants in a conversation,
and wish to identify the linguistic means qualifying the speakers
and/or producing some effect upon the hearers.
The morphological inspection conducted in this study has given
significant results pertaining to the grammaticality vs. extra-
grammaticality of slang formations. We have established that some
of them conform to the canonical derivation and compounding
mechanisms of standard English, including noun-forming suffixes,
e.g., -er (chancer) and -ing (ranking), adjective-forming suffixes,
e.g., -ed (potted), -ing (happening) and -y (foxy), compound nouns
(baglady), adjectives (pie-faced), and verbs (talk turkey), and
conversions (adv out
v out ‘knock out or defeat (an opponent)’).
Other formations are extra-grammatical because:
 Rather than creating new words, they obtain connoted
variants, as in the case of some slang suffixes, e.g., -eroo
(flopperoo), -ie/-y (bikie, chiefy), -er/-ers (brekker,
238 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

champers), -o (kiddo), and of numerous abbreviatory

operations, such as initialisms (once-over
O.O.), blending
(sex + sensational
sexational), and clipping (fabulous

fab, banana
nana);
 In blatant contradiction with Aronoff’s (1976) Unitary Base
Hypothesis and Scalise’s (1988) Unitary Output Hypothesis,
they apply to various base categories and display output
promiscuity: e.g., the -ie/-y suffix is indiscriminately applied
to nouns (druggie/-y), adjectives (biggie/-y), verbs (clippie/
-y), and adverbs (downie);
 Rather than exhibiting predictable form change, they are
irregularly formed from discontinuous bases, as in infixation
(abso-bloody-lutely), with consequent morphotactic and
morphosemantic opacity (Dressler 1999, 2005);
 Rather than relying on existing stem or word bases, they
may show no meaningful bases, as in rhyming or copy
reduplication (hotsy-totsy, bling-bling) or word manufacture
(scag).
Still other formations lie between grammatical and extra-
grammatical morphology. On the one hand, they may conform to
the regular patterns of morphotactic concatenation, but display
extra-grammaticality in the base forms (yobby  yob), or, on the
other hand, they may display regular bases, but irregular order of
morphological processes (dicey  pl. of die).
Lastly, some rare slang formations belong to marginal morphology
because their processes stand across the margin between derivation
and compounding (-fest in gabfest), or between morphology and
phonology (gee  guy, Beeb  B.B.C.).
Interestingly, while some idiomatically combining expressions of
Standard English (e.g. to take advantage of) are compositional, slang
idiomatic phrases (e.g. to kick the bucket) are non-compositional, and
therefore lexicalized as such, or, at least, metaphorical (e.g. to work
one’s guts out) (see Nunberg et al. 1994; cf. Mateu & Espinal 2007).
The semantic inspection has shown that most regular (rule-
governed) slang formations exhibit irregularity in meaning association,
and therefore generate disorganization within the lexical system.
Final Remarks 239

The way slang words organize the lexicon into semantic areas is
sometimes predictable on the basis of meaning relations (synonymy,
antonymy, hyponymy, meronymy), or of regular patterns which may
help recreate the correlation between slang words and their meaning.
Yet slang organization has often turned out to be unpredictable, and
the cognitive operations linking slang words to the correlated
concepts have appeared hard, if not impossible, to identify. For this
reason we have explored slang disorganization.
Lexical disorganization is pertinent to items such as nut, which
in slang maintains some of its standard semantic features but also
acquires new ones. Standard features (e.g. roundness, smallness,
hardness) are useful to disambiguate such slang meanings as ‘the
head’ or ‘a testicle’, but they are useless with other slang meanings.
Hence, we have made use of new features (e.g. excellence, fashion,
craziness) to interpret such meanings as ‘an excellent person’, ‘a
fashionable young man’, or ‘a mad or crazy person’.
Lexical disorganization is total when no standard feature is
maintained by slang, as in monkey. We have seen that, in slang, this
word implies a semantic shift from a non-human to a human entity
(‘an associate’, ‘a chorus girl’), or even to an abstract one (‘addiction
to a drug’). Here, slang meanings have turned out to be inaccessible
using our common knowledge of standard English, and, in such
conditions, the micro-system has turned out to be unstable, and its
dynamics unpredictable.
These findings are in line with a recently-developed theory of
Lexical Complexity (Bertuccelli Papi & Lenci 2007), grounded on
the notions of dynamicity and complexity. Accordingly, we can
claim that the slang macro-system is complex due to: (a) the high
number of dimensions and related states of the system, and, in
particular, (b) the irregularity and unpredictability of its dynamics.
Lastly, the sociological inspection has illustrated the possible
functions/effects of slang in free conversation. This inspection starts
from the crucial distinction we have made between speaker- and
hearer-oriented criteria. The former – including group-restriction,
secrecy, vulgarity and others – index the speakers’ characters,
attitudes and intentions, while the latter include a set of effects,
such as humour or offensiveness, which slang words and phrases
can produce upon the hearer/addressee.
240 Elisa Mattiello – An Introduction to English Slang

As for functions, we have identified words which qualify the

speaker as a member of a particular group, such as young men
chatting about sex, alcohol, drugs (chick, dope, pissed, wasted), or
criminals talking about drug traffic (gear, hash, skag, stuff). We
have also observed that certain slang words can ease social
exchanges and encourage friendliness (bird, dog, groovy, sloshed),
but they may become offensive in a different regional context (cf.
dog Amer. ‘mate’ vs. Brit. ‘idiot’). We have likewise observed the
vulgarity or even obscenity of many adolescents’ swear words
(cunt, fuck, knob, suck), and the restriction of other words to age
groups: e.g., babes, broads, dolls and gals belong to the young
generation, so their use is limited to that generation and not to the
next one.
As for effects, we have distinguished humorous or playful
words/expressions (a bun in the oven, snake) from offensive or
aggessive ones (fat bitch, lard arse, old tart, saggy tits). We have
also focused on the freshness of slanguage and on the creative
expressions that teenagers use, for instance, to express craziness
(bonkers, nutcase, nutter, nutty, off one’s trolley/rocker), or on their
faddish options for ‘homosexual’ (bent, lesy, queen, queer),
sometimes mere occasionalisms (battyman, lezzypal). Lastly, we
have commented on the musicality of such slang words as boo-boo
and poo-poo, or the colour of such expressions as gang-bang and
humping and pumping.
However, we have also drawn attention to the subjectivity and
questionableness of some such sociological properties, compared
with the objectivity of linguistic peculiarities, which can
indiscriminately assign the label ‘slang’ to new words. I am
referring here to the EMOs discussed in section 3.1.2, viz.
infixation, abbreviated (elliptic) rhyming formations, inverted and
altered forms, and familiarity markers such as the English suffix
-ie/-y, -ers (Brit.), -eroo (Amer.), -o (Austral.), and -s. But I am also
referring to the polysemy or semantic indeterminacy of the terms
discussed in sections 4.3.1 and 4.3.2, i.e. highly complex micro-
systems which have no internal equilibrium among fluctuating
meanings, and consequently menace the stability of the whole
macro-system and hinder prediction of its dynamics.
Final Remarks 241

In this study, I have re-examined slang from different pespectives,

and shown new directions of analysis. In this way, I hope to have
demonstrated that slang is not marginal, but a basic linguistic
phenomenon which offers the occasion for intriguing considerations
about the evolution of the English grammar system, and is the
starting-point of lively discussions on the complexity of the English
lexical system. Slang is, we might say, a ‘foxy’ topic.
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Author Index

A C
Algeo, J., 135 Cacchiani, S., 139
Allen, I.L., 31-33, 36, 39, 41, 49, Cagliero, R., 28
53-57 Cannon, G., 135
Allen, M.R., 86 Cappelli, G., 26
Andersen, G., (see Stenström et al.) Chambers, J.K., 37
31-33, 39, 47-49, 54, 56, 57 Conti, S., 81
Andersson, L.G., 32, 33, 36, 37, 38, Crocco Galèas, G., 81
40, 41, 47, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, Croft, W., 159, 169, 192
214 Cruse, D.A., 159, 169, 192
Anshen, F., 156
Apte, M.L., 50, 52, 220 D
Aronoff, M., 19, 22, 23, 61, 67, 68,
Dalphinis, M., 44
123, 128, 136, 138, 151, 156,
Dalzell, T., 21, 27, 28, 145
238
Doleschal, U., 20, 22, 25, 61
Atkins, B.T., 158
Downing, P.A., 85
Ayto, J., 27
Dressler, W.U., 19, 20, 22-25, 29,
61, 63, 65, 66, 68, 69, 71, 72, 84,
B 85, 88, 89, 102, 121, 123, 138,
Barisone, E., 36 139, 150, 155, 156, 238
Barsalou, L.W., 26, 159, 206 Dumas, B.K., 27, 31, 33, 40, 49, 56,
Bauer, L., 19, 23, 61, 66, 68, 70, 85, 57, 237
120, 123, 128, 129, 131, 135, Dundes, A., 31, 33, 56, 57
136, 138, 141, 154, 156
Bauerle, R.F., 122 E
Beier, L., 36
Eble, C., 19, 22, 31-34, 37, 39, 41,
Bertuccelli Papi, M., 22, 25, 26, 30,
43-45, 49, 51, 53, 56, 57, 183
159, 185, 208, 239
Elman, J.L., 208
Biscetti, S., 123
Espinal, M.T., 238
Burke, P., 36
254 Author Index

F Löbner, S., 166, 168

López Rúa, P., 135, 137
Fauconnier, G., 192 Lorenzetti, M.I., 26
Fillmore, C.J., 158, 169 Lyons, J., 160, 161, 166, 168
Flexner, S.B., 33, 39-41, 56, 57
Fradin, B., 25, 121 M
Franceschi, D., 26
Franklyn, J., 32, 56, 57 Makkai, A., 135
Fudeman, K., 151 Marchand, H., 20, 65, 68, 73, 83,
85-87, 89, 90, 92, 97, 99, 102,
G 104, 111, 117, 120-122, 124,
125, 128, 131, 135, 137, 141,
Gotti, M., 36 146, 154
Grandy, R.E., 158 Masi, S., 26
Greenbaum, S., (see Quirk et al.) Mateu, J., 238
31, 33, 56, 57, 69, 116, 137, 152 Matthews, P.H., 56, 57
Grice, H.P., 202 Mattiello, E., 20, 32, 49, 50, 71, 85,
Gumperz, J.J., 45, 206 121, 140, 176, 211, 215
Maurer, D.W., 33
H Mayerthaler, W., 19
Hasund, I.K., (see Stenström et al.) (see Dressler et al.) 19, 23, 84,
31-33, 39, 47-49, 54, 56, 57 85, 139
High, E.C., 33 McCarthy, J.J., 123
McGrath, J., 123
I McHenry, R., 49, 56, 57
McKechnie, J.L., 34, 35, 56, 57
Iamartino, G., 51, 203 Méla, V., 52, 150
Mencken, H.L., 31, 33, 34, 56, 57
J Merlini Barbaresi, L., 20, 22, 24, 25,
Jespersen, O., 33, 41, 56, 57, 73, 85, 61, 66, 67, 69, 102, 105, 131,
89, 141 135, 136, 156
Milroy, J., 225
Montermini, F., 67
K Monti, S., 28
Kermas, S., 148 Munro, P., 22, 27, 28, 31-33, 37-39,
Kilani-Schoch, M., 19 43, 44, 48, 51, 52, 56, 57, 183
Kittay, E.F., 158
N
L Nash, W., 36
Leech, G., (see Quirk et al.) 31, 33, Nunberg, G., 238
56, 57, 69, 116, 137, 152
Lenci, A., 22, 25, 30, 159, 194, 208, O
239
Lieber, R., 73, 85, 86, 88 Olesen, V., 31, 33, 56, 57
Lighter, J., 27, 31, 33, 40, 49, 56, Olivares, C., 54
57, 237 Oshita, H., 87
Author Index 255

P T
Panagl, O., (see Dressler et al.) 19, Taylor, R.L., 54, 218
23, 84, 85, 139 Thornton, A.M., 20-22, 25, 61, 66,
Partridge, E., 27, 33, 34, 38, 40, 50, 139
54, 56, 57, 141, 161, 211 Tonelli, L., 19
Pearsall, J., 56, 57 Trudgill, P., 32, 33, 36-38, 40, 41,
Peirce, C.S., 88 47, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 214
Petruck, M.R.L., 169 Turner, M., 192
Pinnavaia, L., 51
Plag, I., 67, 72, 85, 87, 89, 121, 123, V
124, 129, 135, 142, 156
Victor, T., 21, 27, 28, 145
Plank, F., 67
Pullum, G.K., 20, 25, 61, 67, 156
W
Q Walker, A.G.H., 38
Warren, B., 74, 85, 88, 121
Quirk, R., 31, 33, 56, 57, 69, 116,
Wasow, T., (see Nunberg et al.) 238
137, 152
Webster, N., 34, 35, 56, 57
Wentworth, H., 101, 102
R Wierzbicka, A., 123
Roeper, T., 86 Williams, E., 72, 85
Romaine, S., 37 Wilson, D., 45, 169, 202
Ruiz de Mendoza, F.J., 192 Whittaker, E., 31, 33, 56, 57
Ryder, M.E., 67 Wurzel, W.U., 19
(see Dressler et al.) 19, 23, 84,
S 85, 139
Sag, I., (see Nunberg et al.) 238
Santibáñez, F., 192
Y
Scalise, S., 19, 22, 23, 67, 73, 156, Yust, W., 33, 50, 51, 56, 57
238
Schonhorn, M.R., 31, 33, 56, 57 Z
Siegel, D., 123
Zwicky, A.M., 20, 25, 61, 67, 156
Siegel, M.E.A., 86
Simpson, J.M.Y., 38
Skeat, W.W., 34
Sornig, K., 31, 34, 41, 43, 53, 55-
57, 61, 157, 193
Spallino, C., 28
Sperber, D., 169, 202
Stein, J., 56, 57
Stenström, A.-B., 31-33, 37, 39, 47-
49, 54, 56, 57, 176
Svartvik, J., (see Quirk et al.) 31,
33, 56, 57, 69, 116, 137, 152
Subject Index

-bloody-, 23, 43, 68, 123, 156, 238

A -blooming-, 25, 66, 123, 156
-burger, 71, 121, 122
-able, 64, 94
accent, 19, 36, 38, 54
acronym, 23-25, 29, 49, 66, 70, 93,
C
100, 107-110, 126, 135-138, cant, 19, 33-37, 99, 107, 111, 127
141, 145, 147, 152, 155, 156, clipped compound, (see com-
162 pound(ing))
aggressiveness, 33, 53, 58, 60, 212, clipping, 23, 24, 29, 66, 68, 69, 107,
229, 230, 233 108, 128, 141-148, 152, 156, 238
-(a)licious, 121 back-, 42, 120, 141-146, 148
alteration, 38, 66, 68, 72, 107, 108, fore-, 141, 142, 145
111, 115, 116, 144-146, 150- colloquial language, 19, 36, 38-40,
154, 240 47, 91, 114, 144
analogical formation, 16, 41, 66, colour, 21, 35, 51, 58, 60, 212, 213,
150-152 227-229, 232-234, 240
antonymy, 158, 160, 163-165, 239 combining form, 21, 25, 63, 120-
associative pattern, 170-193, 199, 122, 124, 128, 140
207 final, 71, 120-122
complexity (lexical), 22, 25, 26, 30,
B 159, 170, 194, 206, 208, 237,
239, 241
back-formation, 23-25, 29, 65, 83,
compound(ing), 16, 23-25, 29, 43,
100, 110, 115, 128-131
54, 63, 65, 70-91, 97, 104, 113,
back-slang, 43, 62, 68, 70, 71, 111,
121, 129, 139, 155, 156, 166,
150, 213
167, 228, 237, 238
-bally-, 123, 156
adjective, 65, 81-83, 113, 237
blend(ing), 16, 21, 23-25, 29, 34,
clipped, 136, 141, 146-148
43, 55, 66, 68, 120, 129, 130,
coordinate, 84, 89
138-141, 146, 155, 156, 238
endocentric, 24, 65, 73-75, 77,
partial, 21, 139-141, 146
79, 80, 83, 85, 133
prototypical, 139, 146
exocentric, 24, 76, 78, 79, 84-86,
-blessed-, 123, 156
163
258 Subject Index

metaphoric, 75, 77, 80, 86, 87, -eroo/-aroo, 42, 66, 68, 69, 101,
133 102, 155, 237, 240
metonymic, 74, 78, 85, 86 -ery, 64, 103
neoclassical, 120 -ette, 64, 103
noun, 65, 71, 73-80, 84, 85, 110, expressive morphology, 20, 24-26,
111, 125, 237 29, 61
rhyming, 131-134, 139 extension, 66, 150, 154
synthetic, 84, 86, 87 extra-grammatical, 16, 22, 70
three-member, 84, 88, 89, 148 formations, 20, 21, 65-69, 71,
verb, 65, 83, 84, 110, 125, 237 237
conversion, 23, 43, 65, 72, 83, 124- morphology, 19, 20, 22, 24-26,
128, 130, 147, 237 29, 60, 61, 68, 70, 72, 93, 123,
134, 137, 156, 213, 237, 238
D extra-grammaticality, 59, 61, 63, 70,
91, 156, 237, 238
de-, 64, 91, 92
debasement, 46, 47, 57, 59, 60, 211,
217, 218
F
derivation, 23, 25, 63, 65, 66, 70, faddishness, 21, 49, 50, 58, 60, 212,
71, 155, 237, 238 213, 225-227, 231-233, 240
desire to impress, 50, 60, 212, 213, fanciful formation, 29, 66, 67, 154,
222, 225-227 155
dialect, 19, 33-37, 44, 52, 72, 100, frame, 26, 27, 158, 159, 169, 193,
102, 140, 150, 153, 154 203, 208
disorganization (lexical), 30, 59, 60, semantics, 158, 169
157, 158, 193-209, 238, 239 freshness, 21, 31, 35, 40, 46-48, 57,
partial, 194-202, 208 60, 211, 213, 224, 225, 240
total, 194, 202-206, 208, 239 -fuckin(g)-, 43, 123, 156
-dom, 94 -ful, 64, 104, 111
domain (conceptual), 26, 158, 160,
164, 170, 192, 193, 202, 207, G
208
general slang, 28, 29, 35, 37, 39, 40,
46, 59, 198, 217
E generative
-ed (denominal type: potted), 64, 95, grammar/morphology, 19, 23, 26
96, 237 WFRs, 68
-ed (deverbal type: cracked) 64, 95, grammatical
109 formations, 21, 63-65
ephemerality, 29, 33, 47, 57, 59, 60, morphology, 16, 26, 29, 60, 61,
93, 211, 220-222 93, 238
-er/-ers (type footer, champers), 43, MRs, 16, 61, 63, 66, 70, 94, 133
66, 68, 69, 100, 101, 132, 154, grammaticality, 155, 237
155, 237, 240 group-restriction, 15, 17, 21, 28, 30-
-er (type lifer, chancer), 63, 96-100, 32, 35-40, 46, 48, 52-55, 57, 59,
102, 237 60, 141, 156, 207, 211, 213-217,
220, 234, 239, 240
Subject Index 259

H marginal morphology, 24, 25, 63,

70, 71, 121, 150, 238
humour, 35, 39, 50, 58, 60, 68, 79, meronymy, 158, 160, 168, 169, 239
80, 88, 94, 114, 122, 137, 140, metaphor, 44, 45, 49, 99, 112, 119,
151, 165, 211, 213, 222-224, 127, 169, 178, 192, 197, 198,
232-234, 239, 240 202, 215, 222, 223, 238
hyponymy, 158, 160, 161, 166-168, metathesis, 66, 150, 152
197, 239 musicality, 21, 53, 58, 60, 212, 227-
229, 240
I
-ie/-y, 66-69, 104-108, 127, 132, N
155, 237, 238, 240 natural morphology/NM, 19, 23, 24,
-ify/-fy, 109 68, 84, 86, 88, 89, 107, 138, 155
impertinence, 39, 51, 52, 58, 60, naturalness/markedness, 22-24, 85,
212, 229, 230 155
infixation, 23-25, 43, 65, 66, 68, -ness, 64, 112, 113
123, 156, 238, 240 novelty, 20, 31, 35, 38, 47-49, 57,
inflection(al morphology), 25, 43, 60, 104, 121, 206, 211, 220, 222,
44, 69-71 224, 225, 231, 232
informality, 28, 31-33, 35, 38-40,
46, 47, 57, 59, 60, 69, 114, 115, O
211, 217, 218, 232-234
-ing (n type: flaming), 64, 109, 110, -o, 43, 62, 66, 68, 69, 72, 113-115,
237 142, 144, 154, 155, 213, 238,
-ing (ppl adj type: corking), 64, 110, 240
111, 237 obscenity, 28, 48, 50, 57, 59, 60,
initialism, 29, 66, 68, 95, 126, 132, 211, 213, 218-220, 232, 233, 240
135-138, 141, 145, 152, 156, 238 -ock, 116, 155
-ish, 64, 111-113, 129, 130 offensiveness, 39, 50, 52, 58, 60,
106, 130, 167, 175, 212, 213,
J 227, 229, 230, 233, 234, 239,
240
jargon, 19, 33, 35, 36, 107 organization (lexical), 22, 29, 45,
60, 157-193, 207, 237, 239
L
letter pronunciation, 66, 72, 150, P
152 playfulness, 21, 25, 32, 48, 57, 60,
lexical phrase, 89-91, 163 69, 94, 132, 211, 213, 222-224,
localism, 37, 38, 51, 58-60, 211, 232, 233, 240
220-222, 234 polysemy, 26, 27, 52, 194, 198, 199,
-ly, 64, 112 203-206, 208, 213, 218, 240
prefixation, 24, 63, 64, 66, 68, 72,
M 91-93
malapropism, 66, 150-152 privacy, 28, 32, 37, 39, 42, 53, 58-
60, 141, 156, 211, 213, 216, 217,
231, 234
260 Subject Index

R suffixation, 21, 24, 42-44, 63, 64,

66-72, 81, 91, 93-120, 127, 129,
re-, 64, 91, 92 130, 132, 133, 142, 144, 149,
reduplication, 24, 29, 135 154, 155, 213, 237, 238, 240
reduplicative (formation), 53, 66-68, super-, 64, 91-93
92, 104, 108, 113, 116, 120, 131- synonymy, 27, 34, 35, 41, 47, 48,
135, 145, 227 107, 122, 158-163, 166, 207, 239
ablaut, 25, 131
copy, 42, 72, 131, 134, 135, 227, T
238
rhyming, 16, 120, 131, 132, 145, time-restriction, 33, 47, 57, 59, 60,
238 211, 220-222
rhyming slang (Cockney), 16, 26,
42, 43, 51, 53, 62, 148, 149, 196, U
198, 205, 206, 222 un-, 64, 91, 93, 123
elliptic, 26, 29, 51, 62, 66, 68, under-, 64, 91, 93
148, 149, 156, 196, 198, 205, Unitary Base Hypothesis, 67, 156,
206, 222, 240 238
reversed form, 29, 66, 68, 120, 149, Unitary Output Hypothesis, 67, 156,
150, 152, 156 238

S V
-s, 43, 66, 69, 100, 116, 117, 119, variation, 29, 41, 42, 66, 68, 100,
240 150-154, 156
schm-/shm-, 24, 66, 68, 91, 92 vernacular, 19, 36, 38
secrecy, 15, 17, 32, 36, 37, 39, 40, -ville, 122
52, 53, 58-60, 150, 209, 211, vulgarity, 21, 28, 37, 39, 50, 52, 58-
214, 216, 217, 223, 239 60, 74, 96, 137, 211, 213, 218-
sociological property, 20, 30, 41, 220, 228, 230, 232-234, 239, 240
46-55, 57-60, 221-235, 240
hearer-oriented, 20, 21, 30, 60, W
222-230, 239
speaker-oriented, 20, 21, 30, 59, word manufacture, 23, 29, 66-68,
60, 214-222, 239 154, 155, 238
specific slang, 29, 35-37, 39, 40, 46,
48, 59, 214, 217 Y
-ster, 64, 117 -y, 64, 114, 117-120, 129, 130, 237
subject-restriction, 28, 40, 48, 57,
59, 60, 211, 214-216
Glossary

abso-bloody-lutely (adv) Used as a considerably more emphatic version of absolutely.

