British slang and its classification

The Internet has transformed the way we manipulate our systems of signs and the relationships between producers and consumers of information. Its effect on slang has two aspects. Firstly, online communication has generated its own vocabulary of technical terminology, essentially jargon (spam, blogging, phishing) and informal, abbreviated or humorous terms (addy, noob, barking moonbat etc.) which qualify as slang. [9, 12] The amount of new cyberslang is fairly small, but the Internet has also allowed the collecting, classifying and promoting of slang from other sources in.

Another technical development - text messaging - has triggered changes in the culture of communication, especially among young people, and brought with it, like telegrams, CB-radio or Internet chatrooms, a new form of abbreviated code. It has excited some academic linguists but it hasn't, however, contributed anything meaningful to the evolution of slang. [15].

d) Slang of army, police.

Military slang is an array of colloquial terminology used commonly by military personnel, including slang which is unique to or originates with the armed forces. [23]

· The Andrew/Grey Funnel Ferries - The Royal Navy, named for some important bloke or a Saint or something.

· Blighty - The UK, the name was taken from a province in India...

· Brag Rags - Medals.

· Cant-be-arrsed-itis -suffered mainly by those on exercise

· "Chin-strapped" - "chin-strap" - tired knackered

· Combat Suit - Jacket, trousers, and possibly hood, cap, etc., made from DPM material.

· Doss-bag - Army Issue Barnes-Wallace, Gonk-bag and Green Maggot.

· Dust - Washing powder.

· Gat - rifle (also Bunduk, or Bang-Stick) (mainly used by "Hats").

· Green/Bleeds green - a keen soldier, probably should watched suspiciously...from a long way away.

· NAAFI - "Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes". Quasi-civilian non-profit retaining such as tea, pies, cakes and sandwiches to the troops within garrisons worldwide. Pronounced 'NAFF-ee', it was created in 1921 to run recreational establishments for the Armed forces to sell goods to servicemen and their families. It runs clubs, bars, (EFI), which provides NAAFI facilities in war zones.

· Puttees - long strips of flannel cloth in shades of khaki, rifle green or black, wrapped tightly at the top of ankle-boots to provide support over rough ground (now CVHQ RA)

· Sangar - possibly derived from the Indian; usually a low wall with side wings built to give cover from fire in areas where digging is difficult or impossible.

· Sky Pilot - The Padre - he's got his head in the clouds talking to his boss.

· Stripey - Sergeant.

· Teeny-weeny Airways - The Army Air Corps.

· Warry (or War-y) - aggressive, militaristic; can be an insult.

· Webbing - cotton for belt as worn by the type of ladies I never get to meet, and several dodgy RM types down Union St.

There are more than a hundred words for "police" in different glossaries.. And this is by no means a unique case. [21]

Names taken from the coloring of police clothes or the coloring of police cars:

blue boy, blue jeans, man-in-the-blue, salt and pepper, black and white, blue and white;

A female police officer:

girlie bear, honey bear, lady bear, mama bear, sugar bear,smokey beaver;

A city policeman or rural police:

citty kitty, country Joe, country mounty, little bear, local yokel;

state police:

boogey man, boy scouts, state bears, whatevers;barnies, bear, bearded bubby, big brother, bull, Dudley, do-right, Peter Rabbit;

An unmarked or hidden police car:

brown-paper bag, night crawler, pink panther, slick top, sneaky snake;

A radar unit:

shotgun, electric teeth, gunrunner, Kojak with a Kodak, smoke screen

A police helicopter:

bear in the air, eye in the sky, spy in the sky, tattle tale

There have found new expressions for an already established concept; such expressions that make them appear to be saying one thing while they are really communicating something very different to insiders.

While the origins of these slang terms are many and various, certainly a lot of English money slang is rooted in various London communities, which for different reasons liked to use language only known in their own circles, notably wholesale markets, street traders, crime and the underworld, the docks, taxi-cab driving, and the immigrant communities. London has for centuries been extremely cosmopolitan, both as a travel hub and a place for foreign people to live and work and start their own businesses. This contributed to the development of some 'lingua franca' expressions, i.e., mixtures of Italian, Greek, Arabic, Yiddish (Jewish European/Hebrew dialect), Spanish and English which developed to enable understanding between people of different nationalities, rather like a pidgin or hybrid English. Certain lingua franca blended with 'parlyaree' or 'polari', which is basically underworld slang.

Backslang also contributes several slang money words. Backslang reverses the phonetic (sound of the) word, not the spelling, which can produce some strange interpretations, and was popular among market traders, butchers and greengrocers.

Here are the most common and/or interesting British slang money words and expressions, with meanings, and origins where known. Many are now obsolete; typically words which relate to pre-decimalisation coins, although some have re-emerged and continue to do so.

Some non-slang words are included where their origins are particularly interesting, as are some interesting slang money expressions which originated in other parts of the world, and which are now entering the English language. [9, 15 ].

Here are some examples of money slang words:

archer = two thousand pounds (?2,000), late 20th century, from the Jeffrey Archer court case in which he was alleged to have bribed call-girl Monica Coughlan with this amount.

ayrton senna/ayrton = tenner (ten pounds, ?10) - cockney rhyming slang created in the 1980s or early 90s, from the name of the peerless Brazilian world champion Formula One racing driver, Ayrton Senna (1960-94), who won world titles in 1988, 90 and 91, before his tragic death at San Marino in 1994.

bag/bag of sand = grand = one thousand pounds (?1,000), seemingly recent cockney rhyming slang, in use from around the mid-1990s in Greater London; perhaps more widely too.

bar = a pound, from the late 1800s, and earlier a sovereign, probably from Romany gypsy 'bauro' meaning heavy or big, and also influenced by allusion to the iron bars use as trading currency used with Africans, plus a possible reference to the custom of casting of precious metal in bars.

bender = sixpence (6d) Another slang term with origins in the 1800s when the coins were actually solid silver, from the practice of testing authenticity by biting and bending the coin, which would being made of near-pure silver have been softer than the fakes.

bees (bees and honey) = money. Cockney rhyming slang from the late 1800s. Also shortened to beesum (from bees and, bees 'n', to beesum).

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

boodle = money.

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

cabbage = money in banknotes,

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

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

Страницы: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5