Word: slangs
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Wonderful is British school boys' slang. Derived from Latin, classical literature and centuries of schoolboy gibberish, it is as much a trademark of public (British for private) schools as the old school tie. It is also a clue to the character of British public schoolboys. Last week Britons able to take their minds off death in Flanders could amuse themselves with an authoritative new dictionary of schoolboys' slang (Public School Slang, by Morris Marples -Constable...
Since World War 1, schoolboy slang has been enriched by army expressions (e.g., gadget, posh, to do the dirty, to scrounge, to -wangle') and by Americanisms (lay off, scram). Most of it, however, is still the schoolboys' own, often unintelligible to outsiders. A Bootham boy, for example, says: "Just had a juice-meeting with My Lord for tuzhering a bug." Translation: "I've just been reprimanded by the Headmaster for breaking an electric-light bulb." Some other outlandish schoolboy expressions: belly-go-round (a belt), Medes and Persians (the practice of jumping...
...Warm Springs slang for anyone afflicted with poliomyelitis...
Known in naval slang as the "Jap Babies" because they were designed and calibred in anticipation of Japan's walkout on the 1936 London Naval Conference, Britain's new battleships are armed with ten 14-in. guns in one two-gun and two four-gun turrets. They shoot 1,560-lb. shells, claim to have greater range and hitting power than earlier British 15-inchers, to be only slightly inferior to foreign 16-inchers. Their speed is over 30 knots, seven more than that of the Nelson and Rodney, completed in 1927 and hitherto Britain's most...
...mountain boys & girls at Caney Creek get their education free. In return they must promise to return home and work among the Kentucky mountain folk. When the chosen few (the waiting list is 1,000-long) enter, girls must forswear jewelry, cosmetics, slang, high heels. For boys the rules are stiffer: no tobacco, gambling, liquor, guns or "unauthorized meetings with the opposite...