Other infixed forms of the word are abso-bally-lutely, abso-blessed-lutely, abso-
blooming-lutely and abso-fuckin(g)-lutely.
Abyssinia (int) (jocular) From the parting salutation I’ll be seeing you.
Acapulco gold (n) A variety of marijuana grown in the vicinity of Acapulco.
AC/DC (adj) (orig. U.S.) Also AC-DC. Bisexual. Humorously from alternating current,
direct current.
acid (n) (orig. U.S.) The hallucinogenic drug LSD.
acid head (n) (orig. U.S.) Someone who habitually takes the LSD drug.
acker (n) (orig. Services’ slang) (1) A piaster. (2) pl. Money, cash; coins or bank-notes.
Adam (n) (orig. U.S.) The hallucinogenic drug MDMA.
Adam-and-Eve (v) Rhyming slang for ‘believe’.
after (n) Afternoon.
ag (adj) (chiefly N. Amer.) Agricultural.
aggro (n) (1) Aggravation. (2) Aggression; deliberate trouble-making or harassment.
airhead (n) (chiefly N. Amer.) Someone who is foolish, simple-minded, or stupid.
alky (n) Alcohol; spec. (illicit) alcoholic liquor.
all-firedly (adv) Unusually, excessively.
all-in (adj) Exhausted.
all-over (n) (chiefly U.S.) pl. As the all-overs, a feeling of nervousness or unease
(occas. of annoyance).
all-overish (adj) Having a general and indefinite sense of illness pervading the body.
amber fluid (n) Also amber liquid (or nectar). A liquid or (alcoholic) drink of an amber
colour, spec. lager.
ambisextrous (adj) (humorous) Bisexual. From sex and ambidextrous.
Amerikkka (n) (orig. U.S.) American society viewed as racist, fascist, or oppressive,
esp. by Black consciousness. From G. Amerika, America, and the initial letters of
Ku Klux Klan.
ammo (n) Ammunition (esp. for small arms).
amster (n) (Austral.) Also ampster. From Amsterdam, rhyming slang for ram, a
trickster’s accomplice.
angel dust (n) (orig. U.S.) The drug phencyclidine used as a hallucinogen.
262 Glossary

ant (n) (orig. U.S.) pl. Esp. in to have ants in one’s pants, to fidget constantly, esp.
because of extreme agitation, excitement, nervousness, etc.
antsy (adj) (chiefly U.S.) Also antsy-pantsy. Agitated, impatient, restless; also, sexually
eager.
A-OK (adj/adv phr) (chiefly U.S.) In perfect order or condition. From all (systems) OK.
apple (n) pl. From apple(s) and pears, rhyming slang for ‘stairs’. (adj) (Austral. and
N.Z.) From apples and rice (or spice) for ‘nice’.
arb (n) Arbitrageur.
Archie (n) An anti-aircraft gun.
Argie (n, adj) (1) Argentine. (2) Argentinian.
argy-bargy (n) Contentious argument.
arse (n) (1) The buttocks, posterior. (2) (Brit.) A stupid, unpleasant, or contemptible
person. (3) As my arse! (chiefly Brit. and Ir.), Nonsense!, You must be joking!
arsehole (n) (coarse) Amer. asshole. (1) The anus. (2) A stupid, irritating, or despicable
person.
arsy-versy (adv) Upside-down, contrariwise.
artic (n) Articulated lorry.
arty-farty (adj) Also artsy-fartsy. Pretentiously artistic.
arvo (n) Afternoon.
ass (n) (U.S.) Used casually in various phrases as an intensifier, esp. to indicate strength
of feeling, action, etc.: to dance one’s ass off, to dance to the point of exhaustion; to
work (run, etc.) one’s ass off; to chew ass, to reprimand severely; to tear ass, to
move fast, to hurry.
au reservoir (int) A malapropism from F. au revoir.
Aussie (n, adj) Also Ossie, Ozzie. (1) Australia. (2) (An) Australian.
AWOL (adj) (orig. U.S.) Absent without leave.
b (n) Also B. (1) Bugger. (2) Bastard.
babe (n) (chiefly U.S.) A girl or woman (often as a form of address).
babelicious (adj) (orig. U.S.) Also babe-alicious. Of a woman or girl: sexually
attractive, gorgeous.
baby-snatch (v) To enter into an amorous relationship with a much younger member of
the opposite sex.
backroom boy (n) A person engaged in (secret) research.
bad (adj) (orig. and chiefly U.S., esp. Jazz and Black E.) Possessing an abundance of
favourable qualities; of a musical performance or player: going to the limits of free
improvisation; of a lover: extravagantly loving.
bad mouth (n) (orig. U.S.) Also bad-mouth. (1) A curse or spell. (2) Evil or slanderous
talk; malicious gossip; severe criticism.
bad-mouth (v) (orig. U.S.) Also badmouth. To abuse (someone) verbally; to criticize,
slander, or gossip maliciously about (a person or thing).
bag (n) (orig. U.S.) (1) A disparaging term for a woman, esp. one who is unattractive or
elderly. (2) A preoccupation, mode of behaviour or experience. (3) A characteristic
manner of playing jazz or similar music.
baglady (n) (orig. U.S.) Also bag-lady, bag lady. A homeless woman, often elderly,
who carries her possessions in shopping bags.
Glossary 263

ball (n) pl. (1) Testicles. (2) Nonsense. (3) (chiefly U.S.) Courage, determination;
(manly) power or strength; masculinity.
ballock (v) To reprimand or tell off severely.
ballsy (adj) (1) (rare) Nonsensical, ridiculous. (2) Courageous; determined; also,
powerful, masculine.
Bananaland (n) (Austral.) Queensland.
bananas (adj) Crazy, mad, wild.
bang (n) (1) (U.S.) Excitement, pleasure. (2) An act of sexual intercourse. (3) A ‘shot’
(of cocaine, etc.).
banjaxed (ppl adj) (Anglo-Irish) Ruined, stymied.
barf (v) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) To vomit or retch.
barnet (n) From Barnet fair, rhyming slang for ‘hair’; hence, the head.
bashing (vbl n) (Services’ slang) Any arduous task.
basket (n) Euphemistic alteration of bastard.
bastard (n) Used vulgarly as a term of abuse for a man or boy, and, with weakened
force, as the equivalent of ‘fellow’, ‘chap’; also trivially for ‘thing’, esp. something
bad or annoying.
bats (adj) Crazy, mad; in weakened sense, eccentric.
bazoom (n) pl. A woman’s breast.
bean (n) (orig. U.S.) The head.
beano (n) (orig. Printers’ slang) Bean-feast.
beaut (n) (chiefly U.S., Austral. and N.Z.) A beautiful or outstanding person or thing.
From beauty.
bedder (n) (University slang) A bedroom.
bed-sitter (n) (orig. University slang) Bedsitting room.
Beeb (n) A contraction of B.B.C., British Broadcasting Corporation.
beefcake (n) (humorous) After cheesecake. (A display of) sturdy masculine physique.
beer belly (n) (1) One who has a protruding stomach or paunch caused by drinking
large quantities of beer. (2) Such a stomach.
beer-off (n) An off-licence.
beer-up (n) A drinking-bout or -party.
bejesus (int) An alteration of the oath by Jesus.
bender (n) (orig. U.S.) A leg or knee.
bent (ppl adj) (1) Dishonest, criminal. (2) Illegal, stolen. (3) Of things: out of order; of
persons: eccentric, spec. homosexual.
bevvied (adj) Drunk, intoxicated.
bevvy (n) Also bevie, bevy. A drink, esp. beer. (v) To drink.
B-girl (n) (U.S.) A bar-girl, a woman employed to encourage customers to buy drinks at
a bar.
bi (n, adj) Bisexual.
big C (n) (orig. U.S.) Cancer.
big E (n) (Brit.) As the big E, a personal rejection or rebuff, esp. insensitively or
unceremoniously conveyed; the abrupt breaking off of a (romantic) relationship.
biggie (n) (orig. U.S.) Also biggy. (1) An important person. (2) Anything impressively
large or influential.
264 Glossary

big mouth (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A very talkative or boastful person; also,
loquacity, boastful talk.
bikie (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) A motor-cyclist; spec. a member of a gang of motor-
cyclists, notorious for disturbing civil order.
Bill (n) (1) The police-force. (2) A policeman. Freq. preceded by the.
bimbo (n) (1) (derog.) Also bim, bimbette. A young woman or adolescent girl, esp. one
regarded as sexually attractive but thought to lack intelligence or distinctive
personality. (2) A fellow, ‘chap’; usu. contemptuous. (3) A woman; esp. a whore.
bin (n) A mental hospital.
bird (n) (1) A girl, woman. (2) An aeroplane. (3) (U.S., freq. ironical) An exceptionally
smart or accomplished person; a first-rate animal or thing. (4) (U.S.) An obscene
gesture of contempt. (5) A prison sentence; prison.
bit (n) In phr a (little) bit of all right, something or somebody regarded as highly
satisfactory, esp. applied to a pretty or obliging woman.
bitch (n) (1) Something outstandingly difficult or unpleasant. (2) A malicious or
treacherous woman.
bitching (adj, int) (1) Expressing anger, frustration, or contempt: unpleasant, despicable.
(2) Expressing admiration, approval, or enthusiasm: great, excellent; very attractive
or appealing. (adv) As an intensifier, very, extremely.
blabbermouth (n) (orig. U.S.) Also blabber-mouth. One who blabs; one who reveals
secrets, a tell-tale.
black and tan (n) A drink composed of porter (or stout) and ale.
black bomber (n) An amphetamine tablet.
black tar (n) (U.S.) Heroin, esp. in a potent black form.
blacky (n) A Black, a Negro.
blasted (ppl adj) (chiefly U.S.) Under the influence of drugs or alcohol, intoxicated.
bling-bling (n) (A piece of) ostentatious jewellery. Hence: wealth; conspicuous
consumption.
block (n) The head, esp. in to knock one’s block off. So off one’s block: angry, insane.
bloke (n) (1) (Brit.) Man, fellow. (2) (Naval slang) The ship’s commander.
blood wagon (n) An ambulance.
bloody (adj, adv) A vague epithet expressing anger, resentment, detestation; but often a
mere intensive.
blower (n) A speaking-tube or telephone.
BLT (n) (orig. U.S.) Bacon, lettuce, and tomato (sandwich).
boat (n) From boat-race, rhyming slang for ‘face’.
boff (n) (1) A blow, a punch. (2) In the entertainment industry: a great success, a hit. (3)
Sexual intercourse. (v) (1) To hit, strike. (2) (orig. U.S.) To have sexual intercourse
(with).
bolk (v) To vomit; to retch.
bollock (n) pl. (1) Also ballocks or rollocks. An absurdity; a mess, a muddle. (2) (Ir.)
Also bollox. A stupid, contemptible, or blundering man or boy. (adj) pl. Naked.
(int) pl. (1) Nonsense. (2) Expressing frustration, regret, or annoyance.
bomb (n) (1) A success (esp. in entertainment). (2) (U.S.) A failure. (3) A large sum of
money. (4) A (large) marijuana cigarette. (5) (Austral. and N.Z.) An old car.
bombed (ppl adj) Drunk; under the influence of drugs. Freq. with out.
Glossary 265

bomber (n) (1) (U.S.) A marijuana cigarette. (2) A barbiturate drug.

bone-head (n) (orig. U.S.) A stupid person.
bone-headed (adj) Thick-headed, stupid.
bonk (v) To have sexual intercourse (with).
bonkers (adj) (1) Mad, crazy. (2) Slightly drunk.
bonner (n) (University slang) Bonfire.
boob (n) (orig. U.S.) (1) A dull, heavy, stupid fellow. (2) A lock-up or cell. (3) pl. The
breasts.
boo-boo (n) (orig. U.S.) A foolish mistake or blunder.
boomster (n) (U.S.) One who works up a ‘boom’; a speculator.
booty (n) (1) Sexual intercourse; a person (esp. a woman) regarded as an object of
sexual desire. Also (occas.): the female genitals. (2) The buttocks. From botty.
bootylicious (adj) (1) Esp. of a woman, often with reference to the buttocks: sexually
attractive, sexy; shapely. (2) (rare) Of rap lyrics: bad, weak.
boozeroo (n) (N.Z.) A drinking spree.
booze-up (n) A drinking bout.
bottle (n) (1) (Naval slang) A reprimand. (2) Courage, spirit. (3) Collection or share of
money.
bovver (n) Trouble, disturbance, or fighting, esp. caused by skinhead gangs.
brain (n) A clever person.
brass (n) From brass nail, rhyming slang for tail, a prostitute.
bread (n) (orig. U.S.) Money.
bread-basket (n) (1) The stomach. (2) A large bomb containing smaller bombs.
brekker (n) (University slang) Breakfast.
brill (adj) Brilliant, amazing, fantastic.
Bristols (n) From Bristol Cities, rhyming slang for titties, the breasts.
broad (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A woman, esp. a prostitute.
bromo (n) (A dose of) one of the proprietary sedatives containing a bromide mixture.
brown sugar (n) A drug consisting of heroin diluted with caffeine.
brusheroo (n) A rebuff, dismissal.
B.S. (n) (chiefly N. Amer.) Bullshit.
bubblehead (n) (orig. U.S.) An empty-headed or stupid person.
bucko (n) (Nautical slang) A blustering, swaggering, or domineering fellow.
buggery (n) Hell, perdition.
bull (v) (1) (Army slang) To polish (equipment, etc.) in order to meet excessive
standards of neatness. (2) (U.S.) To behave or move like a bull.
bum (n) The buttocks; the posterior.
bum-boy (n) A young male homosexual, esp. a prostitute.
bun (n) In phr (a) bun in the oven, a child conceived. Also in to do one’s bun (N.Z.), to
lose one’s temper.
bunch of fives (n) The fist, the hand.
buppie (n) (orig. U.S.) A member of a socio-economic group comprising young black
professional people working in cities. From black and yuppie.
busy (n) A detective.
butcher’s (n) From butcher’s hook, rhyming slang for ‘look’.
266 Glossary

butter-and-egg man (n) (U.S.) A wealthy, unsophisticated man who spends money
freely.
buzz (v) To go (quickly). As buzz off, to go off or away quickly. As buzz in, to come in
(quickly), to enter.
cack (v) (obs. and dial.) To void excrement.
caff (n) A café.
cake (n) (jocular) A foolish or stupid fellow.
cakehole (n) A person’s mouth.
Canuck (n) A Canadian; spec. a French Canadian.
capeesh (v) (chiefly U.S.) Also capisce. To understand. Chiefly used in interrogative:
‘Do you understand?’.
cat (n) (1) (U.S.) A spiteful or backbiting woman. (2) (obs.) A prostitute. (3) (U.S.) An
itinerant worker. (4) (orig. U.S.) An expert in jazz. (5) A fellow, man. (6) A
catalytic converter.
catbird seat (n) (U.S.) As the catbird seat, a superior or advantageous position.
cat’s pyjamas (n) (orig. U.S.) As the cat’s pyjamas (or whiskers), the acme of
excellence.
cert (n) Certainty; spec. in horse-racing, a horse that is considered certain to win.
chagger (n) (University slang) A changing-room.
champers (n) Champagne.
chancer (n) One who takes chances or does risky things.
charge (n) (1) A dose or injection of a drug; marijuana, esp. a marijuana cigarette. (2)
(U.S.) A thrill; a feeling of excitement or satisfaction.
Charley (n) Also Charlie. (1) A fool, simpleton, esp. as proper (or right) Charley. (2)
(U.S., Black E.) A white man. (3) (U.S., Services’ slang) A North Vietnamese or
Vietcong soldier. (4) (orig. U.S.) Cocaine. (5) pl. A woman’s breasts. (adj) Afraid,
cowardly, esp. in to turn Charlie.
chase (v) To pursue (a member of the opposite sex) amorously. Also with after.
chaser (n) (chiefly U.S.) One who chases women, a woman-chaser.
cheapie (n) Also cheapo, cheapo-cheapo. Something cheap; a thing of little value or of
poor quality. (adj) Rather cheap, and often of inferior quality; produced or sold at a
low price. Freq. of films.
cheesecake (n) (orig. U.S.) Display of the female form, esp. in photographs,
advertisements, etc., in the interest of sex-appeal; female sexual attractiveness.
cheesy (adj) (1) Fine or showy. (2) Also cheesey. Inferior, second-rate, cheap and nasty.
chesty (adj) (U.S.) Conceited and self-assertive; having one’s chest thrust out as a sign
of self-importance. Hence, chestily (adv), chestiness (n).
chick (n) (orig. U.S.) A girl; a young woman.
chicken (n) (1) A cowardly person. (2) (chiefly U.S.) A girl or young woman. (v) (orig.
U.S.) To fail to act, or to back down, from motives of cowardice.
chiefy (n) (Forces’ slang) A chief or superior officer.
chill pill (n) (orig. U.S.) A (notional) pill used to calm or relax a person.
chin (n) Also chin chin. A talk; conversation; spec. insolent talk. (v) (U.S.) To chat,
chatter.
China (n) From china plate, rhyming slang for ‘mate’.
Chink (n) (derog.) Also Chinkey, Chinkie, Chinky. A Chinaman.
Glossary 267

chippie (n) Also chippy. (1) (usu. derog.) A young woman; a promiscuous or delinquent
girl or young woman; a prostitute. (2) A chip-shop.
chivvy (n) Also chivy. From Chevy Chase, rhyming slang for ‘the face’.
chivvy (v) Also chivey. To knife.
chizz (n) (School slang) Also chiz. A swindle; a nuisance.
chock-a-block (adj) Jammed or crammed close together; also crammed with, chock-full
of.
chocker (adj) (orig. Naval slang) ‘Fed up’; extremely disgruntled.
choco (n) (Austral.) Also chocko. A militiaman or conscripted soldier.
choom (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) An English soldier; an Englishman.
chopper (n) (U.S.) (1) A machine-gun or -gunner. (2) A helicopter. (3) A motor-cycle.
(4) (orig. U.S.) pl. Teeth; esp. (a set of) false teeth.
Christer (n) (U.S.) An over-zealous or sanctimonious person.
chuffed (adj) (orig. Military slang) (1) Pleased, satisfied. (2) Displeased, disgruntled.
chunder (v) (Austral.) To vomit.
chutty (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) Also chuddy. Chewing gum.
ciao (int) An informal Italian greeting or farewell, hello; good-bye.
civvy (n) pl. Civilian clothes, mufti.
clap a guy on (phr) (Nautical slang) To put a stop to; to ‘stow’.
clapper (n) The tongue of a bell, which strikes it on the inside and causes it to sound. As
like the clappers, very fast or very hard.
clean (adj) Free from suspicion of criminal or treacherous intent or involvement; not
carrying incriminating material (as drugs, weapons, etc.).
clean-up (n) (orig. U.S.) A profit; an exceptional financial success; also, a robbery or its
proceeds.
clippie (n) Also clippy. A bus-conductress.
clobber (n) Clothes.
clock (n) (1) The human face. (2) A punch (on the face).
closet queen (n) A secret male homosexual.
cloth ears (n) A person with a poor sense of hearing.
cluck (n) (U.S.) A dull or unintelligent person, a fool.
cobblers (n) From cobbler’s (or cobblers’) awls, rhyming slang for balls, testicles;
nonsense, rubbish.
cock (n) (1) The penis. (2) Used as a form of address to a man. (3) Short for cock-and-
bull story, a fictitious narrative. Hence (esp. spoken) nonsense, an unfounded
statement. (v) With up: to bungle or mess up (a situation, task, etc.); to spoil, to
ruin.
cocoa (v) Also coco. Rhyming slang for ‘say so’. Freq. used ironically.
coke (n) (orig. U.S.) Cocaine. (v) To drug oneself with cocaine.
coke-head (n) (orig. U.S.) An addict or habitual user of cocaine.
cokey (n) (U.S.) Also cokie. A cocaine addict.
cold turkey (n) (orig. N. Amer.) A method of treating drug addicts by sudden and
complete withdrawal of the drug, instead of by a gradual process.
cold-turkey (v) To cure of drug addiction by ‘cold turkey’ treatment.
collekkers (n) (University slang) An examination at the end of each term in the colleges
of the University of Oxford.
268 Glossary

combo (n) (1) Combination, partnership. (2) (Austral.) A white man who lives with an
Aboriginal woman.
come-on (n) (orig. U.S.) (1) (The victim of) a swindler. (2) An inducement; an
invitation to approach.
Commie (n) Also Commy, (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) Commo. A communist.
common (n) Common sense.
compo (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) Compensation, esp. that paid for an injury received while
working.
con (n) (1) (Criminals’ slang) Convict, conviction. (2) Confidant. (3) Conundrum. (4)
Conformist. (5) Contract.
connect (v) (1) To meet in order to obtain drugs (from). (2) (U.S.) To succeed in
obtaining something (e.g. in a burglary).
connection (n) (orig. U.S.) (1) A supplier of narcotics. (2) The action of supplying
narcotics.
coo-er (int) An exclamation expressing surprise or incredulity.
cook (v) Also followed by up. To prepare opium for use by the application of heat.
cookie (n) (orig. U.S.) (1) A woman; esp. an attractive girl. (2) A man, often with
defining word. (3) (Air Force slang) A bomb.
cool (adj) (orig. U.S., in African-American usage) As a general term of approval,
admirable, excellent.
cooler (n) A prison or prison cell.
cop (n) (1) A policeman. (2) Capture; used chiefly in a fair cop. (v) (Schoolboys’,
Criminals’, Policemen’s slang) (1) To capture, catch. (2) To steal.
copper (n) A policeman or police informant.
cop-shop (n) A police station.
corking (ppl adj) (chiefly U.S.) Unusually fine, large, or excellent; stunning.
cow (n) (1) Applied to a coarse or degraded woman. Also, loosely, any woman, used
esp. as a coarse form of address. (2) (Austral. and N.Z.) An objectionable person or
thing, a distasteful situation, etc.
crack (n) (1) (Thieves’ slang) House-breaking. (2) A burglar. (3) (orig. U.S.) A potent,
crystalline form of cocaine broken into small pieces.
cracked (ppl adj) Unsound in mind, slightly insane, crazy.
crackers (pred adj) Crazy, mad; infatuated.
crackhead (n) (orig. U.S.) A person who habitually takes or is addicted to crack
cocaine.
crammer (n) (1) (orig. University slang) One who prepares pupils for an examination.
(2) A lie.
crap (n) (1) (coarse) Excrement; defecation. (2) Rubbish, nonsense. (v) (1) To defecate.
(2) (U.S.) To talk nonsense to; to act or speak deceitfully to.
crapper (n) (coarse) A privy.
crappy (adj) (orig. U.S., coarse) Rubbishy; worthless; disgusting.
cred (n) Credibility; reputation or status among one’s peers. (adj) Credible; fashionable,
trendy.
creep (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) A despicable, worthless, stupid, or tiresome person. (2)
(Criminals’ slang) A stealthy robber; a sneak thief.
creeping Jesus (n) An abject, sycophantic, or servile person.
Glossary 269

crikey (int) Also crickey, cricky. An exclamation of astonishment. From Christ.

