An update on the unusual role of an ‘expert linguist witness’
Elsewhere on this site I have written about the ‘street slang‘ used by gang members and other young people in the UK, a variety of language also featuring in the lyrics of Drill and other rap music genres. In October 2020 I was invited by the Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics to talk about my role in translating and commenting on this language in the context of criminal investigations and trials.
My contribution to this event, with those of other specialists, together with some answers to follow-up questions from the virtual audience can be accessed here…
The prosecution of actual or supposed gang members, many of whom are from disadvantaged backgrounds and are victims themselves of coercion, trafficking, even modern slavery, is hugely controversial, as are attempts by some law enforcers to criminalise Drill music, its performers and its enthusiasts and the language that it uses.
Rap lyrics appear to be poetic or literary texts, and may be fictional, but many professional rappers and their amateur imitators routinely mix creative fiction conventions, metaphors and imagery with real-life facts, introducing real names and references to real places, incidents and actions for ‘authenticity’ and effect. They also frequently borrow or steal images, words and whole sequences from other rappers, and impersonate actors in the real world such as killers or drug dealers who they have learned about from media reports or by word of mouth on the street.
Even more confusingly, many young rap enthusiasts nowadays use the language of rap and its lyrical conventions when they are communicating in quite different contexts. I have encountered many examples of messages between friends, entries in journals or prison notebooks, editing an online persona for chatting in forums, etc. that use words, phrases and references familiar from lyrics as used in audio/video music performances.
There are now academics and activists seeking to question official attitudes to the policing of youth crime and to question the validity of presenting rap or rap-related lyrics as evidence of wrongdoing. There are also currently many agencies, charities and other stakeholders working with young victims, young perpetrators and their families and friends in order to analyse, publicise and seek solutions for the social stresses that foster gang culture. For my small part, I’m concerned, though, that these efforts, even the well organised periodic campaigns by police to control and reduce ‘knife crime,’ are still piecemeal and only partially coordinated across the country.
In November I talked on the same subject at Warwick University‘s Applied Linguistics Seminar…
One month on, and a small sign that mainstream media may be paying a little more attention to gang realities…
Ironically, the self-isolation I have been practising for the last seven months did not mean that I was without work. Periods of WFH alternated with forays into an empty city. Youth crime subsided at first but did not disappear during the pandemic: importantly for me the gathering and analysis of evidence and preparations for trials involving gang violence continued, and I continued to help defence teams and prosecutors to interpret the language used in messaging and Drill lyrics generated by suspects living in gang environments (as described in earlier posts on this site). In April I wrote an article for the Magistrates Association about the relationships between language, youth and crime*
During my time in quarantine I continued to record and comment on the language of the pandemic itself as well as the toxic terminology of populist politics and racism. At the beginning of September the team at LexisPodcast gave me a fresh opportunity to talk about these topics (my comments are in the second half of the recording)…
‘Bad language’ and why you should really try to keep up
Studies have shown that the language of the court can be intimidating and perplexing for some of those who pass through it. We naturally hope that all of those involved in legal proceedings have sufficient command of a language in common to conduct their business successfully. There are times, however, when language barriers become apparent and it becomes necessary to interpret, to translate – foreign tongues used by other nationalities of course – but also new and unfamiliar language originating in our own communities.
Language is something that we tend to take for granted; it’s a facility that every human possesses and uses constantly. In the workplace we have to depend on a shared understanding of language, whether formal, legalistic or conversational. Professional linguists, however, see language differently and distinguish not only between informal, conversational speech and formal or technical language, but between a ‘dialect’ – the language of a region, a ‘sociolect’ – the language of a particular group such as a specific profession, ethnic group, age-group or social class, and even an ‘idiolect’, the words, phrases and turns of speech favoured by a single individual.
