Talk:London slang

Sub culture

This sounds like a particular sub-culture's slang, rather than London slang. Many of the words do not need explaining here as their meanings are just the same as those found in any dictionary or in many other places. For example, 'dry' means boring anywhere in England, 'blank' means ignore anywhere, and so on. This needs addressing, because it's deleteworthy otherwise. Brequinda 07:52, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

If this is London slang at all, it's not anything I've heard, in 20 years of living in London. In any case, a proper article on slang in London would be far more detailed than this, as it would need to describe all the different kinds of slang prevalent in different London ethnic and socioeconomic groups, as well as subcultures. -- Karada 07:59, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

As a Londoner myself I am inclined to agree. Most of these words tend to be used by younger people, mainly in the East and North London and by so-called 'roadmen'. This article seems to be simply describing the evolved form of MLE that is prevalent in a limited number of settings of London and is not representative of the broader situation in London at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.10.226.252 (talk) 22:56, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Definition

For a definition on London slang, you actually get a fair bit of it wrong. To address what the person above said about 'dry' meaning the same in the rest of the UK as it does in London, that's because slang terms tend to filter away from London to other parts and gets adopted or further bastardised.

I don't think this is a very good article overall. The UK has very distinctive regional slang, and while some London slang does filter into general usage, this cannot generally be said to be the case. This article should not be a redirect from "British slang". Furthermore, the examples of slang are ropey (sic: "of poor quality"). For example, "The Gherkin" is not slang ("A kind of language occurring chiefly in casual and playful speech, made up typically of short-lived coinages and figures of speech that are deliberately used in place of standard terms for added raciness, humor, irreverence, or other effect.), it's a nickname ("A descriptive name added to or replacing the actual name of a person, place, or thing.")

This article needs significant improvement – if it doesn't receive some, I will add it to Pages needing attention. Didsbury ryder 20:05, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Attention notice added Didsbury ryder 19:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

POV

"One problem with identifying what is specifically London slang is that the dominant cultural position that London has within the United Kingdom causes London slang to be exported to the rest of the UK, leading to London slang becoming general United Kingdom English slang." Sloppily worded, and POV. Slang travels around the country, not just from London. --kingboyk 08:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah exactly. I live in Leeds, and ive barely heard any of these words used. Besides, the UK isnt totally subject to London culturally, thats POV. There is widespread regional slang —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.38.250.69 (talk • contribs) 05:42, 26 April 2006.

I edited where i felt appropriate... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.109.10.213 (talk • contribs) 01:27, 24 May 2006.

The list of words

The list of common London slang words must be shortened considerably. 5-10 examples would be enough, but I don't live in London (any longer) so I have no idea what 5-10 should be left. Could somebody more familiar with it shorten it? Mackan 17:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect, the huge and diverse population of London means that 'common' london slang includes many examples. I personally dony see a problem with it, as the page Boston slang contains far more examples than this one. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.41.117.87 (talk • contribs) 21:43, 27 June 2006.

It is clearly stated in [1] that Wikipedia is not a dictionary and that it's no place for dictionary definitions nor lists of such definitions. I haven't seen the Boston slang article but if that one has many examples, it too should probably be shortened. Mackan 14:11, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok...then I'll shorten it to about 10 examples if it means that much to you. And i know its not a dictionary etc, but surely the articles are supposed to give good representations on the subjects theyre about. And like you said, you dont live in London any more, so leave the criticism of the article to those of us who do.

Keep a civil tone, it's not about who's living in London and who isn't, it's about the way Wikipedia articles are written. Mackan 04:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Im lost. I get told to shorten it to 10 examples. I do so. Someone lengthens it to about 30 examples. I change it back, and im told im vandalising.

It was previously stated that a "pony" is London slang for £100. I changed this, because it is actually £25. - Zestos, 7 Dec 06, 20:60 (GMT)

That's certainly a baffling table. I live in East London and I have never ever heard half the words in it used, though some are, of course, well old Minder/Sweeney stock-in-trade... Tarquin Binary 00:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

If you're going to add pony, I think ton (£100) and monkey (£500) should be added as well as the more widespread variants of score (£20) and benner (£10). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teh.cmn (talk • contribs) 15:10, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Attention: Slang Glossary policy discussion underway

Slang glossaries violate the following policy:

Wikipedia is not a dictionary

Wikipedia is not a dictionary or a usage or jargon guide. Wikipedia articles are not:

1. Dictionary definitions. Because Wikipedia is not a dictionary, please do not create an entry merely to define a term. An article should usually begin with a good definition; if you come across an article that is nothing more than a definition, see if there is information you can add that would be appropriate for an encyclopedia. An exception to this rule is for articles about the cultural meanings of individual numbers.
2. Lists of such definitions. There are, however, disambiguation pages consisting of pointers to other pages; these are used to clarify differing meanings of a word. Wikipedia also includes glossary pages for various specialized fields.
3. A usage guide or slang and idiom guide. Wikipedia is not in the business of saying how words, idioms, etc. should be used. We aren't teaching people how to talk like a Cockney chimney-sweep. However, it may be important in the context of an encyclopedia article to describe just how a word is used to distinguish among similar, easily confused ideas, as in nation or freedom. In some special cases an article about an essential piece of slang may be appropriate.