crim (n) (U.S. and Austral.) A criminal.
crimper (n) A hairdresser.
cripes (int) In the exclamation (by) cripes!, vulgar perversion of Christ.
croaker (n) (now chiefly U.S.) A doctor, esp. a prison doctor.
crooked (adj) (Austral. and N.Z.) Irritable, bad-tempered, angry.
crumb (n) (1) (U.S.) A body-louse. (2) (orig. U.S.) A lousy or filthy person.
crumby (adj) Lousy; filthy.
crumpet (n) The head.
crystal (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Any of various narcotic drugs in crystalline or
powdered form, esp. an amphetamine in crystalline form.
Cubesville (n) (U.S.) A group or set of extremely conventional or conservative persons.
cuckoo (n) A silly person. (adj) (orig. U.S.) Crazy, out of one’s wits.
culture vulture (n) A person who is voracious for culture.
cunt (n) (1) The female external genital organs. (2) Applied to a person, esp. a woman,
as a term of vulgar abuse.
cupper (n) (Oxford University slang) A series of intercollegiate matches played in
competition for a cup. Freq. in pl.
cutie (n) (orig. U.S.) Also cutey. A cute person; esp. an attractive young woman.
cut-out (n) A person acting as a middle-man, esp. in espionage.
D. (n) (1) A detective. (2) LSD. (3) Narcotics.
daddy-o (n) Daddy.
dago (n) (orig. U.S.) A name given to Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italians in general, or
used as a disparaging term for any foreigner. From Spanish Diego, James.
daisy (n) (chiefly U.S.) A first-rate thing or person. (adj) First-rate, charming.
darky (n) Also darkey. (1) The night. (2) A dark-lantern.
dead (adv) Utterly, completely. As in dead to rights, completely, certainly.
deader (n) A dead person, a corpse.
dead-head (v) (chiefly U.S.) To drive an empty train, truck, taxi, etc.
dead soldier (n) (U.S.) An empty bottle.
debag (v) To remove the trousers from (a person) as a punishment or for a joke.
dee (n) A detective.
def (adj) (orig. U.S., esp. in African-American usage) Excellent, outstanding;
fashionable.
delouse (v) To free from something unpleasant.
derry (n) A derelict building.
des res (n) (Estate-agents’ jargon) A house or other dwelling-place presented as a
highly desirable purchase. From desirable residence.
dex (n) (orig. U.S.) Also dexie. (A tablet of) the drug Dexedrine.
dicey (adj) (orig. Air Force slang) Risky, dangerous; uncertain, unreliable.
dick (n) (1) A riding whip. (2) (coarse) The penis. (3) A detective, a policeman. (4) A
dictionary.
dick-head (n) Also dickhead. A stupid person.
dif (n) Also diff. Difference. (adj) Different.
dig (n) (1) (Austral. and N.Z.) An Australian or New Zealander. (2) (U.S., Students’
slang) A diligent or plodding student.
270 Glossary

dill (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) Also dil. A fool or simpleton; spec. one who is duped by a
trickster.
dilly (adj) (chiefly Austral.) Foolish, stupid, mad. From daft and silly.
ding-a-ling (n) (1) (N. Amer.) One who is crazy or insane; an eccentric. (2) The penis.
ding-dong (n) A heated argument; a quarrel.
dinge (n) Dinginess.
dink (n) (orig. N. Amer.) Also dinkie, dinky. Either partner of a usu. professional
working couple who have no children. From double (also dual) income no kids.
dinky-die (adj) (Austral. and N.Z.) Honest, genuine, real.
dirty (adv) As an intensive, very, exceedingly.
dis (adj) Broken, not working.
dish (n) An attractive person, esp. a woman.
dishy (adj) Very attractive, esp. sexually.
divvy (n) Also divi. A dividend.
Divvers (n) (Oxford University slang) Divinity honour moderations, the first public
examination in Holy Scripture.
DL (n) (orig. in African-American usage) From down-low in on the down-low: quiet,
low-profile; in secret; (in later use) spec. (of a man) secretly engaging in
homosexual activity.
do (v) (1) To arrest; to charge; to convict. (2) (chiefly U.S.) To take (a hallucinogenic or
other drug); to smoke (marijuana). (3) To break into; to burgle or rob. (4) With in,
to bring disaster upon, do a great injury to, ruin; often, to murder, kill.
dodger (adj) (Austral.) Good, excellent.
doer (n) One who cheats another.
dog (n) (1) A gay or jovial man; a fellow, ‘chap’. (2) A worthless, despicable, surly, or
cowardly fellow. (3) (U.S. and Austral.) An informer; a traitor; esp. one who
betrays fellow criminals. (4) (U.S.) Something poor or mediocre; a failure. (5) A
horse that is slow, difficult to handle, etc. (6) pl. From dog’s meat, rhyming slang
for ‘feet’. (7) pl. Sausages. (8) (orig. U.S., derog., usu. considered offens.) An
unattractive woman, girl, or man.
dog and bone (n) (Brit.) Rhyming slang for ‘telephone’.
doggo (adv) As to lie doggo, to lie quiet, to remain hid.
doggy (adj) Dashing, stylish, smart.
dog-robber (n) (1) A navy or army officer’s orderly. (2) pl. Civilian clothes worn by a
naval officer on shore leave.
dog’s age (n) (orig. U.S.) A long time.
dog’s body (n) A junior person, esp. one to whom a variety of menial tasks is given.
dog’s breakfast (n) Also dog’s dinner. A mess.
dog’s meat (n) Rhyming slang for ‘feet’.
doing (vbl n) (dial.) A scolding; a thrashing, beating-up; a severe monetary loss.
doll (n) A woman; a girl; esp. a very beautiful or attractive woman; also occas., a
pleasant or attractive man.
dolly-bird (n) Also dolly. An attractive and stylish young woman.
DOM (n) Dirty old man.
donkey-lick (v) (Austral.) To defeat easily (e.g. in a horse-race).
donkey’s breakfast (n) (1) A straw mattress. (2) A straw hat.
Glossary 271

doo-doo (n) (orig. and chiefly N. Amer., euphem.) (1) Faeces, excrement. (2) Nonsense,
rubbish.
doohickey (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Also doojigger. Any small object, esp.
mechanical. From doodad and hickey.
doozer (n) (N. Amer.) Something remarkable, amazing, or unbelievable.
doozy (adj) (orig. and chiefly N. Amer.) Also doozie. Remarkable, excellent; also,
amazing, incredible.
dope (n) (orig. U.S.) (1) A preparation, mixture, or drug which is not specifically
named. (2) A person under the influence of, or addicted to, some drug. (3)
Information, a statement, etc., designed to gloss over or disguise facts. (v) (1) To
administer dope to (a person, a horse); to stupefy with a drug; to drug. (2) To take
or be addicted to drugs.
dopester (n) (orig. U.S.) (1) One who collects information on, and forecasts the result
of, sporting events, elections, etc. (2) One who sells, uses, or is addicted to, drugs.
dopey (adj) (orig. U.S.) Also dopy. (1) Sluggish or stupefied, with or as with a drug. (2)
Stupid.
dopily (adv) In a ‘dopey’ manner.
dosser (n) One who stays at a common lodging-house.
doss-house (n) A common lodging-house.
dotty (adj) Silly, stupid.
double O (n) (U.S.) An intense look.
down (n) Also downer or downie. Freq. in pl. A drug (esp. a barbiturate) that has a
depressant or tranquillizing effect.
drag king (n) (orig. in gay and lesbian usage) After drag queen. A woman who dresses
up as a man; a male impersonator.
drag queen (n) A male homosexual transvestite.
dream-boat (n) (orig. U.S.) An exceptionally attractive or pleasing person or thing.
dreamy (adj) (orig. U.S.) Perfect, ideal; delightful, beautiful.
drear (n) A dreary person.
drippy (adj) (orig. U.S.) Drivelling, sloppily sentimental.
drongo (n) (Austral.) A simpleton, a stupid person. (adj) Silly, foolish.
droopy drawers (n) An untidy, sloppy, or depressing woman (occas., such a man).
drop-in (n) (U.S.) Something which is easy; easy money.
dropper (n) One who passes counterfeit money, cheques, etc.
druggie (n) Also druggy. One who takes or experiments with illegal drugs, a drug
addict.
druggy (adj) Characteristic of narcotic drugs or their users.
drug-store cowboy (n) (U.S.) A braggart, loafer, or good-for-nothing.
drummer (n) (1) A thief, esp. one who robs an unoccupied house. (2) (Austral. and
N.Z.) A swagman or tramp.
dry out (v) Of a drug addict, alcoholic, etc.: to undergo treatment to cure addiction.
D.T. (n) (vulgar) Delirium tremens.
duck’s disease (n) Also ducks’ disease. A facetious expression for shortness of leg.
ducky (n) Also duckie. A term of endearment.
dude (n) A fellow or ‘chap’, a ‘guy’. Hence also approvingly, esp. (through Black E.)
applied to a member of one’s own circle or group.
272 Glossary

duff (v) (1) To dress or manipulate (a thing) fraudulently. (2) (Austral., Thieves’ slang)
To steal (cattle), altering the brands.
duffer (n) (1) One who sells trashy goods as valuable, upon false pretences, e.g.
pretending that they are smuggled or stolen, and offered as bargains. (2) (Austral.)
One who ‘duffs’ cattle.
Dullsville (n) (U.S.) An imaginary town characterized by extreme dullness or boredom.
dumb-dumb (n) (N. Amer.) Also dum-dum. A foolish or stupid person.
dumbo (n) (orig. U.S.) A slow-witted or stupid person.
dummie (n) Also dummee, dummy. A deaf-mute.
Dutchie (n) Also Dutchee, Dutchy. A Dutchman or a German.
dynamite (n) (orig. U.S.) Heroin or a similar narcotic.
E (n) The hallucinogenic drug ‘Ecstasy’.
ear-basher (n) (chiefly Austral.) A chatterer; a bore.
earful (n) As much (talk) as one’s ears can take in at one time; a large quantity (of talk,
gossip, etc.).
easy-peasy (adj) (orig. and chiefly Brit., Children’s slang) Extremely easy, very simple.
easy rider (n) (U.S.) (1) A sexually satisfying lover. (2) A guitar.
ecstasy (n) Also Ecstasy. A powerful synthetic hallucinogenic drug.
eejit (n) (chiefly Anglo-Irish) Idiot.
eff (v) To ‘fuck’.
egg-beater (n) (U.S.) A helicopter.
ekker (n) (University or School slang) Exercise.
elephants (adj) From elephant’s trunk, rhyming slang for ‘drunk’.
Endsville (n) (U.S.) Also Endville. The greatest, the best; the imaginary home of good
things or people.
eppie (n) (Brit.) Also eppy. A fit of temper or a tantrum, likened hyperbolically to an
epileptic fit.
ex (n) (1) A former husband, wife or lover. (2) pl. Expenses.
ex-con (n) A former convict.
eyeball (v) (U.S.) Also eye-ball. To look or stare (at).
eyeful (n) (1) A ‘good look’ at something; an exhilarating or remarkable sight. (2) A
strikingly attractive woman.
Eyetalian (n) An Italian. Cf. (offens.) Eyetie.
eyewash (n) (Military slang) Also eye-wash. (1) Unnecessary routine tasks or
ceremonial. (2) Humbug, blarney; nonsense.
eyewasher (n) One who obscures or conceals actual facts or motives.
fab (adj) Fabulous: marvellous, terrific.
face-ache (n) A mournful-looking person; also as a term of address.
fag (n) (1) (U.S.) A cigarette. (2) The fag-end of a cigarette. (3) (U.S.) A (male)
homosexual. (v) To smoke; to supply with a cigarette.
faggot (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A (male) homosexual.
faggoty (adj) Also faggy. Homosexual.
fairy (n) A male homosexual.
falsies (n pl.) (orig. U.S.) A padded brassière; breast-pads.
Family (n) (1) Usu. with the. The thieving fraternity. (2) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) (The
members of) a local organizational unit of the Mafia.
Glossary 273

family jewels (n pl.) (orig. U.S.) The male genitals, esp. the testicles.
fancy pants (n) A dandy; a snob. (adj) As fancy-pants, overly fancy; posh; snobbish,
pretentious.
Fannie Mae (n) Federal National Mortgage Association.
fanny (n) (1) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) The posterior or rump. (2) (chiefly Brit.) The
female genitals.
Fanny Adams (n) Also sweet Fanny Adams. Nothing at all.
fantabulous (adj) Of almost incredible excellence. From fantastic and fabulous.
far-out (adj) (orig. U.S.) Excellent, splendid.
fart (n) (1) A breaking wind. (2) A contemptible person.
fash (n) Fashion. (adj) Fashionable.
fat cat (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A political backer.
fat-mouth (n) (U.S.) One who talks extravagantly. (v) To talk a great deal about
something, with little or no action or result.
fatso (n) Used humorously or derisively as a nickname for a fat person.
fave (n, adj) (orig. U.S.) Favourite.
fave rave (n) A special favourite piece of music, film, musician, etc.
Fed (n) A federalist, a federal official, esp. an FBI agent.
feeb (n) (U.S.) A feeble-minded person.
fender (n) Vehicle’s wing or mudguard.
fender-bender (n) (chiefly U.S.) A (usu. minor) motor accident.
fiddley-did (n) (Austral.) Rhyming slang for quid, one pound; a pound note.
filth (n) (Criminals’ slang) The police.
fish (n) (1) (U.S.) A dollar. (2) (Nautical slang) A torpedo; also, a submarine.
five-finger discount (n) (U.S.) The activity or proceeds of stealing or of shop-lifting.
fiver (n) (Thieves’ slang) A fifth (term of imprisonment).
five-to-two (n) Rhyming slang for ‘Jew’.
fix (n) Also fix-up. A dose of a narcotic drug.
fizzer (n) Anything excellent or first-rate.
flage (n) Also fladge. Flagellation, esp. as a means of sexual gratification.
flake (n) (chiefly U.S.) One who is ‘flaky’ or liable to act in an eccentric or crazy
manner.
flaky (adj) Crazy; feeble-minded, stupid.
flaming (vbl n) (Computing) The action or practice of sending inflammatory or abusive
messages by e-mail.
flaming onions (n) (Services’ slang) An anti-aircraft projectile consisting of about ten
balls of fire shot upwards in succession.
flannel-mouth (n) (U.S.) An empty talker.
flasher (n) One who exposes himself indecently.
flat-head (n) A fool, simpleton.
flatty (n) (orig. U.S.) A ‘flat-foot’, a policeman, a plain-clothes man.
flick (n) A film; also in pl., the cinema.
flim (n) A bank-note.
flip (adj) Flippant.
flipping (adj, adv) (usu. derog.) Used as a substitute for a strong expletive.
flit (n) A male homosexual.
274 Glossary

flowery (n) From flowery dell, rhyming slang for ‘a prison cell’.
fly (adj) (1) (U.S.) Stylish, sophisticated; fashionable. (2) (chiefly Black E.) Attractive,
good-looking; hence, excellent, fabulous.
fly-by-night (n) One who defrauds his creditors by decamping in the night.
footer (n) Football.
footy (n) (1) Also footie, footie-footie, footsie-footsie, footsy-footsy, footy-footy.
Amorous play with the feet. (2) (esp. Austral. and N.Z.) Football.
foozling (n) Bungling.
forty (n) (Austral.) A ‘crook’, thief, sharper.
forty-rod whisky (n) (U.S.) Cheap, fiery whisky.
four-eyes (n) A person who habitually wears spectacles.
four-flusher (n) One who bluffs, a pretender, braggart, humbug.
four-letter man (n) (Brit.) An obnoxious person.
fox (n) (U.S.) An attractive woman.
foxy (adj) (U.S.) Of a woman: attractive, desirable, pretty, sexy.
frag (v) (U.S., Military slang) To throw a fragmentation grenade at one’s superior
officer.
frail (n) (chiefly U.S.) A woman.
frat (n) (U.S., College slang) (1) Fraternity. (2) A member of fraternity. (v) To
fraternize, esp. to cultivate friendly relations with (troops of an opposing army).
fratter (n) One who establishes friendly and esp. sexual relations with German women.
fratting (vbl n) Friendly relations between British and American soldiers and German
women in the occupied parts of Western Germany after the war of 1939-45.
freak (n) (1) A drug addict. (2) A gay man or a lesbian. (3) A person who enjoys
unorthodox sexual practices; a fetishist. (4) (U.S., esp. in African-American usage)
An attractive young woman or (rare) man.
freak-out (n) An intense emotional experience, esp. one resulting from the use of
hallucinatory drugs.
freak out (v) To undergo an intense emotional experience, to become stimulated, esp.
under the influence of hallucinatory drugs.
freebase (n) (orig. U.S.) Cocaine purified by heating with ether, and taken (illegally) by
inhaling the fumes or smoking the residue. (v) To make a ‘freebase’ of (cocaine).
freebie (n) (U.S.) Also freebee, freeby. Something that is provided free. (adj) Free,
without charge.
French blue (n) The name for a non-proprietary mixture of amphetamine and a
barbiturate.
frightener (n) A member of a criminal gang who intimidates the victims of its activities.
Fritz (n) A German, esp. a German soldier.
froggy (n) Also frog, froggee or frog-eater. A term of contempt for a Frenchman, from
their reputed habit of eating frogs. (adj) French.
frosh (n) (N. Amer.) A college freshman; a member of a freshman sports team.
fruitcake (n) (orig. U.S.) A crazy or eccentric person.
fubar (adj) (U.S., orig. Military slang) Also FUBAR. Bungled, ruined, messed up. From
fouled (or fucked) up beyond all recognition.
fuck (v) To copulate (with); to have sexual connection with.
fucker (n) One who copulates. Also in extended use as a general term of abuse.
Glossary 275

fud (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) An old-fashioned person. From fuddy-duddy.
full as a goog (adj phr) Drunk. From Austral. slang goog, egg.
fully (v) To commit (a person) for trial.
funk (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) Music that is ‘funky’. (2) Cowering fear; a state of panic or
shrinking terror. (3) One who funks; a coward. (v) (1) To flinch or shrink through
fear. (2) To blow smoke upon (a person); to annoy with smoke.
funky (adj) (orig. U.S.) Of jazz or similar music: down-to-earth and uncomplicated;
emotional.
furphy (n) (Austral.) A false report or rumour; an absurd story.
fussock (n) Also fuzzock. A fat, unwieldy woman.
fuzz (n) (orig. U.S.) A policeman or detective; freq. collect., the police.
G. (n) (U.S.) ‘Grand’, a thousand dollars.
gabfest (n) (U.S.) A gathering for talk; a spell of talking; a prolonged conference or
conversation.
gaffer (n) A foreman or boss.
gaga (n) A doting or senile person; a madman. (adj) Doting, exhibiting senile decay;
mad; fatuous.
gal (n) (chiefly N. Amer.) Vulgar and dialect pronunciation of girl.
gang-bang (n) (orig. U.S.) An act of or occasion for multiple intercourse; a sexual orgy.
garbo (n) (Austral.) A dustman, a collector of rubbish.
garn (int) Cockney pronunciation of go on, often used to express disbelief or ridicule of
a statement.
gas (n) (1) Empty or boastful talk; showy pretence; humbug, nonsense. (2) (Anglo-
Irish) Fun; a joke. (3) Someone who is very pleasing, exciting, impressive,
admirable, etc.
gasbag (n) An empty talker.
gassed (ppl adj) Drunk; intoxicated.
gasser (n) (orig. U.S.) Something or someone that is very pleasing, exciting,
impressive, admirable, etc.
gassy (adj) Characterized by empty talk.
gate (n) The mouth.
gator (n) (orig. U.S.) Alligator.
gaydar (n) An ability, attributed esp. to homosexual people, to identify a (fellow)
homosexual person. From gay and radar.
gay deceivers (n pl.) A padded brassière; breast-pads.
gazump (v) Of a seller: to raise the price of a property after having accepted an offer by
(an intending buyer).
gazunder (v) (Brit., humorous) Of a buyer: to lower the amount of an offer made to (the
seller) for a property. From gazump and under.
gear (n) (1) (U.S.) Marijuana; heroin; drugs in general. (2) The organs of generation.
gee (n) (U.S.) A man, fellow. From guy.
geed-up (adj) Drugged.
gee-gee (n) A horse.
gen (n) (orig. Services’ slang) Information, facts. Perhaps abbreviation of general in the
official phr for the general information of all ranks.
276 Glossary

gender-bender (n) A person (esp. a pop singer or follower of a pop cult) who
deliberately affects an androgynous appearance by wearing sexually ambiguous
clothing, make-up, etc.
get (n) A fool, idiot.
G.I. (n) A German artillery shell. Chiefly in G.I. can. From galvanized iron.
giggle-water (n) Intoxicating liquor.
gimp (n) A cripple; a lame person or leg; a limp.
gimpy (n) (orig. U.S.) A cripple. (adj) Lame, crippled.
ginger-beer (n) Also ginger. Rhyming slang for queer, a homosexual.
ginormous (adj) Very large, simply enormous; excessive in size, amount, etc. From
gigantic and enormous.
gippy (n) Also gyppie, gyppy or gippo, gypo, gyppo. (1) An Egyptian, esp. a native
Egyptian soldier. (2) A gipsy.
git (n) In contemptuous use: a worthless person.
give (a person) the hump (phr) To annoy, depress, a person.
glad eye (n) A look or movement of the eyes designed to attract a person of the opposite
sex.
glad hand (n) Hand of welcome; a cordial handshake or greeting.
glam (n) Glamour. (adj) Glamorous. (v) To glamorize.
glamour boy (n) A member of the R.A.F.
glamour puss (n) A glamorous person.
glass-house (n) A military prison or guard-room.
glitterati (n) (orig. U.S.) The celebrities or ‘glittering’ stars of fashionable society, or of
the literary and show-business world.
glitz (n) (orig. and chiefly N. Amer.) An extravagant but superficial display; showiness,
ostentation.
glitzy (adj) Characterized by glitter or extravagant show; ostentatious.
glob (n) A mass or lump of some liquid or semi-liquid substance. From gob and blob.
glue-sniffer (n) A person who inhales the fumes of plastic cement for their narcotic
effects.
gobby (n) A coastguard, or an American sailor.
go big (v phr) (orig. U.S.) To be a big success, have a large sale.
gobsmacked (ppl adj) (Brit.) Also gob-struck. Flabbergasted, astounded; speechless or
incoherent with amazement.
gobstick (n) A clarinet.
gob-stopper (n) A large, hard, freq. spherical sweet for sucking.
God-awful (adj) (orig. U.S.) Terrible; extremely awful.
God-box (n) A church or other place of worship.
God-damned (adj) Accursed, damnable.
God forbid (n) Rhyming slang for ‘kid’.
goggle-box (n) A television set.
going-over (n) (orig. U.S.) Also going over. A beating; a thrashing.
go it (v phr) To go along at great speed.
gold-dig (v) To extract money from.
gold-digger (n) (orig. U.S.) A girl or woman who attaches herself to a man merely for
gain.
Glossary 277

goner (n) One who is dead or undone; something which is doomed or ended.
gonger (n) (U.S.) (1) Opium. (2) An opium pipe.
good oil (n) (Austral.) Reliable information.
goof (n) (1) A foolish or stupid person. (2) A mistake. (v) (1) To dawdle, to spend time
idly or foolishly. (2) To make a mistake.
goof ball (n) (1) Also goof pill. (A tablet of) any of various drugs, spec. marijuana. (2)
A silly, stupid, or ‘daft’ person.
goofy (adj) Stupid, silly.
goo-goo (adj) Of the eyes or glances: amorous.
goopy (adj) (orig. U.S.) Fatuous, esp. fatuously amorous; stupid.
Gor blimey! (int) Also Gawblimy, Gorblimey, Gorblimy. Vulgar corruption of the
imprecation God blind me.
Gordon Bennett (int) An exclamation of astonishment or exasperation. From Gor
blimey.
graft (n) (1) Work, esp. hard work. (2) A trade, craft. (v) To work hard.
grafter (n) (orig. U.S.) One who makes money by shady or dishonest means; a thief; a
swindler.
grass (n) (1) Green vegetables. (2) (orig. U.S.) Marijuana, used as a drug. (3) The
ground. (4) (Criminals’ slang) A police informer. (v) (1) To knock or throw (an
adversary) down; to fell. (2) To betray (someone); to inform the police about
(someone).
grease-ball (n) (U.S.) A derogatory term for a foreigner, esp. applied to one of
Mediterranean or Latin American origin.
grease monkey (n) A mechanic.
greaser (n) (U.S.) A native Mexican or native Spanish American.
greasy spoon (restaurant) (n) (orig. U.S.) A cheap and inferior eating-house.
green (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) Marijuana of poor quality. (2) pl. Money.
greenback (n) A frog.
greenhouse (n) (Aeronautical slang) The glass cockpit covering over observation and
similar planes.
greenie (n) (Surfing slang) A large wave before it breaks.
gremmie (n) (Surfing slang) Also gremmy. (1) A young surfer. (2) A trouble-maker
who spends most of his time on the beaches but does not surf.
grey (n) (U.S., Black E.) A white-skinned person. (adj) Of a person: white-skinned.
greycing (n) Greyhound racing, a sport in which a dummy hare propelled mechanically
round a set track is pursued by greyhounds.
gricer (n) A railway enthusiast; loosely, a train-spotter.
griff (n) News; reliable information.
grift (n) (U.S.) The obtaining of profit or advantage by dishonest or shady means.
grind (n) (1) A hard student. (2) (An act of) sexual intercourse. (v) To have sexual
intercourse with (a woman).
grody (adj) (U.S.) Disgusting, revolting.
groise (n) (Public School slang) (1) A hard worker, a swot; one who curries favour. (2)
Hard work. (v) To work hard, to swot; to curry favour.
groovy (adj) (orig. U.S.) A general term of commendation: excellent, very good.
278 Glossary

