4 ms·

Green’s Dictionary of Slang - Five hundred years of the vulgar tongue

114 points by mxfh 8mo ago

yread 8mo ago
Nice! Brings back memories how we made a list of expressions for "fucking" in Czech. Got to 344 before moving on. It's still online even! https://www.pismak.cz/dilo/41683/ https://www.pismak.cz/dilo/41683/
- fanf2 8mo ago
  There is an English dictionary of fuck called The F Word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F-Word_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F-Word_(book)
- blauditore 8mo ago
  Translating this page to English is quite funny
runamuck 8mo ago
Tough guys with Mullets that blasted Metallica said "Mint" (term of approval) every sentence back in 1980's Long Island. I just learned it also meant "a trace of homosexual tendencies" a few decades prior.
- sublinear 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - Loughla 8mo ago
    With all due respect, genuinely, what are you talking about? I don't read any angst in that comment, just an interesting observation about local slang and the history of similar words. Also if you're not supposed to comment about culture or identity in a thread about slang, a very cultural and identity specific concept, what's the point of the article?
  - rc5150 8mo ago
    Your comment reeks of elitism and condescension. If you're this upset over a public comment on a public forum, perhaps you should take your needless pedantry to a private forum where you can moderate out anyone with differing perspectives.
    - fsckboy 8mo ago
      when you read the parent comment, "Tough guys with Mullets that blasted Metallica said "Mint" (term of approval) every sentence back in 1980's Long Island", you didn't think to write, "Your comment reeks of elitism and condescension"?
gadders 8mo ago
I can also recommend Roger's Profanisaurus for a British view of swearwords and vulgar euphemisms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger%27s_Profanisaurus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger%27s_Profanisaurus
jmward01 8mo ago
I did a lot of text cleaning a while ago and we tried to normalize curse word spelling as part of that. That was, by far, the most interesting text cleaning I have ever done. It is really clear how much innovation in the English language is happening there.
NelsonMinar 8mo ago
Economist had a good article recently about how this came to be 15 years ago: https://www.economist.com/interactive/christmas-specials/2025/12/18/what-street-talk-reveals-about-anglophone-civilisation https://www.economist.com/interactive/christmas-specials/202... Long story short he got lucky in the 90s with an inheritance and a publisher and can now devote his life to researching and publishing English slang. It's also interesting to me because it's a project that started as a book but has now migrated successfully to the Internet, both for publishing the dictionary and for doing research for updates to the dictionary.
- decimalenough 8mo ago
  https://archive.is/GWLTQ https://archive.is/GWLTQ (now with complimentary membership in a botnet)
- RestartKernel 8mo ago
  I always love seeing what people dedicate their time to when money is no longer a factor. May we all be so lucky.
ilamont 8mo ago
I have a copy of Greens printed in the 1990s. It's very extensive and frankly seems like a hopeless exercise to gather them considering how fast language evolves, as well as hyperlocal terms.
- ggm 8mo ago
  Culture as language, culture as dress. Burberry was a ww1 trench coat, the hunting shooting fishing set and then descended to be ambitious working class Essex Chav. Same with slang, polari was gay slang, BBC radio artful in-joke, normalised, now obscure. Old is new is old. Kids hate nothing more than grandma throwing gang signs they learned from their elders not knowing the elder in question learned it from grandma first. People probably get phd in the second order differential of slang rate of change.
mmsc 8mo ago
Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London documented some of the swear words of his time [0]. It's interesting reading them as a native speaker, as there's so few that I could even begin to guess what they mean. [0]: https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/prose/DownandOut/downandout_32.html https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/prose/Downand...
thrownawaysz 8mo ago
Interestingly there are some not so good sources >F >[SE fail, also used as a mark for inadequate work, or fuck!] >(juv.) response to someone else’s bad news. F doesn't come from fail but from Call of Duty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_F_to_pay_respects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_F_to_pay_respects https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/press-f-to-pay-respects https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/press-f-to-pay-respects
cassepipe 8mo ago
https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/f6tiony https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/f6tiony