The closer we look at the language people are using, the more potential there is for misunderstanding. There is the problem of keeping abreast of rapid changes – of learning new terms, making sense of popular entertainment catchphrases and reality TV references, for example (‘Love Island’ springs to mind). Perhaps the problem is most acute when it’s the language of another generation. Parents, teachers, police officers, too, struggle to make sense of the latest playground slang, gamers’ terminology and the bizarre expressions uttered by music fans, fashionistas and YouTube stars. Abbreviations used in texting and on social media – YOLO, FOMO, SMH (‘you only live once’, ‘fear of missing out’, ‘shaking my head’) can also be baffling for older observers – not surprisingly because this sort of language is not designed to be understood by outsiders. Insiders use slang as a badge of identity to show that they belong to a particular group, equally it is used to exclude the people they don’t want to associate with; the old, the boring, the unfashionable and the unglamorous. Many users of slang, though, are surprisingly sensitive to what linguists call ‘appropriacy’ – matching their choice of language to the social situation – and wouldn’t employ a highly informal style in a formal setting such as a court. Problems arise when evidence involves language recorded in very different contexts.
If you struggle to understand the teenagers and young people around you when they call their schoolfriend a ‘durkboi’ or a ‘wasteman’ (both mean useless male) and try to cadge some ‘p’s’, ‘gwop’ or ‘Lizzies’ (all slang for money), you are not alone. There is a shared slang vocabulary that has established itself throughout the UK, often replacing colourful older usages (such as rhyming slang: ‘once a week’, a synonym of ‘beak’ or magistrate has disappeared) or local dialect. Popular words include ‘piff’, ‘peng’, ‘dench’, ‘gully’, all used to express admiration, ‘bare’ meaning many (as in ‘bare feds’ or ‘bare jakes‘, lots of police), ‘bait’ meaning obvious, ‘bruv’ and ‘fam’ denoting one’s friends or group. ‘Chirpsin’, ‘linkin’ and ‘lipsin’ refer to flirting, dating and kissing respectively.
New terms are being coined all the time because novelty is what gives the words their edgy, progressive quality, but, contrary to what many people assume, slang doesn’t fall out of use for years, it just moves from an older to a younger cohort; as it’s abandoned by the most self-consciously ‘cool’ it is picked up by the latecomers. A few parents and some teachers have managed to learn some of these terms, but trying to use them will inevitably provoke ridicule. In a 2017 survey only 4% of parents were able to successfully translate messaging slang, while 65% tried but repeatedly failed or misunderstood.
Slang, whether used covertly or out in the open, is a feature of all societies and languages and of all age-groups, too. It’s well established that those engaged in criminal activity, lawlessness or antisocial behaviour develop their own secret languages in order to communicate privately and to prevent outsiders from understanding these communications. Teenagers and young adults likewise develop their own slangs and restricted terminologies and often include vocabulary coined by gang members and criminals because it seems glamorous and daring. In the US and the UK highly informal youth-based dialects have arisen and the terminology in question is also used in music lyrics and on social media. The language of US rap and hip-hop music and UK–based varieties such as Grime or Drill music mixes AfricanCaribbean influences, especially Jamaican ‘patois’, with local colloquial speech and will be familiar to many young people, even those who are not engaged in antisocial or criminal activity. This kind of language is very rarely picked up by mainstream media, is not normally recorded in standard dictionaries and is difficult for linguists to collect. I do so by monitoring online messaging and online discussions among slang enthusiasts or slang users, examining music lyrics and, most importantly, by interviewing slang users themselves (as slang is still more a spoken than written variety) and asking them to give or send me examples of language used by them and their peers. Slang is not deficient language; it performs its functions efficiently in conveying meaning. However, because it is an underground, alternative code it is not subject to rules and authorities. This can often result in the same slang term having multiple meanings (hood, for example can refer to a criminal ‘hoodlum’ or to the neighbourhood in which they operate) and in meanings varying to some extent between one group of users and another. It also means that (because they are based on speech and not on written sources) the spellings of slang terms may vary and may be used inconsistently.
I have been collecting the slangs of adults and of younger speakers operating in all sorts of contexts, publishing a succession of dictionaries and articles over the years and teaching and broadcasting about these and other ‘nonstandard’ and controversial areas of language. As a linguist I became fascinated by a kind of language that, although exotic, anti-social, irreverent and frequently offensive is technically as complex and as creative as poetry or literature. It’s only by deciphering and understanding this sort of language – or rather these languages – that we can hope to enter the world of teenage cliques, young-adult in-groups and gangs, to come to make sense of their rituals and obsessions, their thoughts and feelings.