Groper (n) (1) (Austral.) A jocular appellation for a native West Australian. (2) A blind
man.
gross-out (n) (chiefly U.S.) An instance of (deliberately) crude or disgusting behaviour;
a repellent or shocking person or thing. (adj) Shocking, repellent, disgusting.
grot (n) (Brit. and Austral.) An unpleasant, dirty, or ugly person. (adj) Also grotty.
Unpleasant, dirty, nasty, ugly.
groupie (n) (1) (R.A.F. slang) A group captain. (2) Also groupy. An ardent follower of
a touring pop group.
grumble (n) From grumble and grunt, rhyming slang for cunt, a woman or women
regarded collectively as a means of sexual gratification.
grunge (n) (1) (U.S.) A style of rock music. (2) (chiefly N. Amer.) Someone or
something that is repugnant or odious, unpleasant, or dull.
grungy (adj) (chiefly N. Amer.) Grimy, unpleasant. From grubby and dingy.
gum-bucket (n) (Naval slang) A smoker’s pipe.
gum-game (n) (U.S.) A trick or dodge.
gum-shoe (n) A detective.
gungy (adj) Also gungey. Of a sticky or messy consistency; mucky, greasy, slimy.
guppie (n) (1) A homosexual ‘yuppie’. From gay and yuppie. (2) A ‘yuppie’ concerned
about the environment and ecological issues. From green and yuppie.
gussie (n) (Austral.) An effeminate man.
gussy (v) With up: to smarten up, esp. to dress smartly.
gut (n) pl. Energy, verve, staying power; courage, force of character.
gutted (adj) Bitterly disappointed; devastated.
gutty (adj) (Jazz slang) Earthy, primitive.
guv (n) Used as a term of address to a man.
guzzle-guts (n) A glutton.
H (n) Heroin.
habit (n) (orig. U.S.) The practice of taking addictive drugs.
hack (n) (1) (orig. disparaging, now chiefly jocular) A journalist or reporter, esp. a staff
newspaper writer. (2) A prostitute; a bawd.
hackette (n) A jocular or disparaging term for a female journalist.
half-arsed (adj) Amer. -assed. Ineffectual, inadequate, mediocre; stupid, inexperienced.
half-cut (adj) Half-drunk.
half-pie (adj) (N.Z.) Halfway towards, imperfect, mediocre.
half-shaved (ppl adj) (obs.) Also half shaved. Partly intoxicated, drunk.
half-shot (adj) (orig. U.S.) Half-drunk.
hammy (adj) Characteristic of a ham actor or ham acting.
Hampsteads (n) From Hampstead Heath, rhyming slang for ‘teeth’.
handbag (house) (n) A form of electronic dance music.
handful (n) A five-year prison sentence.
hang five (v) (Surfing slang) Also hang ten, etc. To allow the specified number of toes
to project over the nose of the surfboard, usu. to gain speed.
hang-out (n) (1) A residence; a lodging. (2) (Amer. University slang) A feast; an
entertainment.
hang out (v) (1) (in early use chiefly U.S.) To spend or pass time, esp. habitually, idly,
or at leisure. (2) To reside, live.
Glossary 279

hanky-panky (n) (1) Jugglery, legerdemain; trickery, double dealing, underhand dealing.
(2) Sexual activity or dalliance, esp. of a surreptitious nature.
happening (ppl adj) (orig. U.S.) Currently in vogue, fashionable, trendy.
happy dust (n) Cocaine.
hard (n) Hard labour.
hard-assed (adj) (orig. U.S.) Tough, uncompromising, resolute.
hard cheese (n) (Brit.) Bad luck.
hardcore (n) A form of popular music regarded as particularly extreme, aggressive, or
experimental.
hard tail (n) (U.S.) A mule.
Harry (in phr) In arbitrary appositive uses of which a few have emerged as set
expressions, e.g., Harry Flakers (Nautical slang), exhausted; Harry Flatters
(Nautical slang), (of the sea) calm; Harry Frees (chiefly Nautical slang), free;
Harry James, nose.
hash (n) Hashish.
hash-joint (n) (chiefly U.S.) A cheap eating-house, boarding house.
hash-up (n) A hastily cooked meal.
hat-rack (n) (1) The head. (2) A scraggy animal.
have-on (n) (Farmer slang) A swindle; a take-in; a do.
head (n) (orig. U.S.) A drug addict or drug-taker.
head-banger (n) A young person shaking violently to the rhythm of pop music.
head case (n) (orig. Brit.) A person characterized as mentally ill or unstable.
head-shrinker (n) (orig. U.S.) A psychiatrist.
heat (n) (1) Also heater. A gun. (2) Involvement with or pursuit by the police; a police
officer, the police. (3) A state of intoxication caused by alcohol or drugs, esp. in to
have a heat on.
heavy sugar (n) (U.S.) Big money.
heavy-wet (n) Malt liquor.
heck (int) Euphemistic alteration of hell.
heebie-jeebie(s) (n) (orig. U.S.) Also heebies. A feeling of discomfort, apprehension, or
depression.
heinie (n) The buttocks.
Heinie (n) (N. Amer.) Also Heiney. A German (soldier).
heist (n) (orig. U.S.) A hold-up, a robbery. (v) To hold up, rob, steal.
hell’s bells (int) An expression of anger or annoyance.
hep (adj) (orig. U.S.) Well-informed, knowledgeable, up-to-date; smart, stylish.
her indoors (n) (Brit.) One’s wife or girlfriend.
herring choker (n) (1) (Canad.) A native or inhabitant of the Maritime Provinces. (2)
(U.S.) A Scandinavian.
highball (v) (U.S.) To go or drive at high speed.
high-binder (n) (U.S.) (1) A rowdy; one of a gang which commits outrages on persons
and property. (2) One of a secret society or gang said to exist among the Chinese in
California and other parts of the United States for the purpose of blackmailing and
even of assassination. (3) A swindler, esp. a fraudulent politician.
high-roller (n) (U.S.) One who spends extravagantly; one who gambles for high stakes.
hill (n) As hill of beans (orig. U.S.), a thing of little value.
280 Glossary

hinny (n) Also hinnie. A term of endearment: sweet one, sweetheart, darling. From
honey.
hip (adj) (orig. U.S.) Well-informed, knowledgeable. From hep. (v) To inform.
hippie (n) Also hippy. A hipster; a person, usually exotically dressed, who is given to
the use of hallucinogenic drugs; a beatnik.
hippieness (n) Also hippiness. The quality or characteristics of a ‘hippie’ or ‘hippies’.
hippish (adj) Somewhat hypochondriacal; low-spirited.
hippy (adj) (orig. U.S.) Characteristic of ‘hippies’.
hipster (n) (orig. U.S.) Also hepster. An addict of jazz, swing music, etc.
hit (n) (orig. U.S.) (1) A dose of a narcotic drug; the action of obtaining or
administering such a dose. (2) A killing; a robbery.
hit list (n) A list of persons to be assassinated.
hit-man (n) A hired murderer.
hit squad (n) (orig. U.S.) A group of esp. politically-motivated assassins or kidnappers.
ho (n) (chiefly U.S., orig. in African-American usage) (1) A sexually promiscuous
woman. (2) A prostitute. From whore.
hock-shop (n) A pawnshop.
hoke (v) (Theatrical slang) To overplay (a part), to act (a part) in an insincere,
sentimental, or melodramatic manner.
hokey (adj) (orig. U.S.) Sentimental, melodramatic, artificial.
hokum (n) (orig. U.S., Theatrical slang) Speech, action, properties, etc., on the stage,
designed to make a sentimental or melodramatic appeal to an audience.
hole (n) (1) Also cake-hole. The mouth. (2) The anus, or the female external genital
organs.
homeboy (n) (orig. U.S., esp. Black E.) A member of one’s peer group or gang.
Sometimes used as a term of address.
homegirl (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S., esp. Black E.) A woman or girl from one’s home
town, region, or neighbourhood; hence, a member of one’s peer group.
homey (n) (N.Z.) Also homie. An Englishman; a British immigrant, esp. one newly
arrived.
homo (n, adj) (A) homosexual.
hood (n) (chiefly U.S., esp. in African-American usage) A youthful street rowdy.
hoofer (n) A (professional) dancer.
hook (n) pl. The fingers or hands.
hook (v) (1) To solicit as a prostitute. (2) To move with a sudden turn or twist.
hooker (n) (chiefly U.S.) A prostitute.
Hooray Henry (n) A type of loud, rich, rather ineffectual or foolish young society man.
hop (n) (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) Beer.
hophead (n) (1) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) An opium-smoker; a drug-addict. (2) (N.Z.) A
drunkard, a tippler.
hop-over (n) (Army slang) An assault.
hopped-up (adj) (U.S.) (1) Stimulated by, or under the influence of a narcotic drug. (2)
Excited, enthusiastic. (3) Of a motor vehicle: having its engine altered to give
improved performance.
hoppy (n) (U.S.) An opium addict. (adj) Characterized by drugs or drug-taking.
hop toy (n) A container used for smoking opium.
Glossary 281

horse (n) (orig. U.S.) Heroin.

horse feathers (n) (U.S.) Nonsense, rubbish, balderdash.
horse opera (n) (orig. U.S.) A Western film or television series.
hostie (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) An air hostess.
hot (n) pl. Strong sexual desire. (adj) (1) Of a person (originally a woman): sexually
attractive. (2) Of goods: stolen. As hot stuff, stolen goods.
Hot beef (int) Rhyming slang for ‘Stop, thief!’.
hot chair (n) The electric chair.
hot rod (n) (orig. U.S.) A motor vehicle specially modified to give high power and
speed.
hot rodder (n) The driver of a ‘hot rod’.
hot-rodding (orig. U.S.) Racing ‘hot rods’.
hot-shot (n) (U.S.) Injection of a drug that is of higher potency than the addict is
accustomed to.
hot-stuff (v) (Army slang) To scrounge, steal.
hotsy-totsy (adj) (orig. U.S.) Comfortable, satisfactory, just right.
hotter (n) (Brit.) A joyrider.
hottie (n) (orig. U.S.) Also hotty. A sexually attractive person.
hotting (vbl n) (Brit.) Joyriding in stolen, high-performance cars, esp. dangerously and
for display.
hot-wire (v) (N. Amer.) To by-pass the ignition system of a motor vehicle (as a
preliminary to stealing the vehicle).
house (n) (orig. U.S.) A type of popular music.
house-man (n) (U.S.) Also houseman. A burglar.
House of Lords (n) A lavatory.
hubba-hubba (int) (U.S.) Also haba-haba. Used to express approval, excitement, or
enthusiasm.
Hughie (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) Also Huey. The ‘god’ of weather.
hum (n) (1) A piece of humbug; an imposition, a hoax. (2) (Austral.) A persistent
borrower, a scrounger.
humongous (adj) (orig. U.S.) Extremely large; huge, enormous.
hump (v) (coarse) To have a sexual intercourse with.
hung up (adj) Confused, bewildered, mixed-up.
hunk (n) (orig. U.S.) A sexually attractive, ruggedly handsome man.
hunky (adj) (orig. U.S.) Sexually attractive, ruggedly handsome.
hunky-dory (adj) (U.S.) Also hunky-dorey. Satisfactory, fine.
hustler (n) A prostitute.
Hymie (n) (U.S., derog. and offens.) A Jewish person.
hyper (adj) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Hyperactive, excitable, highly-strung;
extraordinarily energetic.
hypo (n) (1) A drug-addict. (2) A hypodermic needle or injection.
I AM (n) A (self-)important person.
ice (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) Diamonds; jewellery. (2) (U.S.) Profit from the illegal sale of
theatre, cinema, etc., tickets. (3) Protection money. (4) (orig. U.S.) A potent,
crystalline form of the drug methamphetamine, smoked (illegally) as a stimulant.
idiot box (n) A television set.
282 Glossary

idiot stick (n) (U.S.) A shovel.

Ikey (n) Also Iky. A Jew or someone taken to be a Jew.
illegit (n) An illegitimate actor, child, etc. (adj) Illegitimate.
in (n) (orig. U.S.) An introduction to someone of power, fame, or authority; influence
with such a person.
indeedee (adv) Also indeedy. Indeed.
Indian hay (n) (U.S.) Marijuana.
indie (n) An independent theatre, film, or recorded company.
info (n) Information.
innards (n) pl. Intestines.
in pod (adj) Pregnant.
inside (adv) In prison.
inside job (n) A crime committed in a house, etc., by, or with the help of, a resident or
servant in the building.
inside stand (n) The placing of a gang member incognito as one of the staff of a place to
be robbed, in order to facilitate the robbery.
Irish confetti (n) pl. Stones, bricks, etc., esp. when used as weapons.
Irishman’s hurricane (n) (Nautical slang) A dead calm.
Irishman’s rise (n) Reduced wages.
iron (n) (1) A portable fire-arm; a pistol. (2) Money. (3) An old motor vehicle. (4) A
jemmy used in housebreaking. (5) From iron hoof, rhyming slang for poof, a
homosexual.
ironmongery (n) Firearms.
it (n) Sexual intercourse.
ivories (n) pl. Teeth.
Jack (n) A policeman or detective; a military policeman.
Jack (n) From Jack’s alive, rhyming slang for ‘five’; also, a five-pound note. (adj) From
Jack Jones, rhyming slang for ‘alone’, usu. in on one’s Jack Jones, on one’s own;
alone.
jack-leg (n) (U.S.) An incompetent or unskilled or unprincipled person.
Jack-the-Lad (n) (A nickname for) a troublemaker or rogue.
Jacky-Jacky (n) (Austral.) A white man’s name for an Aboriginal.
Jag (n) A Jaguar, the proprietary name of a make of motor car.
Jaggers (n) (Brit., Oxford University slang) Jesus College.
jail-bait (n) (orig. U.S.) A girl who is under the legal age of consent.
jake (n) (orig. U.S.) An alcoholic beverage made from Jamaica ginger.
jalap (n) Type of purgative obtained from a Mexican plant.
Jane (n) (orig. U.S.) Also jane. A woman, girl, girlfriend.
jar (n) A drink (of beer, etc.).
jasper (n) (U.S.) A person, fellow, usu. with contemptuous overtones; spec. a rustic
simpleton.
jaunty (n) (Nautical slang) Also jaundy. The master-at-arms on board ship.
jaw-bone (n) (N. Amer., orig. Canad.) Credit.
jawboning (n) (U.S.) Name applied to a policy of urging management and union leaders
to adopt a policy of restraint in wage and price negotiations.
Glossary 283

jazz (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) A type of music originating among American Negroes. (2)
Sexual intercourse. (v) To have sexual intercourse (with).
jazzbo (n) (U.S.) Also jasbo. A person; spec. a Black person.
jeepers (int) (orig. U.S.) Also jeepers-creepers. A mild expression of surprise, delight,
etc.
Jeez (int) (orig. U.S.) Also Jese, Jez or Geez(e). An exclamation of surprise or
enthusiasm; also used simply for emphasis.
jelly (n) (1) A pretty girl; a girl-friend. (2) Gelignite.
jelly bean (n) An unpleasant, weak, or dishonest person; spec. a pimp.
jelly-belly (n) A fat person.
jelly-dog (n) A harrier.
jelly roll (n) (1) A lover. (2) Sexual intercourse. (3) The female genitalia.
jerkeroo (n) (U.S.) A fool, a stupid person.
Jerry (n) (orig. Military slang) A German; spec. a German soldier; a German aircraft.
jerry (n) A chamber-pot.
Jessie (n) Also Jessy. A cowardly or effeminate man; a male homosexual.
Jew boy (n) (offens.) A Jewish male.
jigaboo (n) (U.S., coarse) A Black person, a Negro.
jig-a-jig (n) Also jig-jig or jig-a-jog. Sexual intercourse. (v) To copulate.
jigger (v) Used in mild oaths, as in I’m jiggered, I’ll be jiggered.
jiggery-pokery (n) Deceitful or dishonest ‘manipulation’.
jim-jam (n) pl. Delirium tremens.
Jimmy (n) (1) From Jimmy O’Goblin, rhyming slang for ‘sovereign’, twenty shillings.
(2) From Jimmy Riddle, rhyming slang for ‘piddle’.
Jimmy Woodser (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) A solitary drinker.
jitterbug (n) (orig. U.S.) A jittery or nervous person; an alarmist.
jive (n) (orig. U.S.) Talk or conversation; spec. misleading. (v) To mislead; to talk
nonsense.
jive-ass (n) (U.S.) A person who loves fun or excitement.
jivey (adj) (chiefly U.S.) Also jivy. Misleading, phoney, pretentious.
Jixi (n) (dated) Also Jixie. A two-seated taxi-cab licensed in 1926.
joanna (n) Rhyming slang for ‘piano’.
Jock (n) A Scottish sailor; any Scotsman.
jock (n) (1) Jockey. (2) (coarse) The genitals of a man. (3) Food. (4) (N. Amer.) From
jock-strap, an athletic man.
jocker (n) (N. Amer.) (1) A tramp who is accompanied by a youth who begs for him or
acts as his catamite. (2) A male homosexual.
Joe (n) (Canad.) A French Canadian.
Joey (n) (1) A threepenny bit. (2) A fourpenny piece.
John Hop (n) Rhyming slang for cop, a policeman.
johndarm (n) A policeman.
Johnnie (n) Also Johnny. (1) A policeman. (2) A condom.
joint (n) (chiefly U.S.) (1) A marijuana cigarette; also, hypodermic equipment used by
drug addicts. (2) A partnership or union, or a place of meeting or resort. (3)
(Fairground slang) A stall, tent, etc., in a circus or fair. (4) Prison. (5) (Music slang)
A song, a recording; an album.
284 Glossary

joker (n) (esp. Austral. and N.Z.) Man, fellow, ‘chap’.

jollo (n) (Austral.) A party, esp. one at which liquor is drunk.
jollop (n) (1) Strong liquor, or a drink of this. (2) A purgative, a medicine.
jolly (n) Jollification; so, a thrill of enjoyment or excitement.
jolt (n) (chiefly U.S.) (1) A drink of liquor. (2) A quantity of a drug in the form of a
cigarette, tablet, etc. (3) A prison sentence.
Jones (n) (1) A drug addict’s habit. (2) (U.S.) Symptoms of withdrawal from heroin or
another drug. (3) (U.S.) Any intense craving or desire.
josser (n) (1) (Austral.) A clergyman or minister of religion. (2) A simpleton; a soft or
silly fellow.
journo (n) (orig. Austral.) A journalist, esp. a newspaper journalist.
joy-house (n) A brothel.
joy juice (n) (U.S.) Also joy-juice. Alcoholic drink.
joy-pop (n) (An inhalation or injection of) a drug.
joy-popper (n) (orig. U.S.) An occasional taker of illegal drugs.
Judy (n) A girl, woman.
jug (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) A prison, jail. (2) A bank. (v) To shut up in jail; to imprison.
juggins (n) (dated) A fool, simpleton.
juicer (n) (1) An electrician. (2) (U.S.) An alcoholic.
ju-ju (n) A marijuana cigarette.
Jumble (n) A Black man’s nickname for a white man.
jumper (n) A ticket-inspector or ticket-collector, jumping on to buses to inspect tickets.
jungle (n) A genre of dance music, originating in Britain in the early 1990s, which
incorporates elements of ragga, hip-hop, and techno.
jungle bunny (n) A derogatory term used by some white people to designate Blacks,
Australian Aborigines, etc.
jungle juice (n) Alcoholic liquor, esp. liquor that is either very powerful or that has been
prepared illicitly or amateurishly.
junk (n) (orig. U.S.) Any narcotic drug; also, such drugs collectively.
junkie (n) (orig. U.S.) Also junkey, junky or junker. A drug-addict; a drug-peddler.
juvie (n) (U.S.) Also juvey. A juvenile or juvenile delinquent.
K (n) Also Special K. Ketamine, used as a recreational drug.
kaput (adj) Also kaputt. (1) Finished, worn out; dead or destroyed. (2) Rendered useless
or unable to function.
kelly (n) (1) From Derby (or Darby) Kelly, rhyming slang for ‘belly’. (2) (chiefly U.S.)
A man’s hat; spec. a derby hat.
Kelly’s eye (n) (In the game of bingo) the number one.
key (n) (U.S.) A kilogram of a drug.
Khyber (n) From Khyber Pass, rhyming slang for arse, the buttocks.
kick (n) (1) As the kick, discharge, dismissal. (2) As the kick, the fashion, the newest
style. (3) A sixpence. (4) A pocket. (5) pl. Breeches, trousers. (6) (orig. U.S.) pl.
Shoes.
kick ass (v) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) To act roughly or aggressively; to be powerful or
assertive. (adj) Rough, aggressive, powerful.
kick in (v) (U.S.) (1) To break into (a building). (2) To contribute (money, etc.); to pay
(one’s share).
Glossary 285

kick off (v) (orig. U.S.) To die.

kick one’s heels (phr) To stand waiting idly or impatiently.
kick the bucket (phr) To die.
kidvid (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A television programme or video made for children.
From kid and video.
kiddo (n) A young child, man or woman. From kid.
killer (n) (orig. U.S.) Also killer-diller. An impressive, formidable, or excellent person
or thing.
king-fish (n) (U.S.) A leader, chief, boss.
king-hit (n) (Austral.) A knock-out blow; a hard punch. (v) To punch hard or knock out.
King Kong (n) Cheap alcohol.
kisser (n) (orig. Boxing slang) The mouth; the face.
kiss off (v) (1) To dismiss, get rid of, kill. (2) To go away, die.
klepto (n) A kleptomaniac.
klick (n) (orig. U.S., Army slang) A kilometre.
knackered (ppl adj) Exhausted, worn out.
knee-trembler (n) An act of sexual intercourse between persons in a standing position.
knob (n) (1) The penis. (2) The head.
knock-down (n) (1) Something that knocks one down; something overpowering; e.g.
strong liquor. (2) (U.S., Austral. and N.Z.) An introduction.
knock down (v) (1) (Austral. and N.Z.) To spend in drink or riot. (2) (U.S.) To
appropriate or embezzle (esp. passengers’ fares).
knock in (v) (University slang) To knock so as to gain admission to college after the
gate is closed.
knocking-shop (n) A brothel.
knock-off (n) A robbery.
knock off (v) (1) To die. (2) To steal, to rob. (3) (orig. U.S.) To kill; to murder. (4)
(Underworld slang) To arrest (a person); to raid (an establishment). (5) To copulate
with, to seduce (a woman).
knock out (v) (Austral., N.Z. and U.S.) To earn.
knock over (v) (Underworld slang) To rob (a person), to burgle (a building); to steal
(from).
knock up (v) (orig. U.S.) (1) To make (a woman) pregnant. (2) To have sexual
intercourse with (a woman).
knucklehead (n) Also knuckle-head. A slow-witted or stupid person.
knuckle sandwich (n) A punch in the mouth.
kook (n) A cranky, crazy, or eccentric person.
kooky (adj) Also kookie. Cranky, crazy, eccentric.
Kraut (n) A German, esp. a German soldier.
kriegie (n) An Allied prisoner of war in Germany during the war of 1939-45.
lad (n) A boy, youth; a young man, young fellow.
ladette (n) (Brit.) A young woman characterized by her enjoyment of social drinking,
sport, or other activities typically considered to be male-oriented.
Lady Muck (n) (orig. Austral.) Also Lord Muck. A self-important, pompous, or
pretentious woman (or man).
286 Glossary

laid-back (ppl adj) Of music: mellow, subdued; of a person, etc.: casually unperturbed,
relaxed.
lair (n) (Austral.) Also lare. A flashily dressed man, one who ‘shows off’.
lairy (adj) (1) Also leary, leery. Flashily dressed; vulgar. (2) (Cockney) Knowing,
conceited.
lakes (adj) From Lakes of Killarney, rhyming slang for barmy, mad, crazy.
lallapaloosa (n) (U.S.) Something outstandingly good of its kind.
lame-brain (n) A dull-witted or stupid person.
lamps (n) pl. The eyes.
lard-ass (n) (orig. N. Amer.) (A term of abuse for) a person who has large buttocks or is
fat.
larn (v) To teach; to give (a person) a lesson.
lat (n) (1) (orig. Bodybuilding) Latissimus dorsi. (2) Latrine.
lawk (int) Also lawks. Lord!
lay (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) A woman who is readily available for sexual intercourse; an act
of sexual intercourse. (2) A line or plan of business, occupation, adventure, etc. (v)
(orig. U.S.) To have sexual intercourse with (a woman).
lay back (v) To do nothing, relax.
lay for (v) (orig. U.S.) (Of a woman) to be willing to have (extramarital) sexual
intercourse.
lazy dog (n) (U.S., Military slang) A type of fragmentation bomb designed to explode in
mid-air and scatter steel pellets at high velocity over the target area.
lead balloon (n) A failure, an unsuccessful venture.
leaf (n) (Services’ slang) Also leef. Leave of absence, furlough.
leccer (n) (University slang) Also lecker, lekker. A lecture.
left field (n) A position away from the centre of activity or interest.
left-footer (n) A Roman Catholic.
legit (n) A legitimate actor, child, etc. (adj) Legitimate.
legless (adj) Drunk, esp. too drunk to stand.
leg-over (n) (Brit.) (An act of) sexual intercourse.
lemon (n) (1) The head. (2) A simpleton, a loser. (3) (orig. U.S.) Something which is
bad or undesirable or which fails to meet one’s expectations. (4) (U.S.) An
informer.
lemony (adj) (Austral. and N.Z.) Irritated, angry.
length (n) A penis; sexual intercourse.
Les (n, adj) Also Lessie, Lessy, Lezzy. (A) lesbian.
Lesbie (n) Also Lesbo, lesbo. A lesbian.
letty (n) A bed, a lodging.
lickety-split (adv) (chiefly U.S.) At full speed; headlong.
lickle (adj) Childlike corruption of little.
lifer (n) (1) One sentenced to penal servitude (or earlier, transportation) for life. (2) A
sentence for life.
ligger (n) One who gatecrashes parties.
lightning (n) (chiefly U.S.) Gin; also, any strong, freq. low-quality, alcoholic spirit.
Limey (n) (1) (esp. Austral., N.Z. and S. Afr.) An English immigrant. (2) (U.S.) An
English ship; an English (or British) sailor.
Glossary 287

limo (n) (U.S.) A limousine.