114 points by mxfh 8mo ago

yread 8mo ago

Nice! Brings back memories how we made a list of expressions for "fucking" in Czech. Got to 344 before moving on. It's still online even! https://www.pismak.cz/dilo/41683/ https://www.pismak.cz/dilo/41683/

fanf2 8mo ago
There is an English dictionary of fuck called The F Word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F-Word_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F-Word_(book)
blauditore 8mo ago
Translating this page to English is quite funny

runamuck 8mo ago

Tough guys with Mullets that blasted Metallica said "Mint" (term of approval) every sentence back in 1980's Long Island. I just learned it also meant "a trace of homosexual tendencies" a few decades prior.

sublinear 8mo ago
[flagged]
- Loughla 8mo ago
  With all due respect, genuinely, what are you talking about? I don't read any angst in that comment, just an interesting observation about local slang and the history of similar words. Also if you're not supposed to comment about culture or identity in a thread about slang, a very cultural and identity specific concept, what's the point of the article?
- rc5150 8mo ago
  Your comment reeks of elitism and condescension. If you're this upset over a public comment on a public forum, perhaps you should take your needless pedantry to a private forum where you can moderate out anyone with differing perspectives.
  - fsckboy 8mo ago
    when you read the parent comment, "Tough guys with Mullets that blasted Metallica said "Mint" (term of approval) every sentence back in 1980's Long Island", you didn't think to write, "Your comment reeks of elitism and condescension"?

gadders 8mo ago

I can also recommend Roger's Profanisaurus for a British view of swearwords and vulgar euphemisms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger%27s_Profanisaurus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger%27s_Profanisaurus

jmward01 8mo ago

I did a lot of text cleaning a while ago and we tried to normalize curse word spelling as part of that. That was, by far, the most interesting text cleaning I have ever done. It is really clear how much innovation in the English language is happening there.

NelsonMinar 8mo ago

Economist had a good article recently about how this came to be 15 years ago: https://www.economist.com/interactive/christmas-specials/2025/12/18/what-street-talk-reveals-about-anglophone-civilisation https://www.economist.com/interactive/christmas-specials/202... Long story short he got lucky in the 90s with an inheritance and a publisher and can now devote his life to researching and publishing English slang. It's also interesting to me because it's a project that started as a book but has now migrated successfully to the Internet, both for publishing the dictionary and for doing research for updates to the dictionary.

decimalenough 8mo ago
https://archive.is/GWLTQ https://archive.is/GWLTQ (now with complimentary membership in a botnet)
RestartKernel 8mo ago
I always love seeing what people dedicate their time to when money is no longer a factor. May we all be so lucky.

ilamont 8mo ago

I have a copy of Greens printed in the 1990s. It's very extensive and frankly seems like a hopeless exercise to gather them considering how fast language evolves, as well as hyperlocal terms.

ggm 8mo ago
Culture as language, culture as dress. Burberry was a ww1 trench coat, the hunting shooting fishing set and then descended to be ambitious working class Essex Chav. Same with slang, polari was gay slang, BBC radio artful in-joke, normalised, now obscure. Old is new is old. Kids hate nothing more than grandma throwing gang signs they learned from their elders not knowing the elder in question learned it from grandma first. People probably get phd in the second order differential of slang rate of change.

mmsc 8mo ago

Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London documented some of the swear words of his time [0]. It's interesting reading them as a native speaker, as there's so few that I could even begin to guess what they mean. [0]: https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/prose/DownandOut/downandout_32.html https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/prose/Downand...

thrownawaysz 8mo ago

Interestingly there are some not so good sources >F >[SE fail, also used as a mark for inadequate work, or fuck!] >(juv.) response to someone else’s bad news. F doesn't come from fail but from Call of Duty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_F_to_pay_respects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_F_to_pay_respects https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/press-f-to-pay-respects https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/press-f-to-pay-respects

cassepipe 8mo ago

https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/f6tiony https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/f6tiony