---

Due to the many AfDs which are initiated to enforce this policy and due to the resistance to such deletion by defenders of the glossaries, I have started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Slang glossaries to rewrite the policy in order to solve this problem and to readdress this question: should slang glossaries by allowed on Wikipedia? --List Expert 23:41, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Edited Modern London Slang and removed 'School Slang'

I've gone to great length sourcing and explaining the origin of modern London slang.

The 'school slang' section needed to be removed, as this 'School Slang' is just a form of Modern London Slang. The list of words was also far too long.

The slang spoken in school is just the same as the Jafaican slang in the paragraph above. It does not warrant its own badly-written explaination followed by a huge list of examples. Mkimemia 06:27, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Jafaican

Gal dem? Greazy? Choong? This is just a list of Jafaican. Why not use a list of GENERAL London slang, not one used only by a particular sub-culture. This needs to be changed.

the term jafaican is not a type of slag at all, but is a phrase used to describe some one who pretends to be of Caribbean birth. and attempts to speak patwa or with a Jamaican accent

the word is a mix of the words : "fake" and "Jamaican" to = ja-fake-can aka ja-fa-ican

being some one who speaks the dialect i assure you, where ever you got this information is wrong,

on a side not

also the words used in text messages don't doesn't relate either. the slag in "tx speak" was around before tx-ing became a popular trend, as it has been used by on-line gaming community, people who communicate by email and use msn etc,

its purpose is to short the time taken to write something and to use less words in doing so (in regards to a sms message, you get charge more for the more pages a massage takes up so its financially beneficial to say as much as you can in a short space)

acronyms like b.r.b,and a.t.m is all old lingo, with that said, there have been the addition of new abbreviations such a s.n.m(say no more) which is take from slang used to end conversation

cockney rhyming slag is still used. just by a different generation and usually in different areas of London. it is more common in the east end of London, and isn't often heard in the south and north

the music form grime isnt a sub genre of rap, nor doest it create slag.

id say it broadcast it, the mc/rappers from the scene speak the slag they do on the streets when recording, some words might be popular in one part of London(eg north), and not any where else, but due to the music the words spreed around London and beyond.

the majority of the influence is from the Caribbean and American.

take the word girl for example. pronounced and spelt gyal, would be Caribbean , where chick is more American, some words have British origin like gash. all 3 words are commonly used and mean the same thing, but are derived from different influences

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.178.122.162 (talk) 17:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

"Patwa" or patois? 2.24.88.209 (talk) 22:51, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

WTF is this?

"Let's go to the West End tonight, you guys, and let us rob some stuff." becomes, "You man, come we go West tonight and rip bare shit."

This entire article is a train wreck, and focuses more on East End 'jafaican' than other London slang, whereas as soon as you go outside the North Circular the nature of the accent changes very quickly to a more Home Counties-like nature.

Not only that, but you hear bare, long, mission (as verb), and other similar terms as far out as Colchester nowadays.

Negative stereotypes

As mentioned before, this article focuses mainly on Jafaican slang and it is questionable if it stands to Wikipedia standards, but it is unnecessary and unacceptable that the example of usage of this slang involves a criminal activity. It would be equally effect full to write something like "let us go to the West End and have some fun" or anything of the sort. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.237.139.119 (talk) 11:09, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

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What is this article about?

Given that this article is supposed to be about London Slang, it contains an awful lot of mainstream English words. For example, ‘vexed’ is not slang nor is it limited to London, it is a standard English word, commonly used across the globe. Here it is in George Elliot’s ‘Middlemarch’, written in 1871, where it is used to mean ‘angry’; the exact meaning attributed to it in this article.[[2]] Then there is ‘look’ to mean appearance. Routinely used in that sense, in phrases such as ‘looking good’, ‘she’s got the look’ and ‘looking your best’ etc.[[3]], [[4]], [[5]]. ‘Rate’, meaning to rate highly, is also common standard English term and here are two examples of that. [[6]], [[7]]

Other examples of mainstream English in this article include ‘mad’ to mean crazy and ‘boss’ or ‘bossman’ to mean person in charge . ‘Myth’ and ‘Fool’, while not exactly meaning untrue and unintelligent respectively, are close enough to their true definitions to make me wonder whether this is not more to do with the editor’s own misinterpretation.

Along with standard English there are a number of colloquialisms which are so widespread that they have almost become mainstream phrases. These include ‘On tap’ to mean easily obtained or near to hand. So common is this phrase that in 1940, Eric Partridge described it as a cliché![[8]] Then there is ‘bread’ and ‘dough’ to mean money. Again, so widely used, this book doesn’t even acknowledge them as colloquialisms, merely as alternative names for money.[[9]] ‘Clout’, to mean influence in business, is again so commonly understood that nobody even bothers to define it anymore.[[10]], [[11]], [[12]].