line (n) A dose of a powdered narcotic, esp. cocaine, laid out in a thin line for
inhalation.
lippy (adj) (dial.) Impertinent, insolent; talkative, verbose.
liquid lunch (n) (often jocular) A midday meal at which drink rather than food is
consumed.
liquorice-stick (n) (Jazz slang) A clarinet.
lit up (ppl adj) Drunk or under the influence of a drug.
Lizzie (n) Also lizzie. (1) A lesbian. Also, an effeminate young man. (2) A motor car,
esp. an early model of a ‘Ford’.
load (n) (1) An occurrence of venereal disease. (2) (U.S.) A dose of narcotics or large
amount of alcohol. (3) (orig. U.S., coarse) An ejaculation of semen.
loaded (ppl adj) (U.S.) (1) Drunk. (2) Drugged; under the influence of drugs; containing
a drug. (3) (orig. U.S.) Rich; extremely wealthy.
loaf (n, adj) From loaf of bread, rhyming slang for ‘head’ or ‘dead’.
locie (n) (N. Amer. and N.Z.) Also lokey. A locomotive.
loco (orig. U.S.) Mad, insane.
loco weed (n) Marijuana.
loid (n) (Criminals’ slang) A celluloid strip used by thieves to force open a spring lock.
long-sleever (n) (Austral.) (1) A tall glass. (2) Drink contained in a tall glass.
looie (n) Also looey or louie. A lieutenant.
looker (n) (orig. U.S.) A person, usu. a woman, of particularly pleasing appearance.
look-see (n) Also looksee. A survey; a tour of inspection, a reconnaissance; an
investigation.
loony (adj) Also looney or luny. Lunatic, crazed, dazed, foolish, silly.
loony bin (n) A mental hospital.
loony-doctor (n) A doctor who treats mental illnesses, a psychiatrist.
lor (int) (vulgar) Also lor’. Lord.
loser (n) (U.S.) A convicted criminal, a person who has served a sentence in prison.
lounge lizard (n) (orig. U.S.) A man who spends his time idling in fashionable society,
esp. in search of a wealthy patroness.
lovely jubbly (n) Money.
lover boy (n) (orig. U.S.) Also lover man. A lover, an attractive man, a woman-chaser;
also used as a form of address.
loverly (adj) Also lovally. Cockney pronunciation of lovely.
low-down (n) (orig. U.S.) The fundamental, though not generally known, facts on
(about) a person, situation, etc.
lug (n) (jocular) Ear.
lughole (n) Ear-hole.
lummy (int) Also lumme. A corruption of (Lord) love me.
lunatic soup (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) Alcoholic drink of poor quality.
lurkman (n) (Austral.) A person who lives by sharp practice.
lush (n) (1) Liquor, drink. (2) A habitual drunkard.
lushy (adj) Also lushey. Intoxicated, drunk.
luvvy (n) (Brit.) Also luvvie. (1) An actor or actress. (2) As a term of address, lovey.
ma (n) Mother. Chiefly as a form of address. From mama.
288 Glossary

M. and V. (n) (Services’ slang) Meat and vegetable(s).

macaroni (n) (1) (derog.) An Italian. (2) (chiefly Austral.) Rhyming slang for baloney,
nonsense, meaningless talk.
mack (n) (1) A pimp. (2) (U.S., chiefly in African-American usage) A deceptive and
convincing speaker.
mad (n) (chiefly U.S.) Fury, anger; a fit of anger.
mad money (n) Money for use in an emergency or in any unexpected eventuality.
maggie (n) (U.S.) Also maggy. A prostitute.
Maggie Ann (n) (Brit., Army slang) Margarine.
magic (adj, int) Superlatively good, excellent, fantastic.
magsman (n) (orig. Brit.) A street swindler, a confidence trickster.
main guy (n) (U.S.) A man of authority or importance; a leader, a chief.
main line (n) (orig. U.S.) Also main-line. (1) A principal vein, into which drugs can
readily be injected. (2) An intravenous injection of drugs.
mainline (v) (orig. U.S.) To inject (heroin or a similar drug) intravenously, esp. illicitly.
main man (n) (U.S.) A favourite male friend; a man admired for his achievements.
main squeeze (n) (N. Amer.) (1) An important person; the person in charge. (2) A
sweetheart, a lover.
make it (v phr) To achieve sexual intercourse (with).
make out (v) To succeed in seducing, gain sexual satisfaction, have sexual intercourse
(with).
make with (v) To bring into operation; to use; to concern oneself with.
man-eater (n) A sexually voracious woman.
map (n) A person’s face.
marble orchard (n) (N. Amer.) Also marble town. A cemetery.
marra (n) A companion, partner. From marrow.
Mary (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) Used humorously as a form of address among male
homosexuals. (2) (Austral.) A woman, esp. an Aboriginal woman.
Mary Ann (n) (1) An effeminate man, or one who takes a female role; a male
homosexual. (2) (U.S.) Also Mary J (or Mary Jane/Warner). Marijuana; a
marijuana cigarette.
matlow (n) (Nautical slang) Also matlo. A sailor.
matman (n) (orig. U.S.) A wrestler.
mau-mau (v) (chiefly N. Amer.) To intimidate, harass; to terrorize.
max (n) (U.S.) A maximum score or achievement, esp. in an examination.
MCP (n) Male chauvinist pig.
me-and-you (n) Menu.
meat-head (n) (orig. U.S., derog.) A stupid person; a person (esp. a man) who has a
large or muscular physique but who is unintelligent or uncouth.
meat-hook (n) An arm; a hand, esp. one which is large and clumsy.
meat-house (n) A brothel.
meat-market (n) A meeting-place, bar, nightclub, etc., popular among prostitutes or
people in search of casual sexual partners.
meat-wagon (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) (1) An ambulance. (2) A police car or van.
mech (n) (N. Amer. and Austral.) A person who cheats at gambling games, spec. cards.
From mechanic.
Glossary 289

meeja (n) (chiefly Brit.) The mass media.

mega (adj) Huge, great, substantial; excellent. (adv) Chiefly as an intensifier, very,
hugely.
mellow yellow (n) (chiefly U.S.) Banana peel dried for smoking as a narcotic.
melon (n) (1) (Austral. and U.S.) A person’s head. (2) pl. Large breasts.
mensh (n) Also mench. Mention.
mental (n) A person who is mentally ill; a mental patient.
merc (n) A mercenary, a soldier paid to serve in a foreign army.
Merc (n) A vehicle of the Mercedes-Benz make.
merry hell (n) A disturbance, great trouble; severe pain.
Mespot (n) (chiefly Military slang, now arch.) Mesopotamia.
meth (n) Methamphetamine or Methedrine taken as a stimulant drug.
meth head (n) A habitual user of methamphetamine.
metho (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) Methylated spirits, esp. as an alcoholic drink.
Metho (n) (Austral.) A member of the Methodist Church.
Mex (n) (1) A Mexican. (2) (U.S., orig. Services’ slang) Mexican money.
Mexican overdrive (n) The putting of the gears of a vehicle, esp. a truck, into neutral
while coasting downhill.
middle leg (n) A man’s penis.
middy (n) (Austral.) A medium-sized measure of beer or other liquor.
mike (n) A microgram of a drug, esp. LSD.
milko (n) (orig. Austral. and N.Z.) A milkman. (int) (chiefly Brit. and Austral.) A
milkman’s call indicating that milk is available.
mince (n) From mince-pie, rhyming slang for ‘eye’. Usu. in pl.
mind-blowing (adj) Astonishing, overwhelming; consciousness-altering (esp. as a result
of drug use).
minder (n) A bodyguard, esp. one employed to protect a criminal.
mingy (adj) Mean, stingy, niggardly; disappointingly or ungenerously small.
Minnie (n) (Military slang) Also Minny. A German trench mortar.
minstrel (n) A tablet containing amphetamine, coloured black or black and white.
misper (n) (Brit., chiefly Police slang) Missing person.
missus (n) (regional) (1) A wife. (2) Used as a form of address to any woman.
mitt (n) A hand or fist. Usu. in pl.
mitt camp (n) (U.S.) A palmist’s or fortune-teller’s booth, tent, etc.
mixer (n) (Brit.) A troublemaker.
mix in (v) To start or join in a fight.
mix it (v) To quarrel, fight; to start fighting; to cause trouble.
mo (n) (1) (Brit.) A moment, a very short time. (2) (Austral. and N.Z.) A moustache.
m.o. (n) Modus operandi.
mob (n) The common people, the populace. From mobile.
mob-handed (adj) (Brit.) That forms a large body; present in considerable numbers.
mobster (n) A member of a gang of criminals; spec. a member of the Mafia.
moffie (n) (S. Afr.) A male transvestite; a man perceived to be effeminate; a male
homosexual.
mog (n) (Brit.) A cat.
mojo (n) (U.S.) Any narcotic drug, esp. (formerly) morphine.
290 Glossary

molly (n) Also molley, mollie. An effeminate man or boy; a male homosexual.
mong (n) (Austral., derog.) (1) A person of low or indeterminate status. (2) A mongrel;
any dog.
monkey (n) (1) (Criminals’ slang) An associate. (2) (U.S.) A chorus girl. (3) (Brit. and
Austral.) 500 pounds sterling; (Austral.) 500 dollars. (4) (chiefly U.S.) The male or
female sexual organs. (5) Addiction to, or habitual use of, a drug.
monkey-hurdler (n) (U.S.) An organist.
monkey-man (n) (U.S.) A weak or gullible man, esp. one subservient to his wife or
lover, or to women generally.
monkey meat (n) (U.S., Army slang) Tinned meat.
monkey parade (n) (dated) An evening promenade of young people, esp. for the
purpose of meeting members of the opposite sex.
monkey suit (n) (orig. U.S., freq. deprec.) A uniform, esp. a formal, decorative, or
showy one, as a baseball or military uniform.
Montezuma’s revenge (n) (jocular) Diarrhoea suffered by travellers, esp. in Mexico.
moocher (n) A beggar, a scrounger.
mooching (n) (regional) Begging, scrounging; loafing, loitering.
moody (n) (Brit., orig. Criminals’ slang) Flattery or lies intended to persuade or elicit
compliance; nonsense, rubbish.
moon (n) (1) (U.S.) Illicitly distilled liquor. From moonshine. (2) The buttocks.
moon-eyed (adj) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Drunk.
moonlight (v) (orig. U.S.) To do paid work in addition to one’s regular employment.
moonlighter (n) A person who makes a hasty departure by night.
moonshine (n) Illicitly distilled liquor, esp. whisky.
Moreton Bay (n) (chiefly Austral.) From Moreton Bay fig, rhyming slang for fizgig, an
informer.
morph (n) (U.S.) Morphine.
mossback (n) A slow, rustic, or old-fashioned person.
mossie (n) (orig. and chiefly Austral.) Also mozzie. A mosquito.
mossy (adj) (U.S.) Extremely conservative or reactionary; old-fashioned, out-of-date.
mother (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) An obnoxious, despicable, or contemptible person.
From coarse motherfucker.
motherless (adj) (1) (Austral.) Very poor, having no money. (2) (S. Afr.) Drunk;
intoxicated.
mother’s ruin (n) Gin.
motormouth (n) (orig. U.S.) A person who talks fast and incessantly, usually to little
purpose.
mouseburger (n) (chefly U.S., humorous) A person who does not have a particularly
good-looking appearance or high I.Q., but can nevertheless achieve professional
and personal success through determination.
mousetrap (n) Inferior or unpalatable cheese.
mouthful (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) An utterance of notable truth or relevance.
mouthpiece (n) (chiefly Criminals’ slang) A lawyer, esp. one appearing as counsel for
the defence in a criminal case.
Mozart and Liszt (adj) Rhyming slang for pissed, drunk, intoxicated.
mucker (n) A heavy fall, a cropper.
Glossary 291

mud (n) Opium; also, heroin.

mud-hook (n) (1) A foot (esp. one which is large or clumsy); (similarly) a hand. (2) An
anchor.
mug (n) (1) A face, esp. an unattractive one. (2) A grotesque or exaggerated facial
expression. (3) A photograph of a person’s face, esp. in police records. (4) The
mouth.
muggins (n) A fool, a simpleton.
muggler (n) A person who smokes marijuana.
munchie (n) Food; esp. snack food.
murder one (n) (U.S.) (A charge of) first-degree murder.
muscle man (n) A man with highly developed muscles; esp. a wrestler, a bodybuilder.
muscle Mary (n) (chiefly Brit.) A muscular homosexual man regarded as being
obsessed with fitness.
mush (n) (1) An umbrella. From mushroom. (2) (orig. U.S.) The face; the mouth.
mush-head (n) (U.S.) A person who is weak, ineffectual, or easily influenced.
muso (n) (1) (Austral.) A musician; esp. a classical one. (2) (Brit.) A musician or music
enthusiast.
mutt (n) (1) An incompetent, a fool. (2) (derog.) An unattractive woman. (3) A
racehorse, esp. a slow one.
Mutt and Jeff (adj) Rhyming slang for ‘deaf’.
mutton-head (n) (orig. U.S.) A dull or stupid person.
mutton-headed (adj) (orig. U.S.) Dull, stupid; silly, foolish.
nabe (n) (U.S.) A neighbourhood.
Naffy (n) A variant of NAAFI: Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes.
nah (adv) (1) No. (2) (Brit.) Now.
nailer (n) (1) A police officer, detective. (2) A very efficient or effective person or
thing.
Nam (n) Vietnam.
nana (n) A foolish or silly person; an idiot.
nancy (n) (1) The buttocks. (2) (derog.) An effeminate man or boy; a male homosexual.
(adj) (derog.) Characteristic of, or involving homosexual men; affected, effeminate.
nancy boy (n) An effeminate man or boy; a male homosexual.
narco (n) (1) (U.S.) A drug addict. (2) Also narc. A police agent or investigator
concerned with narcotics.
Nasho (n) A person doing national service. Also: national service itself.
natch (n) (U.S.) In on the natch: not on drugs; without taking narcotics. From natural.
natural (n) Natural life.
naughty (n) (orig. and chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) An act of sexual intercourse. (v)
(Austral. and N.Z., rare) To have sexual intercourse with (someone).
nav (n) From navigator, rhyming slang for tater, a potato.
neatnik (n) (chiefly N. Amer.) A person who is (excessively) neat in personal habits.
neato (adj, int) (chiefly N. Amer.) (That is) excellent, desirable; wonderful, fantastic.
neck-oil (n) An alcoholic drink, esp. beer.
necktie party (n) (U.S.) A lynching or hanging.
needle (n) (1) A hypodermic injection, esp. of an illegal drug. (2) A measure of a drug
for injecting. (3) The penis.
292 Glossary

needle beer (n) (U.S.) Near-beer mixed with ethyl alcohol or an alcoholic drink.
needle man (n) (U.S.) A drug addict who takes drugs by injection.
nellie (n) Also nelly. (1) (derog.) An effeminate or homosexual man. (2) A silly,
ineffectual, or fussy person. (3) (Austral.) A cheap wine.
nembie (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A Nembutal capsule.
nerd (n) (orig. U.S., derog.) An insignificant, foolish, or socially inept person.
nerk (n) (Brit., deprec.) A foolish, objectionable, or insignificant person. From nerd and
berk (or jerk).
nerts (adj) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) ‘Nuts’, crazy.
never-never (n) (orig. Austral.) The hire-purchase system.
neves (n) (Brit., orig. London, Criminals’ slang) Back-slang for seven, a prison sentence
of seven years.
nick (v) (1) To steal (a thing); to defraud. (2) (Of the police) to arrest, take into custody.
nickel (n) (U.S.) (1) Five dollars’ worth of a drug (originally marijuana). (2) A five-year
prison sentence.
niff (v) (chiefly Brit.) To smell or sniff out (esp. something unpleasant).
nig (n) (derog. and offens.) A dark-skinned person. From nigger.
Niggerville (n) (U.S.) A neighbourhood with predominantly black residents.
nightery (n) (orig. U.S.) Also nighterie, niterie, nitery. A nightclub.
nig-nog (n) (1) (derog. and offens.) A black or dark-skinned person. (2) (mildly derog.)
A new or unskilled recruit; a novice; a foolish or naive person.
nigra (n) (Southern U.S.) A Black person. (adj) Dark-skinned.
Nimby (n) Also NIMBY. Used as a slogan objecting to the siting of something
considered unpleasant, such as nuclear waste, in one’s locality. From not in my
back yard.
nineteenth hole (n) (humorous, orig. U.S.) The bar room in a golf clubhouse, as reached
at the end of a standard round of eighteen holes.
ninety-day wonder (n) (U.S., Services’ slang, humorous) A graduate of a ninety-day
officers’ training course.
ning-nong (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) A fool, a stupid person. Cf. nig-nog (sense 2).
ninny (adj) A simpleton; a fool.
Nip (n) (orig. Military, offens.) A Japanese person. (adj) Japanese.
nitro (n) Nitroglycerine.
nitto (v) (Criminals’ slang) To keep still or quiet; to stop.
nitty-gritty (n) (U.S.) The realities or practical details of a matter. (adj) Basic,
fundamental; down-to-earth, practical.
nitwit (n) (orig. U.S.) A stupid, silly, or foolish person. (adj) Stupid, foolish, idiotic.
nix (n) Nothing; nobody.
nobbler (n) (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) A small quantity of alcoholic drink.
no-hoper (n) (orig. Austral.) A racehorse with no prospect of winning.
no-no (n) (orig. U.S.) Something which is forbidden, unwise, impossible, or
unacceptable. (adj) Forbidden, unacceptable.
noov (n) (Brit.) Also noove. Nouveau riche.
nope (adv) (orig. U.S.) No.
nose candy (n) (N. Amer.) A drug that is inhaled through the nose; spec. cocaine.
noshable (adj) Suitable for noshing; tasty, delicious.
Glossary 293

noshery (n) A restaurant; a snack bar.

nosh-up (n) (Brit.) A hearty or lavish meal.
notch house (n) Also notch-house. A brothel.
nuddy (n) (orig. Austral.) Also nuddie. Only in in the nuddy, in the nude, naked,
unclothed.
nuff (adj, adv, pron) (orig. U.S.) Enough.
nuke (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Also nuc. A nuclear bomb, weapon, or warhead. From
nuclear.
nully (n) (rare) A fool, a stupid person; a nobody.
nurd (n) (orig. U.S., derog.) An insignificant, foolish, or socially inept person.
nut (n) (1) The head. As in out of one’s nut, out of one’s mind; insane. (2) (orig. U.S.,
coarse) Usu. in pl. The testicles. (3) pl. A source of pleasure or delight. (4) (orig.
and chiefly U.S.) pl. As the nuts, an excellent or first-rate person or thing. (5)
(chiefly U.S.) A person. (6) (Brit.) A fashionable or showy young man. (7) (orig.
U.S.) A mad or crazy person; an eccentric, a crank. (8) (U.S.) The amount of
money required for a venture. (9) (U.S.) Any sum of money; a bribe or payoff.
nutcase (n) A crazy, mad, or mentally disturbed person; an eccentric.
nut-house (n) (orig. U.S.) A home or hospital for people with mental illnesses.
nuts (adj) (1) (chiefly Brit.) In to be (dead) nuts (up)on, to be infatuated with or fond of
(a person); to be enthusiastic about (a person or thing). (2) (orig. U.S.) Mad (in
various senses); esp. crazy, deranged.
nutso (n) A mad or crazy person. (adj) Mad, crazy.
nutsy (adj) Also nutty. Mad, insane; crazy, eccentric.
nutter (n) An insane person; a deranged or unstable person; an eccentric person.
nuttery (n) (U.S.) A mental hospital.
oafo (n) (Brit.) A lout, a hooligan.
OAO (n) (Military slang) One and only.
obbo (n) (Military slang) Also obo. An observation balloon.
obit (n) (orig. Journalistic slang) An obituary, esp. in a newspaper.
obs (n) (chiefly Military slang) Observation.
O.D. (n) (orig. U.S.) Also OD. An overdose of a drug, esp. when fatal. (v) To take an
overdose of a drug.
O.D.’d (adj) Having taken an overdose; dead of an overdose.
oddball (n) (orig. U.S.) An eccentric or odd person; a person of unconventional views
or habits. (adj) Eccentric, strange; bizarre, peculiar.
odds and sods (n) (Brit., orig. Services’ slang) Miscellaneous people or articles.
O.D.V. (n) (humorous) Brandy. From eau-de-vie.
off (v) (1) (U.S.) To turn off, shut down. (2) (chiefly U.S.) To kill.
office hours (n) (U.S., Military slang) A disciplinary session.
offie (n) Also offy. An off-licence shop.
oggin (n) (Nautical slang) The sea.
oil (n) (1) (U.S. and Ir.) Alcohol, esp. whisky. (2) (U.S.) Money; spec. money given in
order to bribe or corrupt. (3) (Austral. and N.Z.) Information, news, the true facts.
(v) To bribe.
294 Glossary

oil-burner (n) (1) A vehicle which uses an excessive amount of lubricating oil, usually
on account of its poor condition. (2) (U.S.) A serious addiction to a drug, esp.
heroin.
oil can (n) (Military slang) A German trench mortar shell of the First World War.
oiled (adj) Drunk; mildly drunk, tipsy, usu. well oiled.
oink (n) Also OINK. A couple with no children, living on a single (esp. large) salary.
From one income, no kids.
O.K. (adj) Also OK, ok. All right, fashionable, modish. From oll (or orl) correct.
okay (adj) Also oke, okey, okey-dokey, or reversed as kayo. ‘O.K.’.
old bean (n) Also old fruit. A familiar form of address.
old boot (n) A woman; a wife.
old lady (n) (U.S., chiefly Prison slang) A passive or unwilling (usually male) partner in
a homosexual relationship.
old ship (n) A jocular address to a sailor.
old sweat (n) An experienced soldier or military pilot.
olive oil (int) A humorous mispronunciation of au revoir.
omee (n) (Polari slang) Also omie. A landlord, a master; a man.
on (adv) Under the influence of drink or (orig. U.S.) drugs. (prep) (orig. U.S.) As in on
the stuff, addicted to drugs.
oncer (n) (Brit.) A one-pound note; (occas.) one pound sterling.
one-arm bandit (n) (orig. U.S.) A slot machine or similar gaming machine operated by
pulling down an arm-like handle.
one-arm joint (n) (U.S.) A cheap restaurant where the seats have one arm wide enough
to hold a plate of food, etc.
one-lunger (n) An engine with a single cylinder; a vehicle or boat driven by such an
engine.
one-night stand (n) A casual sexual liaison or encounter lasting only one night.
one-pipper (n) (Military slang) A second lieutenant (so called from this officer’s
entitlement to wear one pip on the shoulder of his or her uniform).
onion (n) The head. Esp. in off one’s onion, mad, crazy.
O.O. (n) (U.S.) Once-over.
op (n) (1) (U.S.) A detective; esp. a private investigator. (2) A radio or telegraph
operator. From operative or operator.
O.P. (n) (chiefly U.S.) Also O.P.’s. From other people’s (cigarettes or alcoholic drink).
OPM (n) (U.S.) Other people’s money.
oppo (n) (orig. Services’ slang) A partner, a counterpart.
ork (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) An orchestra; spec. a jazz or dance band.
orthopod (n) (Medicine slang) An orthopaedic surgeon.
oscar (Austral. and N.Z.) From Oscar Asche, rhyming slang for ‘cash’.
O sign (n) (Medicine slang, orig. and chiefly U.S.). The persistently gaping, open
mouth of a patient who is in a coma, dying, or dead.
OTT (adj) Also O.T.T. Over the top, outrageous.
out (n) pl. An outpatient department in a hospital.
out (v) (1) (Boxing slang) To knock out or defeat (an opponent). (2) To kill, esp. by a
blow. (3) (orig. U.S.) To expose the undeclared homosexuality of (esp. a prominent
or public figure).
Glossary 295

outer (n) (Austral.) The uncovered area of a racecourse or sports ground.