For more than a decade, and increasingly over the last five years I have been helping the police forces who are trying to control street crime and the lawyers who are defending those accused (nearly all of them still in their teens or early twenties). My task as a language analyst and an expert witness is to translate and comment on the slang terminology found on confiscated mobile phones, obtained by surveillance and electronic intercepts, or used in the course of live interviews. I’ve found that the officers in question and the legal representatives are dedicated, unprejudiced, painstaking and privately distressed by what they witness day-to-day. They may become familiar with the exotic, shocking language they are exposed to, but they require an expert objectively to interpret and assess the written or recorded evidence they work with, if necessary, too, an expert who can stand in court and testify on their or their clients’ behalf.
In looking at recordings of gang member’s conversations, for example, it’s crucial to know that a ‘burner’ or a ‘mash’ is a handgun; ‘dotty’ means shotgun, ‘Rambo’,‘ramsay’, ‘cutter’, ‘shank’ or ‘nank’ is knife. When looking at jottings in a teenager’s notebook or listening to a hardcore Drill track recorded by a gang associate it’s essential to identify ‘trap’ as a term for selling drugs or the location where it takes place, ‘plug’ as a drug source, ‘dip’ as stab, ‘op’ as enemy, ‘duppy’ as kill, ‘dasheen’ as run away. The same words, catchphrases and slogans are shared across London and into other UK centres: the same gang culture with its obsession with status and respect, its territorial feuding and its violent tendencies seems to apply everywhere.
Nobody expects the average adult, even if an educated, articulate professional to be fluent either in the language of innocent teenagers or the criminal codes used by gang members. Where, then, can a legal professional or law enforcer go in order to get help with slang and street language? Standard published dictionaries do not offer much assistance, even dictionaries specialising in slang do not usually manage to keep up to date and to define and explain the latest terms. Magazine features purporting to explain what millennials and Generation Z are saying are invariably frivolous and inaccurate. One valuable resource is the online Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com) a collection of language posted on the internet by real people. Its entries are up to date and usually authentic, but more than half of the expressions on the site originate in the USA and some of the posts are private jokes or local nicknames. There is a small dictionary of the language of rappers and gangsters on my own website (https://language-and-innovation.com/2018/04/19/a-drill-dictionary/), and I can answer general slang enquiries at The King’s College Archive if contacted at tony.thorne@kcl.ac.uk.
The latest in a long series of moral panics (the term used by sociologists since the 1970s) exploited by the UK press and now subject of rancorous political debate, the issue of knife-crime and killings by street gangs, mainly in London, is genuinely concerning and is only now receiving the attention and analysis it demands. A side-effect of media interest is that the language used by the gang members and by the music genres that celebrate them is being recorded – haphazardly and not always accurately – for the first time. The musical genre in question is UK Drill, a successor to the ultra-hard-edged Trap Rap (from The Trap, slang nickname for the local area where drugs are dealt) that appeared first in Chicago in the 2000s. Drill (the word can signify shooting but has many other slang senses) has been adopted and adapted by hyperlocal urban communities in the poorer parts of London and, despite their claims, doesn’t just evoke the harsh realities of life on inner-city estates, but often glamorises it and seems to promote an ethos of territoriality, boastful masculinity and murderous retaliatory violence.
So far only very few reporters have managed to penetrate the groups whose members occupy and fiercely defend their microzones, fighting for control, too, of economies based on drug trading. The rappers emerging from the same postcode- or estate-defined enclaves compete and feud electronically, dissing and threatening their rivals in their lyrics – and in a few cases have actually been implicated in killings or woundings on the street.
