Slang sees a particularly high turnover in intensifiers (words that do the same thing as very). For example, if you want to say that something is very good, you can choose between: mega good (since 1968), totally good (1972) well good (since at least 1986), or bare good, ra good, dead good, proper good, and total good. The ones without dates aren't yet listed in the OED and there are probably more that I've missed here, as well as the various swear-words that could slot in before good, like bloody (1676), fucking (1898), and so on. Really good isn't slang in itself, but it starts to sound like slang when it's used often enough, and particularly with heavy emphasis in a posh accent.
This isn't anything new: slang and colloquial intensifiers through the ages have included monstrous (1569, though it wasn't slang to start with), dreadfully (since at least 1616), plaguily (1711), shockingly (1777), frightfully (1816), gallows (since at least 1823), jolly (1838, or possibly earlier), terribly (since at least 1842), awfully (1859), tremendously (since at least 1863), fearfully (since at least 1878), immensely (1885), perfectly (since about 1915) and bally (1939). It's really hard to pin down when these slangy intensifiers developed, because they usually shade imperceptibly out of a usage that's closer to the etymological meaning, so a lot of these dates are based on interpreting OED citations under a broader definition.
A lot of the earlier intensifiers suggest that there's something frightening or dangerous about anything that's extreme (monstrous, dreadfully, plaguily, dead, and so on). Some later intensifiers suggest largeness of size or completeness of degree without originally implying a value judgement (immensely, perfectly, total(ly)), but the positive intensifiers are relatively modern (jolly, well, proper), and imply that extremeness is a good thing. We're living on the edge, my friend, keeping that envelope well and truly pushed.
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
Monday, 12 March 2012
raw and harsh
Here's one I hadn't heard before: raw with the meaning "tough, hard; cruel, unfair". Harsh is widely used in more or less the same way. Neither of these uses is listed in the OED, but Green's Dictionary of Slang has a first citation for harsh from 1987, in US college slang, and of raw from 1908. Has raw spread to the US? Are raw or harsh used in Australian slang? New Zealand? Canadian?
Friday, 9 March 2012
berk
I had a query about the origins of berk "an idiot" too, with a suggestion that it might be related to birkie, a Scottish word for a man, particularly one who's a bit too full of himself or to the verb to burke, which is used literally with the sense "to murder" and figuratively to mean "to hush up; to avoid".
The OED has citations for birkie from 1724 to 1816, but the Dictionary of the Scots Language extends that to about 1930, with birkie also being used to refer to anyone with a quick temper, including women and children. These extended dates are just about late enough for birkie to be a candidate for the origins of berk and the semantic change from "conceited person" to "idiot" is reasonable, but you'll see that there's a stronger candidate.
To burke is from the name of William Burke, an Edinburgh grave-robber who was executed in 1829. The verb was used until at least the 1950s, but the semantic change and grammatical shift from "to murder" to "idiot" are less convincing. Without any evidence to support a connection, we can discount this as a possible origin for berk.
The OED has citations for berk, also spelt birk and burk, from 1929 to 1963, and a quick search on Google Blogs confirms my sense that it's still in use in Britain, though it's now a very mild insult. Please let me know if it's used further afield.
The rhyming slang origins for berk didn't seem terribly convincing at first glance (OED etymology: Berkeley/Berkshire Hunt = cunt), mainly because I hadn't heard of either, but it turns out that both Berkshire and Berkeley have hunts and that they're both jolly famous if you happen to mix in those circles. Berks has been used as an abbreviation for Berkshire since at least 1787 (which is the earliest example I can find in The Times), but Berkshire is pronounced Barkshire, in Britain at least, and its abbreviation is usually pronounced Barks. This means that if we want to make the case that Berkshire Hunt is the origin of berk, we need to assume that this rhyming slang is based on a less prestigious pronunciation (and this wouldn't be an unreasonable position). Members of the Berkshire Hunt call themselves 'Old Berks', but I haven't been able to find early enough evidence to suggest that this is the origin of berk "idiot" rather than a jokey reference to it. I also haven't been able to find any evidence that Berkshire Hunt was ever used in full to mean either "cunt" or "idiot", and I suspect that Berkshire Hunt is only given as a possible etymology in the OED because Julian Franklyn, an authority on rhyming slang, saw it as the more correct form. He mentions to burke when he's discussing berk, but only to say that they're unconnected and that it's necessary to distinguish between the spelling of the two.
The case for Berkeley Hunt as the origins of berk is made all the more compelling by the fact that Berkeley Hunt has also been used with the senses "cunt" and "fool" (OED dates: 1937-1977), sometimes in full, but also in the forms Berkeley and old Berkeley. The earliest citation for berk also includes the fuller form Berkeley Hunt. The OED entries for berk and Berkeley Hunt were written later than Franklyn's dictionary, so he didn't have access to this information.
In conclusion, then, the OED appears to be correct in tracing berk to Berkeley Hunt. This might have been re-enforced by association with Berkshire Hunt later on, but it looks as if Berkeley Hunt is where the term originally came from.
The OED has citations for birkie from 1724 to 1816, but the Dictionary of the Scots Language extends that to about 1930, with birkie also being used to refer to anyone with a quick temper, including women and children. These extended dates are just about late enough for birkie to be a candidate for the origins of berk and the semantic change from "conceited person" to "idiot" is reasonable, but you'll see that there's a stronger candidate.