out-of-sight (adv) (orig. U.S.) (1) Extremely well; beyond all comparison. (2) To a great
degree; to the limit of endurance.
outside (n) The world existing beyond a prison or other institution.
outside job (n) A crime committed by a person not connected or associated with the
building, organization, etc., in which it took place.
outside man (n) (U.S.) A person involved in any of various special roles in a confidence
trick or robbery.
owner (n) (Nautical slang) The captain of a ship, boat, etc.
ozoner (n) (U.S.) A drive-in cinema.
Paki (n) (orig. and chiefly Brit., usu. derog.) A person of Pakistani; (also more gen.,
South Asian) birth or descent, esp. one living in Britain.
paleface (n) (orig. N. Amer., Black E., chiefly derog.) A white person. Also as a form
of address.
panhandler (n) (U.S.) A street beggar.
pansified (adj) Excessively stylized or adorned; affected; effeminate.
pansy (n) (freq. derog.) Also pansy boy. A male homosexual; an effeminate man; a
weakling. (v) To clothe or adorn in an affected or effeminate manner.
panther juice (n) (U.S.) Strong, esp. bootleg, liquor.
Pape (n) (Sc. and Ir., usu. derog.) A Roman Catholic.
paralysed (adj) (chiefly U.S.) Intoxicated; incapacitated through drink.
parlour-house (n) (U.S.) An expensive type of brothel.
pash (n) Passion, amorous feeling.
passer (n) (1) A person who puts base or forged money into circulation. (2) A drug
dealer.
passman (n) A male prisoner who is allowed to leave his cell as a special privilege, esp.
in order to perform certain duties.
Pat (n) (freq. derog.) An Irish person.
Pat (pron, adj) (chiefly Austral.) From Pat Malone, rhyming slang for ‘own’, ‘alone’.
patootie (n) (chiefly U.S.) A girlfriend, a sweetheart; an attractive woman.
patsy (n) (orig. U.S.) Someone who is the object of ridicule.
pavement princess (n) (U.S.) A prostitute who seeks business on the streets.
pay (Navy slang) An officer responsible for keeping a ship’s accounts and for
overseeing the supply and distribution of provisions and stores.
pay-off (Criminals’ slang) The proceeds of a fraud, robbery, or other criminal operation.
Also in pay-off man.
P.B.I. (n) Also p.b.i. Poor Bloody Infantry(man).
P.D.Q. (adv) Also p.d.q. Petty damn(ed) quick.
pea-brain (n) (derog.) A stupid or empty-headed person; a fool.
pea-brained (adj) (derog.) Stupid, dull-witted, foolish.
peach (n) An attractive young woman.
peacheroo (n) (chiefly U.S.) A particularly fine or desirable person or thing, esp. an
attractive woman.
peachy (adj) (orig. U.S.) (Of a woman) attractive, desirable.
peanut (n) (orig. U.S.) A small, unintelligent, or unimportant person.
peanut gallery (n) (freq. deprec.) The top gallery in a theatre or cinema.
296 Glossary

pearlies (n) pl. A person’s teeth. From pearly whites.

pea-soup (n) (N. Amer., derog.) A French Canadian.
peb (n) (Austral., now rare) A tough or indomitable person or animal. From pebble.
pec (n) (Bodybuilders’ slang) A pectoral muscle. Usu. in pl.
peck (n) (U.S., Black E., deprec.) A white person regarded as poor, rustic, or
unsophisticated.
pecker (n) (chiefly U.S.) The penis.
ped (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A pedestrian; a walker.
pee (v) To urinate in or on (something).
pee-wee (n) (Children’s slang) An act of urination.
peg (n) A tooth; esp. a child’s tooth.
pego (n) The penis.
pen (n) (N. Amer.) A penitentiary.
pencil (n) (1) The penis. (2) (Journalistic slang) A reporter.
penguin suit (n) (humorous) A man’s formal evening wear.
pen-mate (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) Each of two or more shearers who shear sheep from
the same pen.
pep (n) (orig. U.S.) Energy; liveliness, vigour, power. From pepper.
pep-pill (n) (orig. U.S.) A pill containing a stimulant drug, taken to increase or restore a
person’s alertness, energy, or enthusiasm.
perp (n) (U.S.) The perpetrator of a crime.
perv (n) (orig. Austral.) Also perve. A sexual pervert. From perversion or pervert. (adj)
Of or relating to pornography. From perverted.
peter (n) (1) (orig. cant) Portmanteau, trunk, or other piece of baggage. (2) (Criminals’
slang) A safe or cash box. (3) (orig. Austral.) A cell in a prison, police station, etc.
(4) (chiefly U.S.) The penis. (5) (U.S.) A hypnotic drug, esp. chloral hydrate.
PFC (n) (U.S., chiefly Military) Also Pfc. Poor foolish (or forlorn, etc.) civilian.
phat (adj) (orig. U.S., esp. in African-American usage) (1) Of a woman: sexy,
attractive. (2) Of music: excellent, admirable; fashionable.
phenom (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A phenomenon.
Phillie (n) (U.S.) Also Philly. The city of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.
phishing (n) (Computing) Fraud perpetrated on the Internet.
phiz (n) (now arch.) A face or facial expression; countenance. From physiognomy.
phy (n) (chiefly Brit.) Physeptone, the drug methadone.
physical torture (n) (humorous) Physical training.
pi (adj) (now arch.) Pious, devout.
P.I. (n) (U.S.) Pimp.
pie-card (n) (U.S., dated) Also pie card. A card entitling the holder to free meals or
lodging; a meal ticket.
piece (n) (1) A quantity of a drug (esp. morphine, heroin, or cocaine) approximately
equal to an ounce in weight. (2) (orig. U.S.) A spray-painted graffiti mural. (3)
(derog.) A woman or girl.
pie-faced (adj) (orig. U.S., chiefly derog.) Having a round, flat face or a blank
expression; stupid.
pig (n) (1) (derog.) A police officer. (2) (chiefly U.S.) An informer.
pigboat (n) (N. Amer., Navy slang) A submarine.
Glossary 297

pigeon-drop (n) (orig. U.S., Criminals’ slang) A confidence trick.

pig-jump (v) (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) Of a horse, mule, etc.: to jump from all four
legs without bringing them together, esp. in an attempt to unseat the rider.
pig-out (n) (orig. U.S.) A bout of excessive eating; a feast.
pig out (v) (orig. N. Amer.) To over-indulge esp. by overeating; to gorge oneself on
food.
pig’s ear (n) Rhyming slang for ‘beer’.
pike (n) (chiefly N. Amer.) A road on which a toll is collected at a toll gate.
Piker (n) (U.S., derog.) In California and other Pacific states of the U.S.: a member of a
perceived class of poor white migrants from the southern states of the U.S.
pikey (n) (chiefly regional, offens.) Also piky. A vagrant, a tramp; a traveller, a gypsy.
pill (n) A pill or tablet of a recreational or non-medicinal drug, spec. a barbiturate or
amphetamine. (2) pl. The testicles. (3) A bullet; a shell, grenade, or bomb. (4) A
ball used in a sport or game. (5) (orig. U.S.) A cigarette. (6) (chiefly Military slang)
A doctor, a surgeon.
pill-head (n) A person addicted to pills.
pillock (n) (chiefly Brit., mildly derog.) A stupid person; a fool, an idiot.
pin (n) A leg.
pinch (v) To steal (a thing).
pineapple (n) A bomb; a hand-grenade, a light trench mortar. From pineapple bomb.
pine drape (n) (U.S.) A coffin.
pine-top (n) (U.S.) Cheap or illicit whisky, formerly flavoured with the new shoots of a
pine tree.
pink button (n) (Stock Market) A jobber’s clerk.
pinkers (n) (Brit., orig. and chiefly Navy slang) Pink gin.
pink-eye (n) (chiefly Austral.) Cheap or home-made alcoholic drink.
pink lady (n) (1) A barbiturate. (2) A cocktail usually consisting of gin, egg white, and
grenadine.
pinko (n) (chiefly N. Amer., freq. derog.) A person with (somewhat) left-wing or liberal
views; a socialist.
pink toe (n) (U.S., Black E.) A white woman, or a light-skinned black woman.
pipped (adj) (now chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) Annoyed, irritated; depressed.
pipperoo (n) (U.S.) A particularly remarkable or pleasing person or thing.
pippin (orig. U.S.) An excellent, pleasing, or beautiful person or thing.
pip-pip (int) Goodbye.
piss artist (n) (chiefly Brit.) A drunkard; a person who fools about.
pissed (adj) (1) (chiefly Brit.) Drunk, intoxicated. Also with up. (2) (orig. U.S.) Angry,
irritated; depressed. Freq. (esp. in Brit. use) as pissed off.
pisser (n) (1) A person who urinates. (2) (coarse) The penis. (3) (orig. U.S.) A
particularly fine or impressive person or thing; something remarkable or
formidable.
piss-head (n) (chiefly Brit. and N.Z.) A drunkard.
pizzazz (n) (orig. U.S.) Zest, vitality, or liveliness; showiness.
placer (n) (1) (Austral. and N.Z.) A sheep which remains in one place. (2) An organizer
of criminal practices, esp. a dealer in stolen goods.
plastered (adj) Very drunk. Chiefly in predicative use.
298 Glossary

plate of meat (n) (1) Rhyming slang for ‘a street’. (2) pl. Also elliptically, as plates.
Rhyming slang for ‘feet’.
pleb (n) (U.S.) A new cadet at a military or naval academy.
plonked (adj) (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) Intoxicated, drunk; also with up.
plonko (n) (Austral.) An alcoholic.
plotzed (adj) (U.S.) Intoxicated; drunk.
plug-ugly (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) (1) A member of a gang of ruffians in Baltimore
and some other American cities. (2) A very ugly person or (occas.) animal.
plurry (adv) (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) As an intensifier, very, extremely, damnably.
From bloody.
plute (n) (chiefly U.S.) A plutocrat; a very wealthy person, esp. an industrialist.
pocketbook (n) (U.S.) The female external genitals.
pod (n) Marijuana.
pointy-head (n) (orig. U.S., derog.) A stupid person.
poison (n) (orig. U.S.) Alcoholic liquor; an alcoholic drink.
poisoner (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) A cook, esp. for large numbers.
poke-out (n) (U.S.) A parcel of food given to a tramp, etc.; a lunch.
poker-faced (adj) Also po-faced. Having a solemn or humourless expression.
pol (n) (orig. and chiefly N. Amer.) A politician.
poler (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) A scrounger, a sponger; a shirker.
polis (n) (Sc. and Ir.) The police; a police officer.
polly (n) (orig. U.S., now chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) A politician.
Polly (n) Apollinaris mineral water; a bottle or glass of this.
Pom (n) (Austral. and N.Z., usu. derog.) Also Pommie, Pommy. An immigrant (usually
a recent one) to Australia or New Zealand from Britain; a British (esp. an English)
person.
Pompey (n) (1) A nickname for the town and dockyard of Portsmouth, in Hampshire.
(2) Portsmouth Football Club.
poncy (adj) (chiefly Brit., derog.) Also poncey. Affected, pretentious, self-consciously
refined or superior; effeminate, homosexual.
poofteroo (n) (derog.) A homosexual man; an effeminate or affected man. From
poofter.
pooh pooh (n) Also poo poo. Faeces, excrement.
poon (v) (Austral.) To dress up, esp. flashily.
poopy (adj) (chiefly U.S.) Foolish, dull-witted; ineffectual, weak.
pop (n) An injection of a narcotic drug. (v) To take (a drug or pill); spec. to swallow or
inject (a narcotic drug).
pop off (v) To die.
poppa stoppa (n) (U.S., Black E.) A person, esp. a man.
popper (n) (1) A person who takes pills (esp. of stimulant drugs) freely or excessively;
any drug-taker.
poppy (n) Opium.
pop shop (n) A pawnshop.
popskull (n) (N. Amer.) A powerful, harsh, or low quality (esp. home-made) alcoholic
drink; inferior whisky.
pork (v) (orig. U.S.) To engage in sex.
Glossary 299

pork chop (n) (U.S., derog.) A black person who is subservient to whites.
pork-chopper (U.S.) A full-time union official.
porky (n) From pork pie, rhyming slang for ‘a lie’.
pornie (n) A pornographic film.
porny (adj) Pornographic.
post (n) (1) (Medicine slang, chiefly U.S.) An autopsy, a post-mortem. (2) (U.S.)
Postgraduate.
post office (n) Esp. in espionage: a person who receives information and either transmits
it or holds it for collection.
pot (n) Cannabis.
potato (n) (1) As the potato, the (very, real, or proper) thing. (2) pl. Money; spec.
dollars. (3) (Austral.) From potato peeler, rhyming slang for sheila, a girl or
woman.
pothead (n) A habitual user of cannabis.
potted (adj) (1) (orig. and chiefly N. Amer.) Under the influence of alcohol; drunk. (2)
(N. Amer.) Under the influence of cannabis.
potzer (n) (Chess slang) Also patzer. A poor player, a novice.
pound-noteish (adj) (Brit.) Also pound-notish. Affected, pompous.
pox-doctor (n) A doctor specializing in the treatment of venereal disease.
prad (n) (now chiefly Austral.) A horse.
prat leather (n) A wallet or purse kept in the hip pocket.
pratfall (n) A fall on to the buttocks. (v) To fall on to the buttocks.
preem (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A première; a first showing or performance, esp. of a
film.
preg (adj) (orig. U.S.) Of a woman: pregnant.
preggers (adj) (orig. Brit.) Also preggie, preggy or preggo. Of a woman: pregnant.
prep (v) (orig. U.S.) To train (a sportsman, team, etc.) in preparation for any sporting
event.
prepper (n) (U.S., School and College slang) A student at a prep school, esp. one who is
a member of a sports team.
preppy (adj) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Of or relating to a student at a prep school.
pretty-boy (n) A man who is attractive in a feminine way; an effeminate or narcissistic
man; (also) a male homosexual.
previous (n) (Brit., Criminals’ slang) A criminal record; previous convictions.
prex (n) (U.S., now rare) (A title for) the president of a college. Hence: any president, as
of America, a society, etc.
prick (n) (coarse) (1) The penis. (2) A term of contempt or abuse for a man; a fool.
private business (n) (Eton College slang) Extra tuition.
pro (n) A prostitute.
Prod (n, adj) (chiefly Ir. and Sc., derog.) Also Proddie, Proddy. (A) protestant.
profesh (n) A profession, esp. the theatrical profession.
prog (n) (1) (Oxford or Cambridge University slang) An officer elected periodically
and having mainly disciplinary and administrative duties. From proggins or earlier
proctor. (2) A programme. (adj) Of music: experimental, innovative; avant-garde,
modern. From progressive.
pronk (n) (Brit., derog.) A fool, an idiot; (also) an ineffectual or effeminate person.
300 Glossary

prop (n) (orig. Theatrical slang) A property in a theatre, film set, or similar location; a
stage property. (2) (chiefly Criminals’ slang) A diamond; a valuable piece of
jewellery.
propellerhead (n) (orig. U.S.) A person who is extremely knowledgeable about or
devoted to a subject, esp. a technological subject.
propho (n) (orig. U.S., Military) Prophylaxis of venereal disease; (also) a prophylactic
device, spec. a condom.
pross (n) (N. Amer.) Also prossie, prossy, prostie, prosty. A prostitute.
Prot (n) (chiefly Ir.) A protestant.
provo (n) Also Provo. A member of the Provisional I.R.A.
psych (v) To psychoanalyse.
psycho (n) (orig. U.S.) A psychopath; (more generally) any person exhibiting odd or
deranged behaviour. (adj) Of a person: psychopathic.
pud (n) (coarse) The penis.
puff (n) (1) (U.S., Criminals’ slang) Dynamite or other explosive material. (2) (Brit.)
Marijuana. (3) (usu. deprec.) Also poof. A male homosexual; an effeminate man.
pug (n) A pugilist.
puke (v) To eject by vomiting; to vomit (something). Freq. with up.
pump (v) (coarse) To copulate.
punk-ass (adj) (U.S.) Of a person: worthless, good-for-nothing.
puppy-hole (n) (Eton College) A pupil-room.
purler (n) (orig. and chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) Something of surpassing excellence or
quality; a beauty.
purple (n) Also purple haze. LSD, used as a recreational drug.
purple heart (n) (Brit.) A tablet of the drug Drinamyl.
pusher (n) (1) (chiefly Services’ slang) A girl or young woman. (2) (orig. U.S.) One
who peddles drugs illegally.
pussy (n) (1) (coarse) The vulva; the external female sexual organs. (2) (chiefly N.
Amer.) Effeminate boy or man; a homosexual.
put out (v) (orig. U.S.) Chiefly of a woman: to offer oneself for sexual intercourse.
Q.B.I. (adj) (R.A.F. slang) (Of flying conditions): quite bloody impossible.
q.t. (n) Also Q.T. Quiet. Chiefly in on the (strict) q.t., on the quiet, in secret, in
confidence.
Quaggers (n) (University slang) Queen’s College.
qualified (adj) Used as a euphemism for ‘bloody’, ‘damned’, etc.
queen (n) (1) Also quean. A male homosexual, esp. the effeminate partner in a
homosexual relationship. (2) An attractive woman; a girl-friend.
queenie (n) An effeminate male, a homosexual.
queeny (adj) (Of a man): effeminate, esp. ostentatiously so; camp.
queer (n) (freq. derog.) A (usu. male) homosexual; one who is soft, effeminate, or
homosexual. (adj) Homosexual.
queerie (n) (usu. derog.) A (usu. male) homosexual; an effeminate man.
quid (n) (chiefly Brit., Austral. and N.Z.) A sovereign; one pound sterling.
rabbit (n) (1) A poor performer at any game; a novice. (2) (Austral.) Liquor; a bottle of
beer. (3) (Austral. and Nautical slang) A smuggled or stolen article. (4) (also v)
From rabbit-and-pork, rhyming slang for ‘a talk’, ‘to talk’.
Glossary 301

rabbit-o (n) (Austral.) Also rabbit-oh. An itinerant seller of rabbits as food.

race off (v) (Austral.) To seduce (a woman); to hurry (a woman) away in order to
seduce her.
rad (adj) (N. Amer., orig. Surfers’ slang) At or exceeding the limits of control and
safety; hence remarkable; amazing.
rag-bag (n) A sloppily-dressed woman, a slattern.
rager (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) A person who enjoys having a good time; a dedicated
party-goer.
ragga (n) An up-tempo style of popular music derived from dancehall reggae. Also: a
performer or fan of this music.
raggedy-assed (adj) (orig. Military slang) Of a person: raw; new and inexperienced.
rah rah (n) (orig. U.S.) A shout of support or encouragement, as for a college team.
Also used attrib.
rainbow (n) (orig. U.S.) A capsule containing the barbiturates Amytal and Seconal, one
end of which is red and the other blue.
raise Cain (v) (orig. U.S.) To create trouble, uproar, or confusion.
ralph (v) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) To vomit or gag. Freq. with up.
rammies (n) (Austral. and S. Afr.) pl. From round-the-houses, rhyming slang for
‘trousers’.
ram-raiding (n) A form of smash-and-grab robbery in which premises are broken into
by ramming a vehicle through a window or wall.
ram-sammy (n) (orig. dial.) A family quarrel; a noisy gathering.
Randlord (n) The owner or manager of a gold-mine on the Rand in South Africa.
ranking (vbl n) (U.S., Black E.) Intra-group repartee.
rap (n) A criminal accusation, charge. (v) To charge, prosecute; to apprehend with a
view to prosecution.
rapper (n) (U.S.) (1) A talker; a chatterer. (2) A complainant, plaintiff; a prosecutor.
raspberry (n) From raspberry tart, rhyming slang for ‘the heart’ or ‘a ‘fart’’.
rass (n) (Jamaican, coarse) The buttocks, the arse.
rat-arsed (adj) Also ratted. Drunk.
rat-bag (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) A stupid or eccentric person, a fool; an unpleasant
person, a trouble-maker. (adj) Stupid, idiotic, uncouth.
rat house (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) A mental hospital.
raunchy (adj) (orig. U.S.) Also rancy. Inept, incompetent; dirty, grubby.
raver (n) A passionate enthusiast for a particular thing, idea, or cause; a fanatic.
ravers (pred adj) Raving mad, delirious. Also, in weakened sense, furious, angry.
rave-up (n) A lively party; a rowdy gathering.
razoo (n) (N. Amer.) Ridicule; the arousing of indignation or the like.
razz (n) (orig. U.S.) A refusal; a reprimand.
razzle-dazzle (n) Bewilderment or confusion; also, deception, fraud; extravagant
publicity.
razzmatazz (n) (orig. U.S.) A type of rag-time or early jazz music.
ready (n) Also reddy. Ready money, cash. Usu. with the.
ready-up (n) (Austral.) A conspiracy or swindle; a case of fraudulent manipulation; a
fake.
ready up (v) To prepare or manipulate in an improper way for some end.
302 Glossary

rec (n) Recreation.

recon (n) (U.S., Military slang) Also recce, recco. A reconnaissance unit. (v) (Military
slang) To reconnoitre.
red (n) Also red bird, red devil. The drug secobarbital (Seconal); also, a tablet of this
drug (coloured red).
red biddy (n) A drink consisting of methylated spirits and cheap red wine; also, inferior
red wine.
red-cap (n) (Brit., Military slang) A military policeman.
red-eye (n) (1) (U.S.) Used attrib. to designate an aeroplane flight on which the traveller
is unable to get adequate sleep because of the hour of arrival or because of
differences in time zones. (2) (U.S.) Coarse fiery whisky. (3) (U.S.) Tomato
ketchup.
red-hat (n) (Military slang) A staff officer.
red-hot (adj) (1) Uninhibited, sexy, passionate. (2) (Austral.) Unfair, unreasonable.
red ink (n) (chiefly U.S.) Cheap red wine; also applied to some other inferior alcoholic
drinks.
Redland (n) The Soviet Union. (adj) Russian.
red lead (n) (Naval slang) Tomato ketchup; tinned tomatoes.
red legs (n) (U.S., Military slang) An artilleryman.
red-neck (n) (U.S.) Also red neck, redneck. A reactionary.
Red Ned (n) Inferior red wine or other similar drink.
reefer (n) (orig. U.S.) (1) Marijuana. (2) One who smokes marijuana.
reffo (n) (Austral.) A European refugee.
rego (n) (Austral.) Also reggo. Motor-vehicle registration.
rehab (n) Rehabilitation.
renter (n) A male prostitute.
repple depple (n) (U.S., Military slang) Replacement depot.
re-up (n) (U.S. Services’ slang) One who re-enlists. (v) To re-enlist.
revusical (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A theatrical entertainment that combines elements
of the revue and musical.
Richard (n) From Richard the Third, rhyming slang for bird, a girl or woman.
ricky-ticky (adj) (chiefly U.S.) Of musical rhythm or tempo: even, repetitive,
monotonous.
ride (n) An act of sexual intercourse.
ride-out (n) (Jazz slang) Also rideout. A final chorus.
ridgy-didge (adj) (Austral.) Good, all right, genuine.
rigmo (n) Rigor mortis.
ring (v) (Austral.) To beat (a shedful of men) at sheep-shearing.
ringer (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) The fastest shearer in a shed.
ring-in (n) (Austral.) A fraudulent substitution.
ring-worm (n) (U.S.) Someone who regularly attends boxing-matches.
ripper (n) (1) (chiefly Austral.) An attractive young woman. (2) (Criminals’ slang) A
tool for opening safes.
road apples (n) (N. Amer.) pl. Horse droppings.
roader (n) (Taxi-drivers’ slang) A long-distance taxi fare or journey.
roadie (n) Also roady. Someone who organizes and supervises a touring pop group.
Glossary 303

roadwork (n) (Criminals’ slang) The work of an itinerant thief.

