BRITSLANG - Tapa dura

Slang is an integral part of the English language and has been so for the best part of 200 years. The most popular belief is that it began as a secret language of the underworld, formed to confused the 'peelers' and the casual eavesdropper. The truth is that although the origins of slang are confused, it is part of parcel of our way of speaking, with new words added every year. Do you remember a time before dot coms and the 'net? Have you ever bunked off, arsed around or told a porky pie? If you have then you know that this country has a whole other language, a perverted English that is so commonly used that many of us forget that we are proficient users of it. Ray Puxley describes this as 'Slanguage' and in this fascinating book he lists all of the gems that we regularly use and many that some of us might not know the meaning of and which are recorded here for the first time. Slanguage will reveal a whole new side of our mother tongue.