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The introduction acknowledges that slang is an ever-changing language with new slang terms emerging all the time. It also recognises that some service slang has made its way into civilian use. [ 16 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] Examples of this include the old naval terms, "Talking bilge" (nonsense) and "A loose cannon" (an unorthodox person with the ...
Williamsburg slang is based on the everyday vocabulary of the eighteenth century, which presents a challenge for the costumed interpreters of this colonial haven. They are extensively trained ...
In 1993 Cassell commissioned Green to create a new dictionary, this time broadening the focus to include slang terms from approximately 1500 onwards, but without citations. The first edition of the single-volume Cassell's Dictionary of Slang appeared in 1998. [5] Cassell immediately commissioned a sequel with full historical quotations as in ...
The word has been around since the mid-19th century. Intended as a pejorative, the word is not commonly used today, though it retains that connotation. [2] [3] The term is thought to have originated in the 1850s as lime-juicer, [4] later shortened to "limey", [5] and was originally used as a derogatory word for sailors in the Royal Navy.
A macaroni (formerly spelled maccaroni [1]) was a pejorative term used to describe a fashionable fellow of 18th-century Britain. Stereotypically, men in the macaroni subculture dressed, spoke, and behaved in an unusually epicene and androgynous manner.
An 18th century artwork by William Hogarth featuring a disorderly setting.. Willy-nilly is an English-language idiom and a slang which describes an activity, an action or event that is done in a disorganized, unplanned, or vacillating manner.
Fop was a pejorative term for a man excessively concerned with his appearance and clothes in 17th-century England. Some of the many similar alternative terms are: coxcomb, [1] fribble, popinjay (meaning 'parrot'), dandy, fashion-monger, and ninny. Macaroni was another term of the 18th century more specifically concerned with fashion.
Slang dictionaries have been around for hundreds of years. The Canting Academy, or Devil's Cabinet Opened was a 17th-century slang dictionary, written in 1673 by Richard Head, that looked to define thieves' cant. [1] A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew, was first published c. 1698.