robbo (n) (Austral.) A horse or trap, or its driver; a poor horse.
rock (n) (1) (U.S.) A piece of money, spec. a dollar. (2) (orig. U.S.) A precious stone,
spec. a diamond. (3) pl. The testicles. (4) (U.S. Baseball slang) An error. (5) (orig.
U.S. West Coast) A crystallized form of cocaine which is smoked for its
stimulating effect.
rocker (n) Head, esp. in off one’s rocker, mad, crazy.
rocket (n) (orig. Military slang) A severe reprimand. (v) To reprimand severely.
rock of ages (n) Rhyming slang for ‘wages’.
rodman (n) One who handles a gun; a gunman.
roller (n) (1) (chiefly N. Amer.) A thief; one who steals from drunken persons; a
prostitute who robs her customers. (2) (U.S.) A policeman.
roll-up (n) (orig. Prisoners’ slang) A hand-rolled cigarette.
Roman Candle (n) (1) A Roman Catholic. (2) An unsatisfactory landing by an aircraft.
From Roman candle landing.
rookie (n) A raw recruit.
rope (n) (1) Marijuana. (2) (U.S.) A cigar.
ropeable (adj) (Austral. and N.Z.) Requiring to be roped; intractable, wild; violently
angry.
rort (n) (Austral.) A trick; a fraud or dishonest practice. (v) To shout, complain loudly;
to shout abuse.
rorty (adj) (orig. Londoners’ slang, coarse) Fine, splendid, jolly, etc.; (of persons and
things) boisterous, rowdy, noisy; (of drinks) intoxicating; (of behaviour, speech,
etc.) coarse, earthy, of dubious propriety.
Rory (n) From Rory O’More, rhyming slang for ‘the floor’ or ‘a door’.
roscoe (n) (U.S.) A gun, usu. a pistol or revolver.
rosiner (n) (Ir. and Austral.) A drink of spirits; a stiff drink.
rosy (adj) Drunk, tipsy.
Rosy Lee (n) Also Rosie (Lee). Rhyming slang for ‘tea’.
rouf (n) Back-slang for four, four shillings, four pounds; a four-year prison sentence.
roughie (n) Also roughy. A rough or rowdy; a brawler; a hooligan.
roughneck (n) (orig. U.S.) A person of rough habits or quarrelsome disposition.
rough-up (n) (1) An informal encounter or contest. (2) A trial race. (3) A fight; a brawl.
rounder (n) (U.S.) A transient railway worker.
roundeye (n) A European.
row in (v) To conspire.
roz (n) A policeman, a detective. From rozzer.
rubbedy (n) (Austral.) Also rubberdy, rubbidy. From rub-a-dub, rhyming slang for ‘a
pub’.
rub-out (n) (U.S.) Also rubout. A murder, an assassination, esp. of one gangster by
another.
rudders (n) Rudiments of divinity.
ruddy (adj) Damnable, blasted, confounded.
rugger (n) (University slang) Rugby football.
rumble (v) (chiefly U.S.) To have a gang fight.
rummy (n) (1) (chiefly U.S.) A habitual drunkard. (2) (U.S.) A stupid person.
304 Glossary

rumpy-pumpy (n) (orig. Brit.) Sexual intercourse.

run-in (n) (Criminals’ slang) A hiding place for stolen goods.
S.A. (n) Also s.a. Sex appeal.
sack time (n) (orig. U.S., Forces’ slang) Time spent in bed.
sad-ass (adj) (N. Amer.) Poor, contemptible.
saddo (n) (Brit., deprec.) A person perceived as socially inadequate, unfashionable, or
otherwise contemptible.
sailor’s blessing (n) (Nautical slang) Also sailor’s farewell. A (parting) curse.
salt away (v) To put by, store away (money, stock).
salt horse (n) (Nautical slang, jocular) A naval officer with general duties.
salty (adj) (U.S., Nautical slang) Of a sailor: tough; hard-bitten; aggressive.
Salvo (n) (Austral.) A member of the Salvation Army.
Sam Hill (int) (N. Amer.) A euphemism for hell.
sammie (n) Also sammo or sarney, sarnie. A sandwich.
Sammy (n) (Brit.) Also Sammie. An American soldier in the war of 1914-18.
sandbag (v) To underperform in a race or competition in order to gain an unfair
handicap or other advantage.
san fairy ann (int) An expression of indifference or resigned acceptance.
sauce (n) Alcoholic liquor; occas., a narcotic drug.
Sauerkraut (n) (U.S.) Also Kraut. A German, esp. a German soldier.
sausage (n) A German.
sawbones (n) A surgeon.
sawn (n) (Austral.) A simpleton, fool.
scag (n) (U.S.) Also skag. (1) A cigarette (stub). (2) Heroin. (3) (U.S., orig. in African-
American usage, derog.) An unattractive woman. (4) (Brit.) A poor, scruffy person.
scally (n) (chiefly Lancashire and Liverpool) A roguish, self-assured male (esp. from
Liverpool).
scalper (n) (U.S.) Someone who sells tickets, etc., esp. below the official rates.
scammer (n) (orig. U.S.) Also skammer. A criminal, esp. a petty crook or swindler; one
who lives outside the law by his or her wits.
scarf (n) (U.S.) Food; also a meal.
scarper (v) To depart quickly.
scat (n) (1) (U.S.) Whisky. (2) Heroin.
schiz (n) Also schizo. A schizophrenic person; spec. one who experiences a drug-
induced hallucination. (adj) Schizophrenic.
schmaltzy (adj) Sentimentalized, over-emotional.
schmeck (n) A drug, esp. heroin.
schmecker (n) A drug-addict, esp. one who takes heroin.
schmooze (n) (U.S.) A chat or gossip.
schmuck (n) A contemptible or objectionable person, an idiot.
schmutz (n) Filth, dirt.
schoolie (n) (Naval slang) A classroom instructor.
scoot (n) A fast vehicle, esp. a train or car.
scope out (v) (U.S.) To investigate or assess (a person or a state of affairs); to examine;
to check out.
scorp (n) (Military slang) A civil inhabitant of Gibraltar. From scorpion.
Glossary 305

Scouse (n) Also Scouser. A native or inhabitant of Liverpool.

scram (v) (orig.U.S.) To depart quickly. From scramble.
scrap iron (n) (U.S.) An alcoholic drink of poor quality.
screw (v) (1) (U.S., College slang) To examine rigorously. (2) (chiefly N. Amer.) To
defraud (a person, esp. of money), to cheat; to deceive. (3) (coarse) To copulate,
have sexual intercourse with.
screwball (n) (chiefly U.S.) An eccentric; a madman; a fool. (adj) Eccentric; mad,
crazy.
screwy (adj) (orig. U.S.) Mad, crazy; eccentric; foolish.
script (n) (orig. U.S.) Prescription, esp. one for narcotic drugs.
scroungy (adj) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Shabby or dirty in appearance; more gen., of
poor quality, inferior.
scrubber (n) A prostitute, a tart; an untidy, slatternly girl or woman.
scruffo (n) A scruffy person; a contemptible or inferior person.
scuttlebutt (n) (U.S., orig. Navy slang) Rumour, idle gossip, unfounded report.
scuzz (n) A contemptible or despicable person. From scum and fuzz.
scuzzy (adj) (orig. and chiefly N. Amer.) Disgusting in appearance, behaviour, etc.
secko (n) (Austral.) A sexual pervert; a sex offender.
second banana (n) (orig. U.S., Theatrical slang) A supporting comedian.
Section Eight (n) (U.S., Military slang) Discharge from the Army under section eight of
Army Regulations 615-360 on the grounds of insanity or inability to adjust to Army
life.
seg (n) (1) (chiefly U.S.) Segregation. (2) (U.S.) Segregationist.
send down (v) (orig. U.S.) To dispatch or commit to prison by sentence.
sender (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) One who or that which moves or enthrals, esp. a
popular musician.
sensagger (n) Sensation.
seriously (adv) (orig. U.S.) Esp. as seriously rich, really, extraordinarily rich.
sesh (n) (orig. Services’ slang) A session or bout, esp. of drinking.
set over (v) (U.S., Criminals’ slang) To kill or murder.
set up (v) To lead on in order to fool, cheat, or incriminate (a person).
sexational (adj) (orig. U.S.) Sexually sensational.
sexboat (n) Also sex-bomb, sexpot. A sexually exciting person, esp. a woman.
sexcapade (n) A sexual escapade.
sexed-up (adj) Sexually aroused.
sex kitten (n) A young woman who exploits her sex appeal.
sexpert (n) (orig. U.S.) An expert on sexual matters.
sez (v) Jocular spelling of says.
S.F.A. (n) Also F.A. Nothing at all. From Sweet Fanny Adams.
shaddup (int) An alteration of Shut up.
shaft (n) (1) (U.S.) A human leg. (2) The penis.
shag (v) (coarse) To copulate (with).
shagadelic (adj) Sexy, esp. in a psychedelic or ‘retro’ way. Also as a general term of
approval.
shampoo (n) Arbitrary alteration of champagne.
shant (n) A quart, a pot; a pot of drink.
306 Glossary

sharpie (n) (N. Amer.) That which is smart or in good condition, esp. of cars.
sheen (n) (1) Base coin. (2) (U.S.) A car; an automobile.
shelf (n) (Austral.) A police informer. (v) To inform upon.
shellacking (vbl n) (chiefly U.S.) A beating or thrashing; a defeat.
shell out (v) To pay up, hand over.
she-male (n) A passive male homosexual or transvestite.
shiner (n) (1) Coin, money. (2) A mirror. (3) Usu. pl. Diamonds or other jewels. (4) A
black eye.
shirtlifter (n) (Austral.) A male homosexual.
shit (n) (coarse) Also shite. (1) An intoxicating or euphoriant drug, spec. cannabis,
heroin, or marijuana. (2) A contemptuous epithet applied to a person.
shit a brick (int) Expressing surprise or amazement.
shithead (n) A despicable person.
shit-hot (adj) (coarse) Unpleasantly enthusiastic, very skilful, cunning, knowledgeable.
shit-house (n) (coarse) A term of disgust or contempt. (adj) Disgusting, despicable.
shitless (adj) (coarse) Alluding to a state of extreme fear or physical distress.
shits (n) As the shits, diarrhoea.
shit-scared (adj) (coarse) Extremely frightened.
shoe (adj) (U.S.) Conforming to the dress, behaviour, or attitudes of students at
exclusive educational establishments.
shonk (n) (1) An offensive name for a Jew. (2) (Austral.) One engaged in irregular or
illegal business activities.
shonky (adj) Unreliable, dishonest.
shoo-fly (n) (U.S.) A policeman, usu. in plain clothes, whose duty is to watch and report
on other policemen.
shoot (int) (U.S.) An arbitrary alteration of shit, a coarse exclamation of annoyance or
disgust.
shoot (v) (orig. U.S.) To inject esp. oneself with (a drug); often followed by up.
shooter (n) (1) (U.S.) A measure or drink of spirit, esp. whisky. (2) A shooting
instrument, a gun or pistol.
shoppy (n) Also shoppie. A shop assistant.
short time (n) A brief visit to a prostitute; a brief sojourn in a hotel for sexual purposes.
short-timer (n) (1) (U.S., Military slang) One nearing the end of his period of military
service. (2) One who makes a brief sojourn in a hotel for sexual purposes; one who
visits a prostitute.
shorty (n) Also shortie. (1) A person of short stature. (2) (orig. U.S.) A short drink.
shouse (n) (Austral.) A privy.
shover (n) (1) Also shovver. Jocular alteration of chauffeur. (2) One who passes base
coin.
showboat (v) (U.S.) To perform or behave ostentatiously; to show off.
shrewd-head (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) A cunning person.
shrink (n) (orig. U.S.) A psychiatrist.
sick (adj) (1) (now esp. Skateboarding and Surfing) Excellent, impressive; risky. (2)
(orig. U.S.) Of a drug addict: craving for a dose of a drug, suffering from
withdrawal symptoms. (3) Disgusted, mortified, chagrined.
sickie (n) (N. Amer.) Also sicky or sicko. One who is mentally ill or perverted.
Glossary 307

sidy (adj) Also sidey. Inclined to ‘put on side’; conceited.

silly billy (n) (Brit.) A foolish or feeble-minded person.
simoleon (n) (U.S.) A dollar.
simp (n) (U.S.) A fool, a simpleton.
sin-bin (n) (chiefly N. Amer.) An area set aside for players temporarily withdrawn from
a game as a penalty and for match officials. (v) (orig. Austral., Sport) To send (a
player) off the field.
sin city (n) (often jocular) A city of licentiousness and vice.
singer (n) (Criminals’ slang) An informer.
single (n) (U.S.) A one-dollar bill.
single-o (n) (U.S., chiefly Criminals’ slang) (1) A crime perpetrated without an
assistant. (2) A criminal who works alone.
sin-shifter (n) A clergyman.
sippers (n) (Brit., Nautical slang) A sip (of rum), esp. taken from another’s tot, as a
reward for some service or in celebration.
sissified (adj) Effeminate.
sister (n) (orig. U.S.) Used by homosexual men to denote a fellow homosexual, esp. one
who is a friend rather than a lover; a male homosexual.
sit-down (n) (N. Amer., Tramps’ slang) A free sit-down meal.
sitter (n) (U.S.) Someone employed to sit in a bar and encourage other patrons to buy
drinks.
six by six (n) Six wheel truck with six-wheel drive.
skedaddle (v) To go away, leave, or depart hurriedly.
skeeter (n) (chiefly U.S. and Austral.) Mosquito.
skeezicks (n) (U.S., dated) A good-for-nothing.
skell (n) (U.S.) In New York, a homeless person or derelict.
skidoo (v) (N. Amer.) To go away, leave, or depart hurriedly.
skimmer (n) (U.S.) One who conceals or diverts some of his earnings or takings in order
to avoid paying tax on them.
skin (n) (1) A tyre. (2) A horse or mule. (3) (U.S.) A dollar. (4) (U.S.) An avaricious; a
miser. (5) (Brit.) A youth (often one of a gang), a skinhead. (6) (orig. U.S.) A
condom. (7) (orig. U.S.) A paper for rolling cigarettes (esp. in smoking marijuana).
(8) A purse, a money bag, a wallet. (9) (Jazz) Usu. pl. A drum. (10) (U.S., Black E.)
The skin of the palm of the hand, as making contact in slapping hands in friendship
or solidarity.
skinful (n) As much as the skin can hold: as much as any one can drink.
skinned out (ppl adj) Having no money left, broke.
skin-pop (v) (orig. U.S.) To inject a drug subcutaneously.
skirt-chaser (n) One who pursues women with amorous attentions.
skunk (n) (1) (U.S., Military slang) An unidentified surface craft. (2) A variety of
marijuana having a pungent smell.
skyman (n) (Journalistic slang) A paratrooper.
sky pilot (n) A priest or clergyman, esp. a military or naval chaplain.
slag (n) (1) An objectionable or contemptible person. (2) A prostitute or promiscuous
woman.
slammer (n) (orig. U.S.) Prison.
308 Glossary

slant-eye (n) (orig. U.S.) A slant-eyed person, esp. an Asian.

slap and tickle (n) Light amorous play.
slap-happy (adj) (orig. U.S.) Also slaphappy. Dazed, punch-drunk; dizzy (with
happiness).
slaphead (n) (orig. and chiefly Brit., humorous or deprec.) A bald or shaven head.
slaughter-house (n) (1) A shop where goods are bought from small makers at very low
prices. (2) A cheap brothel.
sleaze (n) Squalor; sordidness, sleaziness; dilapidation; (something of) inferior quality
or low moral standards.
sleazo (n) (U.S.) Something ‘sleazy’, pornographic.
sleazy (adj) Dilapidated, filthy; sordid, disreputable, worthless.
sledging (vbl n) (Austral., Cricket slang) Unsportsmanlike attempts by fielders to upset
a batsman’s concentration by abuse, needling, etc.
Sloane Ranger (n) An upper class and fashionable but conventional young woman in
London. From Sloan (Square) and Lone Ranger, a hero of western stories and
films.
slob (n) A fool; a person of little account.
slomo (n) (Cinematography, chiefly U.S.) Slow motion.
slop (n) (U.S. and Austral.) Beer. Usu. pl.
slope (n) Also slopey, slopy or slopehead. An oriental; spec. a Vietnamese.
sloshed (ppl adj) Drunk, tipsy.
slot (v) (Army slang) To kill or injure (a person) by shooting.
slows (n) As the slows, an imaginary disease or ailment accounting for slowness.
slug-fest (n) (U.S.) A hard-hitting contest, spec. in boxing and baseball.
slug-nutty (adj) (U.S.) Punch-drunk.
slumgullion (n) (chiefly U.S.) Muddy deposit in a mining sluice.
slushie (n) Also slushey, slushy. A ship’s cook.
slut (n) A promiscuous girl or woman; a prostitute.
slyboots (n) (mainly jocular) Also sly-boots. A sly, cunning, or crafty person.
smack (n) (orig. U.S.) A drug, esp. heroin.
smacker (n) Also smackeroo. (1) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A coin or note of money; spec.
a dollar; a pound. (2) A kiss; a blow.
small potatoes (n) (orig. U.S.) A person or thing considered unimportant, insignificant,
or worthless.
smart (n) (U.S.) Usu. pl. Intelligence, cleverness; wits.
smart-arse (n) Amer. -ass. Also wise-ass. A would-be clever person; a ‘know-all’;
occas., a man who is ostentatiously smart in dress or manner. (adj) Ostentatiously
or smugly clever.
smart mouth (n) (U.S.) One who is good at repartee, one who gives cheek.
smart-mouth (v) To be cheeky to, to be witty at the expense of.
smashed (ppl adj) (orig. U.S.) Intoxicated, drunk; under the influence of drugs.
smasher (n) (1) Anything uncommon, extraordinary, or unusual, esp. unusually large or
excellent. (2) A very pretty or attractive woman; an attractive man.
smasheroo (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A great success.
smelly (adj) Suspicious.
Glossary 309

smoke (n) (1) (U.S.) An abusive and offensive term for a Black. (2) (N. Amer.) Cheap
whisky. (3) Opium, marijuana.
smoke-up (n) (U.S.) An official notice that a student’s work is not up to the required
standard.
smoothie (n) (orig. U.S.) A person who is stylish, suave, chic.
snafu (n) (chiefly U.S., orig. Military slang) Also SNAFU. A confusion or mix-up. (adj)
Confused, chaotic. (v) To mess up, to play havoc with. From situation normal: all
fouled (or fucked) up.
snake (n) (1) (coarse) The penis (recorded earliest in one-eyed trouser snake). (2)
(Austral., Military slang) A sergeant.
snake eyes (n) (1) (U.S.) Tapioca. (2) (N. Amer.) A throw of two ones with a pair of
dice.
snake-headed (adj) (Austral. and N.Z.) Angry, irritable.
snake juice (n) Whisky; any alcoholic drink.
snake poison (n) (U.S. and Austral.) Whisky.
snapper (n) pl. Teeth; a set of false teeth.
Sneaky Pete (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Also sneaky pete. A name given to any of
various illicit or cheap intoxicating beverages.
sniffer (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) One who sniffs a drug or toxic substance. (2) The nose.
snifter (n) (U.S.) (1) A cocaine addict. (2) A small quantity of cocaine inhaled through
the nose. (3) A portable radio direction-finder.
snitty (adj) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Ill-tempered, sulky.
snoot (n) The nose, esp. when large or badly shaped.
snorer (n) The nose.
snort (n) (orig. U.S.) (1) A dose or measure of cocaine or heroin which is taken by
inhalation. (2) An alcoholic drink; a measure of spirits.
snow (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) Cocaine; occas. heroin or morphine. (2) (Silver) money.
snow-bird (n) (U.S.) One who sniffs cocaine; gen. a drug addict.
snuff it (v) To die.
snuff out (v) To kill, to murder.
snuggle-pup (n) (U.S., obs.) Also snuggle-puppy, snuggle-pupper. An attractive young
girl.
sob (n) A pound.
S.O.B. (n) (chiefly U.S.) Also s.o.b. Son of a bitch; also silly old bastard, etc.
soccer (n) Also socker. The game of football as played under Association rules.
sockeroo (n) (orig. U.S.) Something with an overwhelming impact.
socko (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) A success. (adj) Stunningly effective or successful.
(int) An interjection imitative of the sound of a violent blow.
sod (n) (1) (coarse) One who practises or commits sodomy; a male homosexual. (2)
Something difficult; a great nuisance.
sometimey (adj) (U.S., Black and Prison slang) Variable, unstable.
soogee-moogee (n) (Nautical slang) A mixture containing caustic soda used for
cleaning paintwork and woodwork on ships and boats.
sooner (n) (1) (U.S.) One who acts prematurely. (2) (chiefly Austral.) An idler, shirker.
sore-head (n) (1) (U.S., Political slang) A dissatisfied or disappointed politician. (2)
(chiefly N. Amer.) A discontented, dissatisfied person.
310 Glossary

sort-out (n) A fight or dispute.

soup-and-fish (n) Men’s evening dress, a dinner suit.
soupy (n) (U.S., Military slang) Also soupie. (A summons to) a meal.
souvenir (v) (orig. Military slang) To take as a ‘souvenir’; to appropriate; to steal.
sov (n) A sovereign.
sozzle (v) To imbibe intoxicating drink.
sozzled (ppl adj) Intoxicated, drunk.
spag bol (n) Spaghetti Bolognese.
spaggers (n) Also spadgers. Spaghetti.
spaghetti (n) An Italian: usu. contemptuous.
Spanish tummy (n) A stomach upset of a type freq. experienced by visitors to Spain.
spark out (pred adj) Forgotten; (completely) unconscious.
sparrow-brain (n) A person with a tiny brain.
spaz (n) Also spas. One who is uncoordinated or incompetent; a fool. From spastic.
(adj) Uncoordinated, incompetent; foolish, stupid.
speak (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Also speako. A shop or bar where alcoholic liquor is
sold illegally. From speakeasy or speak-easy.
spec (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) A commercial speculation or venture. (2) (U.S.) In a circus: the
opening spectacle. (3) (U.S.) A specialist. (4) A detailed working description. From
specification. (adj) Of or pertaining to the practice of building houses without prior
guarantee of sale, esp. in estate developments. From speculative.
special (v) (1) To work as a special correspondent for a newspaper. (2) To attend
continuously to (a single patient).
specky (adj) Bespectacled.
specs (n) Also specks. Spectacles for the eyes.
speed (n) An amphetamine drug, esp. methamphetamine, freq. taken intravenously. (v)
To be under the influence of an amphetamine drug.
speedball (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) A dose of a drug, esp. a mixture of cocaine and morphine
or of cocaine and heroin. (2) (U.S.) A glass of wine, spec. when strengthened by
additional alcohol or spirits.
speed freak (n) (orig. U.S.) A person addicted to an amphetamine drug.
speedo (n) A speedometer.
spew (v) To vomit.
spike (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) A hypodermic needle or syringe used for the injection of an
intoxicating drug; hence, the drug itself or an injection of this. (2) (U.S.) A quantity
of alcohol, esp. spirits, added to a drink. (3) The workhouse. (4) An Anglican who
advocates or practises Anglo-Catholic ritual and observances.
spiky (n) Of a particularly ritualistic or High-Church Anglican character.
spit blood (v) Of a spy: to fear exposure.
spit chips (v) (Austral.) (1) To feel extreme thirst. (2) To manifest acute anger or
vexation.
spliced (ppl adj) Married.
split-arse (adj) (Forces’ slang) Amer. -ass. Classy, showy.
spondulicks (n) (orig. U.S.) Money, cash.
Glossary 311

spooky (adj) (1) (Surfing slang) Of a wave: dangerous or frightening. (2) (N. Amer.) Of
a person (or animal): nervous; easily frightened; superstitious. (3) (U.S.) Of or
pertaining to spies or espionage.
spot (n) A drop of liquor.
Spud Islander (n) (Canad.) A native or inhabitant of Prince Edward Island, which is
noted for its fine potatoes.
squaddie (n) (Services’ slang) Also squaddy. A member of a squad; a private soldier; a
recruit.
squadrol (n) (U.S.) A small police van. From squad and patrol.
squarehead (n) Also square-head. (1) An honest person. (2) (Army slang) A foreigner
of Germanic extraction, esp. a German or Scandinavian.
squeaky clean (adj) Above criticism, beyond reproach.
squiffy (adj) Intoxicated; drunk.
squillion (n) Also zillion. A very large number of millions.
squillionaire (n) Also zillionaire. One who is extraordinarily wealthy; a
multimillionaire.
squiz (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) A look or glance. From squint and quiz.
stakey (adj) (chiefly Canad.) Also staky. Well provided with money.
star-back (n) An expensive, reserved seat at a circus.
starkers (adj) Also starko. Of a person: absolutely without clothing. From stark naked.
starrer (n) A play or film which provides an impressive leading role for an actor or
actress.
statie (n) (U.S.) A state trooper.
steaming (vbl n) The action, by a gang, of passing rapidly through a public place (or
train, etc.) robbing bystanders (or passengers).
stem (n) pl. The legs.
stew (n) (U.S.) A stewardess.
stick (n) (1) A pistol. (2) (Thieves’ slang) A jemmy or crowbar. (3) A cigarette made
with marijuana.
sticky-fingered (adj) Apt to steal, light-fingered.
stiff-arsed (adj) Amer. -assed. Reserved, supercilious, stand-offish.
stiffener (n) A fortifying or reviving drink, spec. an alcoholic one.
sting (n) (Austral.) (1) Strong drink. (2) A drug, spec. one administered to a racehorse in
the form of an injection.
stingo (n) Strong ale or beer.
stinkeroo (n) (orig. U.S.) Also stinkaroo. Something of a very low standard; a very bad
performance.
stinko (pred adj) (orig. U.S.) (1) Of a very low standard; very bad. (2) Intoxicated; blind
drunk.
stink-pot (n) A term of abuse for a person or (rarely) a thing.
stipe (n) Also stip. A stipendiary magistrate.
stir-crazy (adj) (chiefly U.S., Criminals’ slang) Mentally deranged (as if) from long
imprisonment.
stone-broke (adj) Also stony-broke. Ruined.
stoned (adj) (orig. U.S.) (1) Drunk, extremely intoxicated. (2) In a state of drug-induced
euphoria.
312 Glossary

stop one (phr) (Austral.) To take a drink.