In May 2018 the Metropolitan Police intensified attempts to ban videos associated with the music genre and the gangs caught up in street violence:
Since beginning this project I have managed to engage with some members of this subculture and find out more about their values and the way they encode them. In the meantime I have begun to assemble a lexicon of the most significant key terms they use, in a slang which mixes US hiphop argot and Caribbean expressions transposed to or reinvented in London (harking back to the Yardie gang culture of the 1980s). So far just a glossary, my list is far from complete, so please help me add more items if you can, or correct my mistakes. Here is this work in progress as it stands, now updated for July 2020, followed by some relevant links…
125 – scooter
Active – dependable associate
– involved in gang activities
Ahk, Akhi – brother, friend (from Arabic)
Amm – cannabis (abbreviation of Amnesia, a potent strain)
Askari – police (from Arabic and other African languages)
Back out – draw (a weapon)
Bagged – caught by the police
Bagging – stabbing in the lower body
Bally, Bali – balaclava
Bando – abandoned property
Bands – coloured elastic bands tying batches of cash
Banger – hit, successful song
Bap – the sound of a shot or gunfire
– to fire (a gun)
Bars – lyrics
Beef – dispute, feud
Bells – bullets
Birded off, birded up – imprisoned
Bitz – one’s neighbourhood
– drugs weighing more than 7 grams
Blam – shoot
Blow – leave, escape
– ‘take off’, achieve career success
Blunt – cannabis cigarette
Bones – dead
Booj, buj – heroin
Bookie, buki – suspicious
Bora, borer – knife
Box – prison
Boxed, boxed in, boxed up – imprisoned
Bozz – leader
– excellent
Breeze off – leave town, disappear
Bruck, bruk – broken (down), broke
Bruckshot – sawn-off shotgun
Buj – obnoxious person
Bun – light up (a cannabis cigarette)
– shoot, eliminate
Burner – gun
Burst – shoot
Cabby– cigarette containing cannabis and cocaine or cannabis and crack mix
Cake – crack or cocaine
Cally – cannabis
Can – prison
Car, cah – because
CBO – criminal behaviour order
Cheffed (up) – stabbed, killed
Chete – machete
Ching – knife
– to stab
Chinging – chilling and hanging out
– stabbing
Civilian – non-gang-member, non-combatant
Clap – attack, shoot
– steal drugs
Codes – ‘postcode areas’, zones where gangs dominate
Corn – ammunition
Crash – raid, invade
– shoot
Crashing corn – shooting your gun
Crib – home
Cro – cannabis
Cunch – out-of-town locations where drugs can be sold
Cutter – knife
Cuttin – leaving, running away
– mixing or adulterating illicit drugs
Dash – throw
– run (away)
Dasheen – running away, fleeing
Diligent – admirable, brave, cool
– dependable associate
Ding dong – dispute, brawl
also dinger, dinga, ding – cheap car
Dipped – stabbed
Dipper – knife
Don – respected person
Dottie, Dotty, Dotz – shotgun
Doughnut – idiot
Drawn out – involved in gang culture, under pressure from street crime
– lured, rendered vulnerable
Drenched – stabbed
Driller – shooter, gang member
Drilling – attacking, aggressing, invading
Dumpy – shotgun
Dun – kill(ed), punish(ed)
Duppy – kill, dead
Elizabeth – money
Endz – one’s neighbourhood
4-door – saloon car
Feds – police
Field – danger-zone, combat area
Fishing – looking for victims
Flake – cocaine
Flashed – stopped, pulled over e.g by police
Flicky – switchblade knife
Food – drugs
Fry – shoot (at)
Gassed – excited
g-check – aggressively check someone’s gang credentials
Gem – weak person
Get the drop – acquire necessary information
Glide – drive into enemy territory
GM – (fellow) gang member
Go cunch/country – leave the city to sell drugs in rural/seaside locations
Got – attacked, robbed
Grubby – authentic, tough (neighbourhood)
Guv – prison officer
Gwop – money
Habsi, hapsi – black person
Hand ting – pistol
Hitter – gunman
Hottie – SIM card
Iron – gun
Jakes – police
Joint – gun
Jump out – undercover police on patrol
– emerge from a vehicle
Juiced – confident, energised
– bloodstained
Khala – black person
Khalas!– ‘that’s enough’, stop!
