A Quote by Susie Dent

Slang has always moved this way. From Cockney rhyming slang to codes swapped among highwaymen, they're tribal badges of identity, bonding mechanisms designed to distinguish the initiated, and to keep strangers out.

Susie Dent

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Always Among Badges Bonding Cockney Codes Designed Distinguish Highwaymen His Way Identity Keep Mechanisms Moved Out Rhyming Slang Strangers Tribal Way

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Susie Dent
English - Scientist

There's an old little jingle: 'The chief use of slang is to show that you're one of the gang.' What that means is that every social group has its own linguistic bonding mechanism. If there's a group of lawyers, they have their own slang. If there's a group of doctors, they have their own slang, and so on.

David Crystal

My parents went through the dictionary looking for a beautiful name, nearly called me Banyan, flicked on a few pages and came to China, which is cockney rhyming slang for mate.

China Mieville

I beg your pardon: correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets.

George Eliot

In general, American slang is much better than English slang. The entire world picks up American slang.

Jesse Sheidlower

I was able to make up lots of portementos, literally hundreds and hundreds of words... See, I find that mine don't have any meanings. They're not proper. Although I've got a great dictionary of them. It's like the Cockney rhyming slang or something.

Elizabeth Fraser

Other dances are like languages, like French or Spanish, but my steps are slang, and slang is always changing.

Savion Glover

Slang is vigorous and apt. Probably most of our vital words were once slang.

John Galsworthy

My parents were hippies, and the story is that they went through a dictionary looking for a beautiful word to name me. They nearly called me Banyan, but flipped a few pages on and reached "China," thankfully. The other reason they liked it is that "china" is Cockney rhyming slang for "mate." People say "my old china," meaning "my old mate," because "china plate" rhymes with "mate.

China Mieville

I've found that there are only two kinds that are any good: slang that has established itself in the language, and slang that you make up yourself. Everything else is apt to be passe before it gets into print.

Raymond Chandler

Hit records create slang, and if you create slang, you get into a broader conversation level.

No I.D.

I found a great book called 'Slang Through the Ages' by Jonathon Green. It's basically a thesaurus of historical slang, and had lots of great old uses.

Scott Westerfeld

The earliest dictionaries were collections of criminal slang, swapped amongst ne'er-do-wells as a means of evading the authorities or indeed any outsider who might threaten the trade.

Susie Dent

Slang has different functions: many of the words we use are playful and a lot are tribal - we speak the same way as the groups we are part of. A great deal are also euphemistic, so it's no surprise that a third of us are perplexed by their meanings and origins.

Susie Dent

The fact that slang is apt and forceful makes its use irresistibly tempting. Coarse or profane slang is beside the mark, but "flivver," "taxi," the "movies," "deadly" (meaning dull), "feeling fit," "feeling blue," "grafter," a "fake," "grouch," "hunch" and "right o!" are typical of words that it would make our spoken language stilted to exclude.

Emily Post

Trying to keep up with current slang sucks.

Keith Waterhouse

Try and write straight English; never using slang except in dialogue and then only when unavoidable. Because all slang goes sour in a short time. I only use swear words, for example, that have lasted at least a thousand years for fear of getting stuff that will be simply timely and then go sour.

Ernest Hemingway

A Quote by Susie Dent

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