To burke is from the name of William Burke, an Edinburgh grave-robber who was executed in 1829. The verb was used until at least the 1950s, but the semantic change and grammatical shift from "to murder" to "idiot" are less convincing. Without any evidence to support a connection, we can discount this as a possible origin for berk.
The OED has citations for berk, also spelt birk and burk, from 1929 to 1963, and a quick search on Google Blogs confirms my sense that it's still in use in Britain, though it's now a very mild insult. Please let me know if it's used further afield.
The rhyming slang origins for berk didn't seem terribly convincing at first glance (OED etymology: Berkeley/Berkshire Hunt = cunt), mainly because I hadn't heard of either, but it turns out that both Berkshire and Berkeley have hunts and that they're both jolly famous if you happen to mix in those circles. Berks has been used as an abbreviation for Berkshire since at least 1787 (which is the earliest example I can find in The Times), but Berkshire is pronounced Barkshire, in Britain at least, and its abbreviation is usually pronounced Barks. This means that if we want to make the case that Berkshire Hunt is the origin of berk, we need to assume that this rhyming slang is based on a less prestigious pronunciation (and this wouldn't be an unreasonable position). Members of the Berkshire Hunt call themselves 'Old Berks', but I haven't been able to find early enough evidence to suggest that this is the origin of berk "idiot" rather than a jokey reference to it. I also haven't been able to find any evidence that Berkshire Hunt was ever used in full to mean either "cunt" or "idiot", and I suspect that Berkshire Hunt is only given as a possible etymology in the OED because Julian Franklyn, an authority on rhyming slang, saw it as the more correct form. He mentions to burke when he's discussing berk, but only to say that they're unconnected and that it's necessary to distinguish between the spelling of the two.
The case for Berkeley Hunt as the origins of berk is made all the more compelling by the fact that Berkeley Hunt has also been used with the senses "cunt" and "fool" (OED dates: 1937-1977), sometimes in full, but also in the forms Berkeley and old Berkeley. The earliest citation for berk also includes the fuller form Berkeley Hunt. The OED entries for berk and Berkeley Hunt were written later than Franklyn's dictionary, so he didn't have access to this information.
In conclusion, then, the OED appears to be correct in tracing berk to Berkeley Hunt. This might have been re-enforced by association with Berkshire Hunt later on, but it looks as if Berkeley Hunt is where the term originally came from.
Thursday, 8 March 2012
chav
One result of the media attention is that I've been getting emails from people who've heard or read about the book, usually about individual words and their histories. Chav is one of these. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), it has been used with the sense "a young person of a type characterized by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of designer-style clothes (esp. sportswear); usually with connotations of a low social status" since 1998.
There's lots of speculation about the origins of chav, usually involving offensive stereotypes about people who live in Chatham. In reality, chav is from chavvy "a baby; a child", which is originally from an Angloromani word of the same meaning. In other words, Romany-speakers in England used chavvy "child" when they were speaking their own language. By 1886 it was being used in English, apparently among homeless people first (they were known as tramps at the time). From there it spread into wider dialect use in the south of England. It was picked up by the media in about 2004/5 and is now widely used.
You might have heard chavvy in the lyrics of Hersham Boys by Sham 69 or in Only Fools and Horses. Chavvy "child" is well documented, but if you can find an example of chav in its current sense from before 1998 or of chavvy "like a chav" from before 1999, please do let me know.
There's lots of speculation about the origins of chav, usually involving offensive stereotypes about people who live in Chatham. In reality, chav is from chavvy "a baby; a child", which is originally from an Angloromani word of the same meaning. In other words, Romany-speakers in England used chavvy "child" when they were speaking their own language. By 1886 it was being used in English, apparently among homeless people first (they were known as tramps at the time). From there it spread into wider dialect use in the south of England. It was picked up by the media in about 2004/5 and is now widely used.
You might have heard chavvy in the lyrics of Hersham Boys by Sham 69 or in Only Fools and Horses. Chavvy "child" is well documented, but if you can find an example of chav in its current sense from before 1998 or of chavvy "like a chav" from before 1999, please do let me know.
The Life of Slang
My book is getting a fair bit of media coverage just now, so I thought it would be useful to draw the links together (this is for my benefit more than anyone else's). The Life of Slang has been reviewed in We Love This Book, The Observer, The Independent and (behind a paywall) in the Sunday Times. I also got a mention in The Sun, but don't take those dates too seriously. There's a review on Mantex which misunderstands the relationship between UK and US troops in WWI: the earliest Americans in the war joined British forces, so naturally they picked up existing British slang -- you can access Jonathan Lighter's glossary to look at the evidence if you're a subscriber. I've been mentioned in various blogs, including That's Books, The Virtual Linguist, WilliamFlew and The blog formerly known as ... English Language @ SFX.
Incidentally, here are the blogs mentioned in the book: Bock the Robber and Gorilla Convict.
I've written about slang on the OxfordWords blog, The Huffington Post and We Love This Book, and you can also hear me on The Today programme. There are podcasts on YouTube on What Is Slang?, How Slang Spreads and 27 Ways to Say Groovy.
Incidentally, here are the blogs mentioned in the book: Bock the Robber and Gorilla Convict.
I've written about slang on the OxfordWords blog, The Huffington Post and We Love This Book, and you can also hear me on The Today programme. There are podcasts on YouTube on What Is Slang?, How Slang Spreads and 27 Ways to Say Groovy.
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