Ketchup – blood
Kick down doors, kick in doors, kick door – raid a domestic location
Kwef –violence
Kweff, Queff – kill with gun or knife, harm, attack
Kweng – cut, stabbed
Lacking – caught unawares, without backup
Landing – prison, cell
Layers – protective clothing
Leggin (it) – escaping, running away
Leng – gun
Let rip – fire a bullet or discharge a firearm
Line – a drug-dealing operation or network
Link – contact, source for drugs
– make contact with, meet, collect
Loud – cannabis
Lurk – stalk a victim, prowl around
Machine – gun
Mac(k) – automatic firearm, Mac -9 or Mac-10 small machine gun
Mains – close companions
– streets, urban zone
Mash – gun
Matic – gun
Matrixed – placed on the London Met police gang database
Mazza, Mazzaleen – madness, crazy situation
Ments – mental, crazy
Milly – a 9mm pistol
Moist – disgusting, pathetic
– cowardly, weak, afraid
Mop – large gun
Move – criminal operation, raid or attack
Nank – knife, stab
Nap nap – kidnap
Need – cannabis
Niff – cocaine
No face – masked, with identity concealed
OJ – ‘on job’, productive and successful in street activities
Old Bill – the police
On papers – on parole or probation
On road – outdoors, active in the streets/neighbourhood(s), eg engaged in selling drugs
On tag – fitted with an electronic surveillance device
On volts – intent on or engaged in violence
Ooters – shooters
Opps – enemies
Opp-block – enemy territory
OT – ‘out trapping’, ‘out there’ or ‘out of town’, away on business, dealing in urban or country locations
Ox – razor, blade
Pagan, paigon – untrustworthy person, enemy
Paper, papes – money, cash
Passa – dispute, dramatic event
Patch – territory
Patty – slow-witted, ‘clueless’ or deluded person
– (white) female
Pave – streets
Pay – profitable activity, reward
Pebs, pebbles – pellets or deals of heroin, crack or steroids
Ped – moped
Pen – prison
Pepper – spray with shotgun pellets or bullets, shoot
Plot – plan, set up
– hang around
– conceal
Plug – a contact for drugs
Plugging – hiding drugs in rectum
Poke – stab
Pole – shotgun, gun
Popo – police
Posted up – hanging around, positioned to sell drugs
Pree – to check out, assess (a person)
Proper – excellent, admirable
Ps – money
Push, pusha – bicycle
Put in/on a spliff – killed
Rack – quantity of money, £1000
Rambo – large knife or machete
Rams, Ramsay – knife
Rep – promote or publicly declare for (one’s area, gang)
Ride out for (someone) – to defend, even if guilty
Riding dirty – going out armed and/or in possession of drugs
Rise – aim (a weapon)
Riz – cigarette papers
Road – street-smart, active in street culture
Rusty – antique or old firearm
Sam, sams – samurai sword or large knife
Score – kill or injure an enemy
Scoreboard, scorecard – list of enemies killed, injured or defeated
Scram – gun
Scrum – attractive female, sex
Shank – knife
Sh, shh – ‘don’t mention this’, censored item
Shaved – insulted, humiliated, punished
– stabbed
Sheets – cigarette papers
Shot – buyer of drugs
Shotting – dealing drugs
Shouts – greetings, acclaim
Skate, skeet – run away
Skeng – knife, gun, weapon
Skududu – rapid gunfire
Slammer – prison
Slew – ruin, defeat
Sliding – driving into enemy territory
Smoke – kill
– disappear
– conflict, violence, hostility
Snitch – informer
Soak – stab
Spinner – revolver
Spinners – petite females
Spitting – rapping
Splash, splash up, splash down – stab
Squirt – spray acid (over someone)
Stacks – large quantities of money
Stain – rob
– robbery victim
Stepping on toes – trespassing on or attacking enemy territory
Throwing up signs – making gang-related gestures with fingers
Ting – girl
– gun
Trap – neighbourhood, ‘ghetto’, area where drugs are sold, temporary location for dealing drugs
Trapping – hanging out, selling drugs or waiting for buyers to contact
Trey, tre – pistol
Tum-tum – gun
Tweed – cannabis
24s – all day
Wap – gun
Warhead – cigarette containing a drug
Wass – stupid person
Weston – handgun
Wetting – stabbing, killing
Whip – car
– break down (a drug) into smaller parts
Woosh – shoot
Worksy – busy, diligent
Yard – home
Yat – girl
Yay – crack
Yé – personal style, skill
Y.I.C – ‘youngest in charge’, young gang member taking or given responsibility
Yute – young person or young people on the street
Zombie – zombie knife
Zoot – cannabis cigarette
I’m keen to add more authentic terms and for my list to be corrected or commented on by those in the know. I’m very grateful indeed to all those who have already contributed, in particular Josh Jolly, Creative Director for PressPlay Media, Farhaz Janmohamed and Nelson Bayomy and to the many students and Drill and Grime aficionados who have donated language.
