BBC 英语学习 俚语

English from BBC, learning English. Hello, and welcome to Six Minute English.

I'm Alice, and I'm Neil. Could you lend me some dash?

Neil? Sure. How much do you need?

A couple of smackers. You'll sound it strange today.

Alice Yes, I know. Neil. Slang, or informal language used by

a particular group, is the subject of today's show.

And I was just demonstrating a couple of slang words that mean money.

Dosh is a general term for money, and a smacker is a British pound, or US dollar.

OK, so cockney rhyming slang is a type of slang.

It's a coded language invented in the 19th century by cockneys so they could speak in front of the police without being understood.

And still, on the subject of money, I have a question for you, alice.

OK, what's cockney rhyming slang for money?

Is it a bread? B honey or C dough?

I think it's a bread. I bet you didn't know, neil, that I'm a cockney.

I don't add em an Eva.

Alice, that's a pot pie, adam, and eve means believe, and pork pie means lie.

Actually, you're right. I am not a cockney.

To be considered a cockney, you need to be born within hearing distance of the bells of St.

Mary Lebo Church in what is now the city of London, indeed.

Now, slang, as we've said, is colloquial or informal language, and it's characteristic of specific social groups.

We usually use it in informal conversation rather than in writing or more formal situations, like job interview.

We change the way we speak so that what we say is appropriate for a particular situation.

So you surprised me earlier alice by talking about Dosh and smackers because it didn't seem appropriate for presenting the show.

Sign use is often frowned upon or disapproved of.

Let's listen to Jonathan Green, a lexicographer of slang, talking about who uses slang and how this is changed.

Here he is on the radio program Word of Mouth.

Slang does have a bad reputation, and I would say this comes from its earliest collection, which was of criminal slang in the 1500s, in the 16th century, and it was associated with bad people.

And inevitably that has lingered. But now, in the last 4050 years, it's changed.

The definitions tend to stress different and jocular, funny, humorous, inventive, that kind of thing.

So we have records of 16th century slang in collections or dictionaries, words used by criminals as a code so they could talk without being understood.

And this bad reputation has lingered or been slow to disappear.

But for the last 50 years, weve been using slang to be funny and creative as well as to show belonging to a particular group and apparen'tly, we're very creative when talking about drinking and being drunk.

The slang word booze, meaning alcohol, comes from the 13th century Dutch word boozin, and there are hundreds of slang expressions to talk about drink and being drunk on the source, in your cups, half cut, hammered, squiffy, tipsy, wasted, legless, and many, many more that are far too rude to mention in this program.

So while these terms might not be strictly acceptable or appropriate informal contexts, they aren't offensive.

They are often amusing and help people bond in social groups.

By contrast, swear words or profanity means rude language that offends or upsets people.

And I'm not going to give any examples because that would be inappropriate and impolite.

Alice, OK, let's listen now to Jonathan Green and presenter Michael Rosen talking about jargon, another type of in group language jargon, what I would call is small O occupational, small P professional slang.

It's closed off environment. You get legal jug and you get a naval jug.

And I've been reading Patrick O'brien recently, and that's a wash with butter plates and feeding the dead.

This is radio for Jonathan. Be careful.

Jonathan Green in another segment of the BBC Radio for program Word of Mouth.

So he says jargon is occupational and professional, meaning people speak it at work, e.g.

lawyers and sailors. A fattic plate is, I believe, an iron plate attached to the top of a ship's mask.

But I don't know much about this subject.

That's the idea, though. Jargon is the technical language belonging to a specific group and to outsiders.

This jargon is often hard to understand.

Yes, and here in the studio, I can use all the radio jargon that I like.

Look at my faders here, at us going down, up and up, and I'm just testing our

levels. Come on, leave the Fada alone.

It controls the level of sound on a studio deck.

Now it's time for the answer to today's quiz Questionnail I asked you, what's cockney rhyming slang for money?

Is it a bread, b honey or C dough?

And I said, A bread.

And you are right, alice, cockney rhyming slang uses just the 1st word of a phrase that rhymes with the word were trying to disguise.

So money becomes bread and honey, but we just say bread.

OK? So let's recap on the words we've learned today.

They are slang, dash, smacker, cockney, rhyming, slang, colloquial, frowned upon, lingered, booze, swear, profanity, jargon.

Well, that's the end of today's six minute English.

Please join us again soon. Bye, bye, bye.

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