Tony Thorne (born 1950 in Cairo, Egypt) is a British author, linguist and lexicographer specialising in slang, jargon and cultural history. He is a leading authority on language change and language usage in the UK and across the English-speaking world.
Thorne attended Hampton School and the University of Kent at Canterbury.
Thorne's Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, [1] published by Bloomsbury in February 2014, remains one of the only treatments of the subject to be based on examples of authentic speech rather than purely upon written or broadcast sources, while Shoot the Puppy, a survey of the latest buzzwords and jargon, drew upon his inside experience of corporate life while working as a communications consultant for multinationals, NGOs and business schools. [2] His 100 Words That Make the English, published by Abacus in April 2011, consists of essays on one hundred key words that are most emblematic of English identity in the 20th and 21st centuries. [3]
After explorations in Central and Eastern Europe following the fall of communism and the opening of lost archives, Tony Thorne published the definitive English-language biography of the 16th century Hungarian Countess Erzsebet Bathory, reputed to be a mass murderer who bathed in the blood of her victims. [4] His Children of the Night is a comprehensive account of the historical origins of the vampire myth as well as its subsequent representations in literature and popular culture. The book additionally examines contemporary vampire culture through interviews with self-styled ‘living vampires'.
Thorne has also written a life of the 18th century French waxworker, Madame Tussaud, for children, and writes on outsider and visionary art. [5]
From 1991 to 2007 he was Director of the Language Centre at King's College London where he is now Visiting Consultant. He founded and oversees the Slang and New Language Archive at King's, a library and database resource recording language change and tracking linguistic controversies.
He has written and presented programmes on language and popular culture for BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, and is a regular contributor to media discussions of language controversies, [6] communication technologies and lifestyle innovations. He contributed the ‘Yoofspeak' column to the Times Educational Supplement and wrote the 'Bizword' column in British Airway's Business Life magazine. Thorne also acts as independent consultant and expert witness in legal proceedings involving copyright and branding disputes, and criminal proceedings involving the interpretation of slang and criminal language. [7] Most recently he has compiled lexicons of language relating to Brexit and populism, [8] recorded and commented on new language associated with the Coronavirus pandemic [9] and new language used by GenZ and TikTokers [10]
Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhyming slang. In the US, especially the criminal underworld of the West Coast between 1880 and 1920, rhyming slang has sometimes been known as Australian slang.
Gibberish, also known as jibber-jabber or gobbledygook, is speech that is nonsense: ranging across speech sounds that are not actual words, pseudowords, language games and specialized jargon that seems nonsensical to outsiders.
Internet slang is a non-standard or unofficial form of language used by people on the Internet to communicate to one another. An example of Internet slang is "lol" meaning "laugh out loud." Since Internet slang is constantly changing, it is difficult to provide a standardized definition. However, it can be understood to be any type of slang that Internet users have popularized, and in many cases, have coined. Such terms often originate with the purpose of saving keystrokes or to compensate for small character limits. Many people use the same abbreviations in texting, instant messaging, and social networking websites. Acronyms, keyboard symbols, and abbreviations are common types of Internet slang. New dialects of slang, such as leet or Lolspeak, develop as ingroup Internet memes rather than time savers. Many people also use Internet slang in face-to-face, real life communication.
A slang is a vocabulary of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of particular in-groups in order to establish group identity, exclude outsiders, or both. The word itself came about in the 18th century and has been defined in multiple ways since its conception, with no single technical usage in linguistics.
Jargon or technical language is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a particular occupation, but any ingroup can have jargon. The key characteristic that distinguishes jargon from the rest of a language is its specialized vocabulary, which includes terms and definitions of words that are unique to the context, and terms used in a narrower and more exact sense than when used in colloquial language. This can lead outgroups to misunderstand communication attempts. Jargon is sometimes understood as a form of technical slang and then distinguished from the official terminology used in a particular field of activity.
Polari is a form of slang or cant historically used in Britain by some actors, circus and fairground performers, professional wrestlers, merchant navy sailors, criminals and sex workers, and particularly among the gay subculture. There is some debate about its origins, but it can be traced to at least the 19th century and possibly as early as the 16th century. Polari has a long-standing connection with Punch and Judy street puppeteers, who traditionally used it to converse.