You can find a dictionary of multi-ethnic London slang and other examples of so called MLE (Multicultural London English) here on my site. I have extensive files of youth language, available to researchers, journalists, etc. on request, and here are some more street slang terms from the UK Rap and Grime milieu, many also used by Drill aficionados:
Developing further some of the ideas in Sanjana’s article, and based on our exchanges, here are some more thoughts on the subject of multiethnic language, in a ‘question-and-answer’ format:
1. What exactly is ‘MLE’?
The term MLE, coined in connection with Paul Kerswill and Jenny Cheshire’s research on dialect in 2004, describes a ‘social dialect’, ‘sociolect’ or informal spoken style of UK English used initially by ‘younger’ speakers and first identified in and first associated with London. This way of speaking is characterised by a vocabulary reflecting a high degree of ‘black’ (Caribbean English, terms possibly coined by afrocaribbean speakers in the UK, to a lesser extent US black ‘street’ language and hip hop terminology) influences and by intonation patterns and certain pronunciations which differ markedly from standard UK English and differ also from ‘traditional white working class’ accents although they retain some features such as glottal stops and ‘f’ instead of ‘th’. In lay terms, MLE appears to have a ‘lilting’, more regular intonation, resembling Caribbean and also South Asian speech, with some noticeable ‘cockney’ elements too. Its structure and syntax (‘grammar’) may display ‘deviations’ from traditionally ‘correct’ taught forms and the prestige dialects of ‘standard’ English and RP (received pronunciation). In terms of vocabulary, samples I have collected can contain up to 80% of Caribbean (so-called ‘patois’, but this is a slightly contentious term; it can be used dismissively by whites, though is happily employed by Jamaicans themselves) or other BAME lexis such as Somali, South Asian and in some isolated cases a few Turkish and Polish terms.
The designation MLE is well-known and widely used but, especially since this kind of speech (it is still largely a spoken variety of language, though increasingly appearing in writing in music lyrics and TV scripts and online forums and messaging) is no longer restricted to London and the core vocabulary in particular has spread to speakers all across the UK, some linguists prefer to call it Urban British English (UBE) or Urban Vernacular(s) or refer to it as a ‘multiethnolect’. It is now understood that mixed varieties of the same type have appeared in other European centres, and those in Germany (influenced by Turkish), France (influenced by North African and Arabic language) and Scandinavia (Turkish, Arabic, Somali) in particular are the subject of research. These forms of language tend to include a high level of what can also be termed ‘slang’, ie very informal and deliberately opaque codes generated by peer groups, gangs and ‘microniches’ such as gamers, skaters, cosplayers.
2. How has it managed to pervade British youth culture?
In the 60s and 70s Caribbean English was only encountered in subcultures and popular culture via Calypso and Ska and Reggae music. Younger black speakers tended to be ‘ghettoised’ and tended to reinforce their own exclusivity by not mixing much with other subcultures – even the mods and skinheads who admired their music, so there was little spreading of black language. This began to change with the Two-Tone movement of the early 1980s, while in school playgrounds, on the street and in clubs, black speech began to gain social – at least subcultural – prestige, with young black males seen as the most resistant to the dominant culture. By the 1990s this tendency had combined with the rise of breakdancing, rap and its associated style displays (headgear, footwear, ‘bling’, etc.) USA to make it an overriding fashionable ‘wave’ carrying with it its own terminology. At street level in London I recorded white working class schoolkids in the 1990s using more and more ‘Jafaican’ (horrible pejorative term though it is) – crossing and codeswitching with what teachers called ‘creole’, ‘recreolised lexis’ or ‘patois’ in their conversations. By the later 1990s Sacha Baron Cohen’s character Ali G was satirising this speech and the poses and style affectations that went with it. In the 2000s the ascent of UK Grime music along with influences and buzzwords from US hip hop reinforced the same tendencies, while in subsequent years social media and showbiz played a part, though the essential language was still coming from the street, particularly in London from gang culture and spreading by word of mouth. Although the tabloid press and broadcast has picked up on the phenomena they have not contributed significantly to actually propagating MLE.