stoppo (n) (1) A rest from work. (2) (Criminals’ slang) An escape, a get-away.
stormer (n) (Brit.) Something of surpassing size, vigour, or excellence.
storming (ppl adj) (chiefly in Sport) Displaying outstanding vigour, speed, or skill.
stove-up (adj) (N. Amer.) Run-down, exhausted; worn out.
stragger (n) Stranger.
street cred (n) (Apparent) familiarity with contemporary trends, fashions, social issues,
etc. From street credibility.
streetman (n) (U.S.) A petty criminal who works ‘on the street’, esp. as a pickpocket or
drug pedlar.
stride (n) pl. Trousers. Also occas. jeans.
string out (v) (U.S.) To be under the influence of a drug.
stripey (n) (Naval slang) A long-service able seaman; one with good-conduct stripes.
strongers (n) (1) A mixture containing caustic soda used for cleaning paintwork and
woodwork on ships and boats. (2) Intoxicating liquor.
strong it (v) To behave excessively, to exaggerate.
strung out (adj) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Weak or ill, esp. as a result of drug addiction;
hence, addicted to drugs.
stubby (n) (1) (Austral.) A short, squat beer-bottle. (2) pl. Shorts.
stuff (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) Narcotics, esp. in on the stuff, addicted to drugs, on drugs. (2)
Chiefly as the stuff, money, cash. (3) Stolen goods. (4) Forbidden goods smuggled
into a gaol.
stupe (n) A stupid person, a fool.
sub (n) An advance of money. From subsistence money.
submarine (v) (U.S.) To put out of action in an underhand or covert way; to sabotage.
suck (v) (coarse) To perform cunnilingus or, esp., fellatio.
suds (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Beer.
sug (v) (Brit.) To (attempt to) sell (someone) a product under the guise of conducting
market research. From sell under guise.
sugar (n) (1) Money. (2) A narcotic drug, esp. heroin. (3) LSD (taken on a lump of
sugar).
suicide blonde (n) (jocular) A woman with hair dyed blonde (esp. rather amateurishly).
super-cool (adj) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Very ‘cool’, relaxed, fine.
superfly (n) One who sells illegal drugs, a ‘pusher’. (adj) (U.S.) (1) Very good,
excellent, the best (esp. in the context of drugs). (2) Typical of the film character
Super Fly.
surfie (n) (chiefly Austral.) A surfer or surfboarding enthusiast.
sus (n) Also suss. Suspicion of having committed a crime; suspicious behaviour, esp.
loitering. (adj) Suspect, suspicious; of questionable provenance or condition. (v) To
suspect (a person) of a crime.
susso (n) (Austral., dated) State government relief paid to the unemployed.
sussy (adj) Suspicious, suspect, suspected.
SWA(L)K (phr) Sealed with a (loving) kiss.
swamp (v) (Austral.) To make (one’s way) by obtaining a lift from a traveller.
swamper (n) (Austral.) One who travels on foot but has his swag carried on a wagon;
hence, one who obtains a lift.
Glossary 313

Sweeney (n) From Sweeney Todd, rhyming slang for ‘Flying Squad’, a member of the
Flying Squad.
sweetie-pie (n) (orig. U.S.) A lovable person; also as a term of endearment.
sweetmouth (v) (chiefly U.S., Black E.) To flatter.
swiftie (n) Also swifty. A fast-moving person: a rapid runner, a quick thinker.
swinging (ppl adj) Of or pertaining to one who engages in promiscuous sexual activity.
swingle (n) (N. Amer.) A ‘swinging’ single or unaccompanied person; spec. one in
search of a sexual partner.
switched-on (ppl adj) Aware of all that is considered fashionable and up-to-date.
switcheroo (n) (U.S.) A change of position or an exchange, esp. one intended to surprise
or deceive. Also attrib., reversible, reversed.
swizz (n) (chiefly Schoolchildren’s slang) A disappointment.
swy (n) (Austral.) Two, spec. a two-shilling coin or a two-year prison sentence.
syph (n) Also siff. Syphilis.
sysop (n) (orig. U.S., Computing slang) System operator.
tab (n) (1) A tablet or pill, spec. one containing LSD or another illicit drug. (2) A
cigarette. (3) An ear. (4) (Austral.) An (attractive) young woman or girl.
Tab (n) (University slang) A member of the University of Cambridge. From Cantab.
tab show (n) (U.S.) A short version of a musical, esp. one performed by a travelling
company. From tabloid show.
tache (n) Also tash. Moustache.
Taffy (n) A familiar nickname for a Welshman.
talk turkey (v) (orig. N. Amer.) To speak frankly and without reserve; to talk hard facts.
tank (n) (1) A drink (usu. of beer). (2) (U.S.) A cell in a police station, spec. one in
which several prisoners (esp. drunks) are held.
tarantula-juice (n) (U.S.) Inferior whisky.
tarnation (n) (chiefly U.S.) Damnation, used as an imprecation, or exclamation of
emphatic objurgation.
tart (n) (1) A female of immoral character; a prostitute. (2) (Austral. and N.Z.,
Liverpool dial.) As the tart, his tart, a wife or girl-friend. (3) The young
homosexual companion of an older man.
Tassie (n) (Austral.) Also Tassey, Tassy. (1) Tasmania. (2) A Tasmanian.
taste (n) (U.S.) An alcoholic drink; alcohol.
tasty (adj) Attractive, esp. sexually; pleasant.
tato (n) Also tatie, tattie. Potato.
T.B. (n) (U.S.) Also t.b. A confidence trickster. From tubercolosis.
TCB (phr) (U.S., Black E.) To take care of business.
tea (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) Marijuana; spec. marijuana brewed in hot water to make a drink.
(2) Spirituous or intoxicating liquor.
teach (n) A teacher.
tea-head (n) (orig. U.S.) A habitual user of marijuana.
teaman (n) (U.S., Criminals’ slang) One who smokes or sells marijuana.
tear-arse (n) A very active busy person. (v) Amer. -ass. To drive recklessly.
tec (n) Detective.
techno (n) A type of popular music having a fast, insistent dance beat.
314 Glossary

ten-four (int) Also 10-4. The radio code phr for ‘message received’; used loosely as an
expression of affirmation.
ten per center (n) (U.S., Theatrical slang) A theatrical agent.
terr (n) (Rhodesian slang) A terrorist.
Tewt (n) (Army slang) Also TEWT. An exercise used in the training of junior officers.
From tactical exercise without troops.
thang (n) Representing a Southern U.S. pronunciation of thing.
thickie (n) One who is dull of intellect.
thirty (n) (chiefly Journalistic slang) The last sheet, word, or line of copy or of a
despatch.
thou (n) Thousand.
throw (v) To vomit. Usu. with up.
tick (n) Credit; trust; reputation of solvency and probity. From ticket.
ticker (n) (1) (orig. U.S.) The heart. (2) (U.S. and Austral.) Courage, spirit.
tick-tack (n) Applied to a system of ‘telegraphy’ or signalling used by bookmakers at
race-meetings. Used attrib.
tiddly (n) From tiddlywink, rhyming slang for ‘a drink’.
tight-arsed (adj) Amer. -assed. Full of inhibition, unable to relax and enjoy oneself.
tin-arsed (adj) (Austral. and N.Z.) Very lucky.
tincture (n) An alcoholic drink.
tinned dog (n) (Austral.) Canned meat.
tinnie (n) (Austral.) Also tinny. A can of beer.
tip (n) A piece of useful private or special information communicated by an expert. (v)
(orig. U.S.) To furnish (a person) with private information as to the chances of
some event; to warn, alert, or inform (a person). Freq. with off.
tired and emotional (adj) (jocular) Drunk.
tit (n) (orig. U.S.) pl. A woman’s breasts. Also in to get on one’s tits (or occas. tit), to
irritate intensely, get on the nerves of.
titfer (n) Also titfa, titfor. From tit for tat, rhyming slang for ‘a hat’.
toc emma (n) (Military slang) A trench mortar.
tod (pron) From Tod Sloan, rhyming slang for ‘own’ in on one’s tod, alone, on one’s
own.
toffee-nosed (adj) Snobbish, supercilious.
Togger (n) (University slang) A boat rowing in the Oxford college races called
‘Torpids’.
tom (n) From tomfoolery, rhyming slang for ‘jewellery’.
tomato (n) (orig. U.S.) An attractive girl.
tool (n) (1) The male generative organ. (2) (Criminals’ slang) Any weapon.
toot (n) (U.S.) Also tout. Cocaine; a ‘snort’ of cocaine. (v) To inhale cocaine.
tootsy (n) Also tootsie, tootsey-wootsey, tootsie-wootsie, tootsy-wootsy. (1) (chiefly
U.S.) A woman, a girl; a sweetheart. (2) A playful or endearing name for a child’s
or a woman’s small foot.
topper (n) (U.S., Military slang) A first sergeant.
topping (ppl adj) Of high quality; excellent; first-rate.
torpedo juice (n) Also torp. Intoxicating liquor extracted from torpedo fuel; any strong
home-made alcoholic liquor.
Glossary 315

tosher (n) (Undergraduates’ slang) An ‘unattached’ or non-collegiate student at a

university having residential colleges.
total (v) (chiefly N. Amer.) To damage beyond repair (esp. a motor vehicle, in an
accident).
toup (n) Toupee.
town clown (n) (U.S.) A policeman working in a village or small town.
toy boy (n) The younger partner of an older woman.
trannie (n) A transvestite.
tranq (n) Also trank. Tranquillizer.
trap (n) The mouth.
trat (n) Also tratt. Trattoria.
trey (n) The number three; a set of three; a threepenny piece; spec. in the U.S., a three-
dollar packet of a narcotic.
trick cyclist (n) (humorous) A psychiatrist.
trickeration (n) (U.S., Black E.) A trick or stratagem.
trip (v) (orig. U.S.) To experience hallucinations induced by a drug, esp. LSD. Also
with out.
tripper (n) (orig. U.S.) One who experiences hallucinations induced by a drug, esp.
LSD.
trog (n) A lout, a boor, a hooligan, an obnoxious person.
trolley (n) In off one’s trolley, crazy.
troppo (adj) (Austral.) Mentally ill through spending too much time (orig. on war
service) in the tropics.
trouble and strife (n) Rhyming slang for ‘wife’ or ‘life’ (rare).
Trustafarian (n) (chiefly Brit.) A wealthy young (white) person who adopts aspects of
the appearance and culture of Rastafarians. From trust and Rastafarian.
tube (n) (1) A cigarette. (2) The penis. (3) (Austral.) A bottle or can of beer.
turf (n) (1) The road or street as the milieu of prostitutes, tramps, etc. (2) (orig. and
chiefly U.S.) The streets controlled by a juvenile street-gang and regarded by them
as their territory.
turkey (n) (U.S.) (1) A stupid, slow, inept, or otherwise worthless person. (2) An
inferior or unsuccessful cinematographic or theatrical production, a flop; hence,
anything disappointing or of little value.
turps (n) (Austral.) Intoxicating liquor, esp. beer.
turtle (n) From turtle-dove, rhyming slang for ‘a glove’. Usu. in pl.
TV (n) (orig. and chiefly N. Amer.) A transvestite.
twat (n) (low slang) (1) The female genitals. (2) A fool; a stupid or ineffectual person.
twenty (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S., Citizens’ Band Radio slang) One’s location or
position. From 10-20.
twicer (n) A crook, liar, cheat; a deceitful or cunning individual.
twinkie (n) Also twinky. A male homosexual, an effeminate man; also, a child or youth
regarded as an object of homosexual desire.
twist (n) (chiefly U.S., freq. deprec.) From twist-and-twirl, rhyming slang for ‘a girl’.
twoc (n) (Brit., orig. Police slang) Also Twoc, TWOC. A car theft. From taking without
owner’s consent. (v) To steal (a car), esp. for the purpose of joy-riding.
316 Glossary

twocer (n) (Brit., orig. Police slang) Also twocker, TWOCer. A car thief, esp. one who
steals for the purpose of joy-riding.
two-time (v) (orig. U.S.) To deceive (esp. a person to whom one owes loyalty); to be
unfaithful to (a spouse or lover).
U-ey (n) (Austral.) Also youee. A U-turn.
uglies (n) As the uglies, depression, bad temper.
ump (n) (chiefly U.S.) Umpire, spec. in baseball.
uncool (adj) Unrelaxed; unpleasant.
under the table (phr) As (to put) under the table, (to make) drunk to the point of
insensibility.
undercover (n) An undercover agent.
underfug (n) (Brit., Schoolboys’ slang) An undervest; also, underpants.
underground mutton (n) (Austral.) A rabbit; rabbit meat.
unfuckingtouchable (adj) A more emphatic version of untouchable.
Uni (n) (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) Also Univ. University.
unreal (adj) (chiefly N. Amer. and Austral.) So good or impressive as to seem
incredible; remarkable, amazing.
untogether (adj) Poorly coordinated; not in full control of one’s faculties.
up (n) (1) A drug (esp. an amphetamine), often in the form of a pill, which has a
stimulant or euphoric effect. (2) (U.S.) A prospective customer.
up-and-downer (n) Also upper and downer. An up-and-down fight or argument; a
violent quarrel.
upper (n) (1) A drug (esp. an amphetamine). (2) (Public School slang) A pupil of the
upper school.
upter (pred adj) (Austral.) Bad or worthless; no good.
use (v) To take drugs.
U.S. of A. (n) United States of America.
ute (n) (chiefly Austral. and N.Z.) A utility vehicle.
vag (n) (Austral. and N. Amer.) (1) Vagrant. (2) Vagrancy.
vamoose (v) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) To depart.
veejay (n) (chiefly U.S.) One who presents a programme of (popular music) videos, esp.
on television. From V.J., video jockey.
veep (n) A vice-president.
veg (v) (orig. U.S.) To pass the time in mindless or vacuous inactivity, esp. by watching
television. Often with out.
vent (n) (Theatrical slang) A ventriloquist.
verbal (n) Insult or abuse.
vet (n) A doctor of medicine. From veterinarian.
Victor Charlie (n) (U.S., Services’ slang) A Vietcong soldier.
vidiot (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S., derog.) A habitual, undiscriminating viewer of
television or player of video games. From video and idiot.
viff (n) An aircraft that changes direction abruptly as a result of a change in the direction
of thrust of its engine(s). From vectoring in forward flight.
Ville (n) As the Ville, Pentonville Prison in London.
vis (n) (orig. Military slang) Visibility.
W (n) A lavatory or water-closet.
Glossary 317

wacko (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) An eccentric or crazy person. (adj) Crazy, mad;
eccentric.
wacky (adj) (orig. U.S.) Crazy, mad; odd, peculiar.
wacky baccy (n) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Also wacky tobaccy or wacky weed. Marijuana.
wagger (n) (orig. Oxford University) A waste-paper basket.
wakey-wakey (n) (orig. Services’ slang) Reveille.
wallop (n) Alcohol, esp. beer; alcoholic drink.
wank (n) An act of (male) masturbation. (v) Of a male: to masturbate. Freq. with off.
washed up (ppl adj) (orig. and chiefly U.S.) Defeated, exhausted, finished.
wassock (n) (Brit., orig. northern dial.) Also wazzock. A stupid or annoying person; an
idiot.
wasted (ppl adj) Intoxicated (from drink or drug).
Wavy Navy (n) (Brit.) The Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.
way-in (adj) Conventional; fashionable, sophisticated.
way-out (adj) Far removed from reality or from convention; extreme; progressive.
weakie (n) (chiefly Austral.) Also weaky. A person who is weak in constitution,
character, or ability.
weapon (n) (coarse) The penis.
weed (n) (orig. U.S.) Marijuana; a marijuana cigarette.
weedhead (n) (chiefly U.S.) One who is addicted to marijuana; a marijuana smoker.
weekender (n) (orig. U.S.) A person who indulges in occasional drug-taking, esp. at
weekends.
weeny (n) (U.S.) Also weenie. (1) A girl; an effeminate man. (2) An objectionable
person.
weight (n) A measure of an illegal drug; hence, the drug.
weirdie (n) Also weirdy or weirdo. An odd or unconventional person.
wellie (n) Also welly. A kick, acceleration.
Welshie (n) Also Welshy. A Welshman or Welshwoman.
wet (n) (1) Liquor, drink. (2) (rare) Urination, the act of urinating; urine.
Whacko (int) Also Wacko. An exclamation of delight or excitement: Splendid!
Excellent! Hurrah!
whaler (n) (Austral.) A tramp, orig. one whose route followed the course of a river.
Whammo (int) Also Whamo. An exclamation suggesting a sudden violent blow or
surprising event.
whang-doodle (n) (N. Amer.) Something unspecified.
what-the-hell (adj phr) Casual, careless, devil-may-care.
wheel (n) (1) (U.S.) A dollar. (2) (U.S., orig. Criminals’ slang) Chiefly in pl. The legs.
(3) pl. A car.
wheelie (n) (Austral.) Also wheely. A person in or confined to a wheelchair.
whifflow (n) (Nautical slang) An unnamed gadget.
whistle (n) From whistle and flute, rhyming slang for ‘suit’.
white (n) (1) Morphine. (2) An amphetamine tablet.
white-arsed (adj) Contemptible, despicable.
white lady (n) (Austral.) A drink of methylated spirits, sometimes mixed with another
ingredient.
318 Glossary

white lightning (n) (orig. U.S.) (1) Inferior or illicitly distilled whisky. (2) A kind of
LSD.
white line (n) (U.S.) Alcohol as a drink; also, one who drinks alcohol.
white mule (n) (U.S.) A potent colourless alcoholic drink; spec. illicitly distilled whisky.
white-shoe (adj) (chiefly U.S.) Effeminate, immature.
white stuff (n) (chiefly U.S.) Morphine, heroin, or cocaine.
whitie (n) (Black E.) Also whitey, whity. A white person.
whizzo (n) Also whizz. Something very remarkable. (adj) Excellent, wonderful. (int) An
exclamation expressing delight.
whore-shop (n) A brothel.
wicked (adj) (orig. U.S.) Excellent, splendid; remarkable.
wife (n) The passive member of a homosexual partnership.
wiggy (adj) (U.S.) Mad, crazy.
wind up (v) (Racing slang) To put (a race-horse) into fit condition for running.
windy (adj) Apt to get into a state of alarm; nervous, frightened.
wing (n) An arm.
Wingco (n) (R.A.F. slang) Wing Commander.
wingding (n) (U.S.) (1) A fit or spasm, esp. as simulated by a drug addict. (2) A wild
party; a celebration or social gathering.
wingy (n) A one-armed man.
wino (n) (orig. U.S.) A habitual drinker of cheap wine; an alcoholic or drunkard.
wiped (ppl adj) (orig. U.S.) Chiefly with out. (1) Reduced to a state of physical
incapacity; exhausted, tired out. (2) Intoxicated or incapacitated by drugs or
alcohol.
wipe-out (n) (1) (Surfing slang) A fall from one’s surfboard as a result of a collision
with another surfer or a wave. (2) (orig. U.S.) Destruction; a killing; a crushing
defeat; an overwhelming experience.
wipe out (v) (1) To be knocked from one’s surfboard. (2) (orig. U.S.) Of drink, etc.: to
render intoxicated or senseless; to overwhelm. (3) To kill (a person).
wise guy (n) (orig. U.S.) A know-all, a wiseacre; someone who makes sarcastic or
annoying remarks.
wish book (n) (N. Amer.) A mail-order catalogue.
witch-doctor (n) (Military slang) A psychiatrist.
with-it (adj) Fashionable, up-to-date.
wizard (adj) Excellent, marvellous, very good.
wood-and-water joey (n) (Austral.) An odd job man.
Woodbine (n) An Englishman, esp. a soldier, considered as a habitual smoker of
Woodbine cigarettes.
wooden cross (n) (Military slang) A wooden cross on a serviceman’s grave; hence,
death in action.
woody (n) (1) (orig. Surfing slang, chiefly U.S.) Also woodie. An estate car with timber-
framed sides. (2) An erection of the penis.
woopie (n) (orig. N. Amer.) Also woopy. A well-off older person.
Woop Woop (n) (Austral. and N.Z.) The name of an imaginary place in a remote area.
Glossary 319

wop (n) (1) (R.A.F. slang) A radio operator. From wireless operator. (2) (orig. U.S.,
offens.) An Italian or other southern European, esp. as an immigrant or foreign
visitor. (adj) Italian.
word (v) (Austral.) To speak to, accost; to tell, pass word to.
wotcher (int) A corruption of What cheer?, a familiar greeting.
wow (n) (orig. U.S.) A sensational success. (adj) Exciting or expressing admiration and
delight.
W.P.B. (n) Also w.p.b. Waste-paper basket.
Wrac (n) Also WRAC. The Women’s Royal Army Corps.
Wraf (n) Also WRAF. The Women’s Royal Air Force.
Wren (n) A member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service.
Wrennery (n) (Services’ slang, jocular) A building used to accommodate Wrens.
wrinkly (n) Also wrinklie. An old or middle-aged person.
wrongo (n) (chiefly U.S.) Also wronggo. A bad, dishonest, or untrustworthy person.
Y (n) (chiefly U.S.) Young Men’s Christian Association.
yack (n) Incessant talk of a trivial or boring nature.
yacker (n) (1) (derog.) A chatterbox or gossip. (2) (Austral.) Talk, conversation, chatter.
yackety-yackety (n) Incessant talk. (int) Expressing the sound of incessant chatter.
Yank (n) A Yankee.
yap (n) (1) (U.S.) The mouth. (2) Idle or loquacious talk; a chat. (v) To talk idly or
loquaciously; to chatter.
yardie (n) (orig. West Indies) A Jamaican.
yatter (v) (orig. Sc. dial.) To talk idly and incessantly; to chatter. From yammer and
chatter.
yellow belly (n) (orig. U.S.) A coward.
yellow jacket (n) A pentobarbitone capsule.
yen-yen (n) (U.S.) A craving for opium, opium addiction.
Yid (n) (usu. offens.) A name for a Jew.
yob (n) Back-slang for boy. Orig. simply, a boy, a youth; in mod. use, a lout, a hooligan.
yobbery (n) (Brit.) Hooliganism.
yobbish (adj) Characteristic of a ‘yob’.
yobbo (n) Also yobo. A lout, a hooligan. Extended from yob.
yobby (adj) Loutish.
yok (n) (derog.) A pejorative Jewish term for a non-Jew, a Gentile. From Yiddish goy.
yonks (n) A long time, chiefly in for yonks.
yo-yo (n) (U.S.) A stupid person, a fool.
yucky (adj) Also yukky. Nasty, unpleasant; sickly sentimental.
yumpie (n) (orig. U.S.) Young upwardly mobile people.
yum-yum (n) An action providing a pleasurable or delicious sensation; love-making.
yuppie (n) Also yuppy. Young urban professional, now also freq. interpreted as young
upwardly mobile professional.
yuppification (n) (orig. U.S.) The action or process by which an area, building, clothing,
etc., becomes or is rendered suitable for ‘yuppies’.
yuppify (v) (orig. U.S.) To subject to ‘yuppification’.
za (n) (U.S.) Pizza.
zac (n) (Austral.) Also zack, zak. A sixpence.
320 Glossary

zapper (n) (orig. U.S.) The remote-control unit for a piece of electronic equipment, esp.
a television or video recorder.
zappy (adj) Lively, amusing, energetic; striking.
zig-zag (adj) (chiefly U.S., Military slang) Drunk.
zipless (adj) (coarse) Denoting a brief and passionate sexual encounter.
zizzy (adj) Showy, spectacular; lively, uninhibited.
zonk (v) (1) To hit, strike, or knock. (2) To fail; to lose consciousness, to die.
zonking (ppl adj, adv) Impressively (large or great).
zoot suit (n) (orig. U.S.) A type of man’s suit of exaggerated style popular in the 1940s.
zooty (adj) (U.S.) (Strikingly) fashionable.