Colloquialism is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conversation and other informal contexts. Colloquialism is characterized by wide usage of interjections and other expressive devices; it makes use of non-specialist terminology, and has a rapidly changing lexicon. It can also be distinguished by its usage of formulations with incomplete logical and syntactic ordering.
In linguistics, a neologism is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered a neologism once it is published in a dictionary.
Eric Honeywood Partridge was a New Zealand–British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the Army Education Corps and the RAF correspondence department during World War II.
Pikey is an ethnic slur referring to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. It is used mainly in the United Kingdom and in Ireland to refer to people who belong to groups which had a traditional travelling lifestyle. Groups referred to with this term include Irish Travellers, English Gypsies, Welsh Kale, Scottish Lowland Travellers, Scottish Highland Travellers, and Funfair Travellers. These groups consider the term to be extremely offensive.
A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group. It may also be called a cryptolect, argot, pseudo-language, anti-language or secret language. Each term differs slightly in meaning; their uses are inconsistent. Richard Rorty defines cant by saying that "'Cant', in the sense in which Samuel Johnson exclaims, 'Clear your mind of cant,' means, in other words, something like that which 'people usually say without thinking, the standard thing to say, what one normally says'." In Heideggerian terms it is what "das Man" says.
Multicultural London English is a sociolect of English that emerged in the late 20th century. It is spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London.
A slang dictionary is a reference book containing an alphabetical list of slang, which is vernacular vocabulary not generally acceptable in formal usage, usually including information given for each word, including meaning, pronunciation, and etymology. It can provide definitions on a range of slang from more mundane terms to obscure sexual practices. Such works also can include words and phrases arising from different dialects and argots, which may or may not have passed into more common usage. They can also track the changing meaning of the terms over time and space, as they migrate and mutate.
Laurence Daren King is an English novelist and children's writer. His debut novel, Boxy an Star, made the shortlist for the Guardian First Book Award and the ten finalists for the Booker Prize in 1999. He won the Nestlé Children's Book Prize gold medal in the 6 to 8-year-old readers category for Mouse Noses on Toast in 2006.
British slang is English-language slang originating from and used in the United Kingdom and also used to a limited extent in Anglophone countries such as India, Malaysia, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, especially by British expatriates. It is also used in the United States to a limited extent. Slang is informal language sometimes peculiar to a particular social class or group and its use in Britain dates back to before the 15th century. The language of slang, in common with the English language, is changing all the time; new words and phrases are being added and some are used so frequently by so many, they almost become mainstream.
Jonathon Green is an English lexicographer of slang and writer on the history of alternative cultures.
A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English is a dictionary of slang originally compiled by the noted lexicographer of the English language Eric Partridge. The first edition was published in 1937 and seven editions were eventually published by Partridge. An eighth edition was published in 1984, after Partridge's death, by editor Paul Beale; in 1990 Beale published an abridged version, Partridge's Concise Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English.
A bovver boot is a type of boot that has been associated with violence. Such boots are generally of sturdy design and may be steel-toed. They have been considered as offensive weapons used by hooligans for kicking opponents while street fighting. The boots became known in the late 1960s in the United Kingdom, and continue to be a fashion statement associated with rebellion.
Prick is a vulgar word for 'penis' as well as a pejorative term used to refer to a despicable or contemptible individual. It is generally considered offensive, though in the past it has been used as a term of endearment. Its history as a euphemism for 'penis' goes back to the 1500s and has been used in wordplay by Shakespeare and other writers who have combined the vulgarism with the standard meaning of the noun, which means the act of piercing or puncturing. Most linguists believe it has been used as a direct insult only since 1929.
"A load of old cobblers" and variants such as "what a load of cobblers" or just "cobblers!" is British slang for "what nonsense" that is derived from the Cockney rhyming slang for "balls" (testicles) of "cobbler's awls". The phrase began to be widely used from the 1960s and is still in use but has become less offensive over time as its origins have been forgotten.