‘Business’ is defined in this article as ‘something to attend to’. What, as in ‘taking care of business’ or ‘having business to attend to’? [[13]], [[14]] One might call this an informal usage but that's a moot point; Chambers doesn't consider it so. The only dictionary definition of business deemed colloquial is when it means the best (this is the business) or when it means something difficult or complicated (this is a right old business). ‘Cop’, we are told, means to obtain. Yes, or ‘get’, as in ‘cop a feel’, ‘cop off with’, 'you'll cop it in a minute' and ‘cop a load of that’![[15]]. It's used extensively throughout Britain and Australia and I suspect, much of the Commonwealth. Here it is meaning 'obtain' in a hippie dictionary.[[16]]

Splash meaning to spend is another common colloquiallism. Hence the terms 'splash out' and 'splash the cash'. [[17]], [[18]] Here it is in an intermediate guide to speaking English.[[19]] So not really slang then.

And 'balls', that's just another word for bollocks and is constantly being used by most English speakers to describe something which is, well, bollocks! Oh, and articles such as this. Time to put a stop to this madness (or craziness if you prefer to use what this article incorrectly insists is its slang definition)!--Ykraps (talk) 15:49, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Your recent edits to this page, and your comments above, are correct. This article isn't for "words that are used in London", it's for slang that distinctively originates in London. Many recent anonymous editors seem to not understand this and have watered down the page to the point of uselessness.  — Scott • talk 16:20, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Agree. More pressingly, that entire huge list is unreferenced and probably unreferencable. – filelakeshoe (t / c)  19:01, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks both for entering the discussion. If there's no serious opposition here over the next couple of days, I will remove the words I consider mainstream, and then perhaps we can have another discussion about which slang words are London slang. Regards--Ykraps (talk) 17:56, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

I would like to remove the words, shank, shanked and nonce on the grounds that they are prison slang, used in prisons nationwide, not just London.[[20]] Nonce is an odd one though, defined here as an unintelligent person. Everywhere else a nonce is a sex-offender and in particular a paedophile [[21]][[22]] so it may be that it does have another slang meaning but I think it more likely that the ip has heard it used in a derogatory fashion and made an incorrect assumption. Thoughts anyone?--Ykraps (talk) 08:15, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

I think "nonce" is one of those words that used to have a specific meaning but is now just used as a generic insult among kids, similar to "mong", "spastic" and so on. Not sure if it is necessarily a London ting. – filelakeshoe (t / c)  08:35, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

This article is terrible

I've lived in London for years, and come across only a small number of these "words". In addition to my questioning the validity of dozens of these words outright, many of the examples here are wrong and/or not slang. Take "wagwan" (Which I've always heard pronounced "wa'gwan") - it's literally "what's going on?" not "what's up?" not much of a distinction I know, but still, it's clearly the right answer. Others like "Brudda" are more of an accent thing, where the softer "th" sound becomes a hard "d" sound. By that measure, why is "Das" (that's) not in the list? "Das f***ed up, Bruv". 62.172.72.131 (talk) 11:22, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

This article should be deleted

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No consensus to either delete of merge, despite discussion over more than a year. Klbrain (talk) 06:16, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

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The article Multicultural London English covers everything that this article covers and more with many more sources. This article should be deleted. Progenitor Eri (talk) 22:59, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

• @Progenitor Eri: That's not a reason to delete, but it is a reason to merge. If you want to propose that to happen, please follow the steps at Wikipedia:Proposed mergers#How to propose a merger.  — Scott • talk 14:25, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
• I oppose this merge in principle as "London slang" as a topic should probably have a wider scope than MLE, also covering rhyming slang, costermonger back slang, Polari, thieves cants and other London slangs from the past. In addition MLE is more than just slang (i.e. words), it's also a set of distinctive phonological and grammatical features. But as our MLE article talks a lot about slang, and this article discusses mostly MLE, merging and redirecting the current article to the MLE one would be reasonable for the time being. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 20:14, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
• I agree with the reply above, but not with regards to merger. As the individual spoke of the various varieties spoken currently or in the past in English, some actually people cants or cryptolects, I believe the article should be maintained and expanded with more information on the various dialects of English spoken in English either currently or in the past, MLE being one. MLE is not the sole slang of London, and various varieties from around the world and country are spoken there. UaMaol (talk) 23:33, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

London slang?

It,s atually jamaican slang from the jamaican raggamuffins and the yardies in the 80,s. Only Blacks speak this slang nobody else. The English in London is actually 'cockney' accent so this article is bull. 82.39.142.147 (talk) 18:05, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

You're referring to MLE. Cockney and various other dialects are also spoken in London, which is why this article should exist.UaMaol (talk) 23:28, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Multicultural London English

There's basically nothing in this little-used stub after anything redundant with other articles has been removed. Conceptually, "London slang" is the vocabulary section of MLE.

In a comment above from a few years ago, someone says that this article should be separate from MLE because "Cockney and various other dialects are also spoken" - that is literally multiple cultures in London speaking English.  — Scott • talk 16:31, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

No objections in a month. I went through what was left and nothing was actually worth merging. Redirected.  — Scott • talk 23:26, 21 May 2022 (UTC)