Name: English Rewind - 6 Minute English: Slang
Uploaded: 2025-09-09T21:01:10.000Z
Duration: 6 min 35 s
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Hello. Catherine here from BBC Learning English.

Adverbs of degree

Just so you know, this programme is from the BBC Learning English Archive and was first broadcast in September 2016 on our website.

Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I'm Alice.

You're sounding a bit strange today, Alice.

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.

I bet you didn't know, Neil, that I'm a Cockney.

Oh, don't Adam and Eve it, Alice. That's a pork pie.

Adam and Eve means believe and pork pie means lie.

Actually, you're right, I'm not a Cockney.

To be considered a Cockney, you need to be born within hearing distance of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow 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 a 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.

Slang 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 has changed.

Here he is on the Radio 4 programme 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 40, 50 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 we've been using slang to be funny and creative as well as to show belonging to a particular group.

And apparently we're very creative when talking about drinking and being drunk.

The slang word booze, meaning alcohol, comes from the 13th century Dutch word boezen.

And there are hundreds of slang expressions to talk about drink and being drunk – on the sauce, in your cups, half-cut, hammered, squiffy, tipsy, wasted, legless and many, many more that are far too rude to mention in this programme.

Yes. So while these terms might not be strictly acceptable or appropriate in formal 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.

You get legal jargon, you get naval jargon.

I've been reading Patrick O'Brien recently and that's awash with futtock plates and fiddying the deck.

Jonathan Green in another segment of the BBC Radio 4 programme, Word of Mouth.

So he says jargon is occupational and professional, meaning people speak it at work, for example, lawyers and sailors.

A futtock plate is, I believe, an iron plate attached to the top of a ship's mast.

But I don't know much about this subject.

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, Alice, going down and up and up and I'm just testing our levels.

It controls the level of sound on a studio deck.

Now it's time for the answer to today's quiz question, Neil.

I asked you, what's Cockney rhyming slang for money?

Cockney rhyming slang uses just the first word of a phrase that rhymes with the word we're trying to disguise.

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

OK, so let's recap on the words we've learnt today.

slang, dosh, smacker, Cockney rhyming slang, colloquial,

frowned upon, lingered, booze, swear, profanity, jargon.

Well, that's the end of today's 6 Minute English.