3. Why has MLE attracted so much attention when other kinds of dialect change are common?
MLE is associated with social unrest, crime and what in the 60s was called transgression and ‘deviancy’, therefore lends itself to sensationalising (and mockery too) by the media and displays of staged disapproval by representatives of the status quo (see for instance statements – and prohibitions – by educationalists, politicians, conservative journalists). ‘MLE’ is also much more important and pervasive in bestowing subcultural capital than any other instances of dialect change (which tend to operate in the regional margins and away from the attention of metropolitans), so in its own milieux and nationally it has overwhelmed other – relatively minor – changes in the lexicon or in phonology. Other forms of language change which are significant are the abbreviated codes (YOLO, FOMO, smh, obvs, etc.) and US slang (‘slay’, ‘woke’, ‘lit’, ‘(on) fleek’) used by young people on social media, and the faux-fashionable journalese use of jargon (‘Brexit’, ‘yummy-mummy’, ‘silver surfers’, etc.)
4. Is MLE unique to London and to English?
As noted above the same language phenomena are being observed in all global urban environments, most similarly in other diverse European capitals. In the UK MLE-like language is being studied particularly in Manchester (see e.g the work of Dr Rob Drummond and the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies) and Birmingham, but even in rural villages many kids are now familiar with the core terms (‘bare’, ‘peng’, ‘allow it’, ‘hench’ etc). Sadly, too, many entirely innocent British teenagers are familiar with the latest slang names of knives, guns and drugs.
5. Why are the borrowings in MLE overwhelmingly from Jamaica?
The Ali G persona was satirising what were then derided on the street as ‘wannabes’ or ‘wiggas’ (white niggas), pretending to be black, therefore cool. Gautam Malkani’s novel ‘Londonstani’ drew upon hybridity to mock a white boy pretending to be a cool Asian – actually a much rarer occurrence. Although Bhangra and Bhangramuffin music were briefly popular, as were musicians such as Apache Indian, Asian Dub Foundation and Jazzy B, South Asian pop culture, music and language has not challenged the domination of Afrocaribbean influence on MLE, hasn’t really crossed over despite Malkani.
The South Asian and Chinese and Japanese communities, Turkish and Somali and Polish communities for example just don’t have the same subcultural glamour and image of resistance and transgression, and therefore linguistic prestige as those with links to the Caribbean. It’s also very important that Caribbean speech is a variety of English, not a ‘foreign’ language, therefore very accessible and closely related, albeit with a very different sound.
6. Can the growth of this kind of multiethnolect be attributed solely to immigration?
The emergence of this type of mixed code, with accompanying informal lexicon and novel pronunciations is also about the dwindling within the UK of traditional social, cultural and linguistic authorities, the conditions of superdiversity in which people live and a new assertion of ‘minority’ identities, new access to media and communication. There are no longer power-groups within society or cultural influencers who have the capability of stemming or proscribing language change or enforcing disapproval of informal, provocative behaviour. Even when particular schools ban the use of slang, they are only momentarily affecting a very small segment of society.
7. Should we be worried by this particular aspect of language change?
From a purely objective linguistic perspective, language change, variation and innovation is not worrying. It’s a natural process, indeed a fascinating process and worthy of study. For someone like me, a lexicographer collecting slang and new language, new forms and new usages, as in the very dynamic and complex MLE matrix, are illustrations of the established workings of the language – the technical potential of English to create novel forms and combinations, also managing the well-known functions of language – to judge, to categorise, to help bonding and reinforce identities; the stylistic performance of language in terms of rhetoric, irony, poetics, etc.
BUT anything that is seen as part of a culture of crime, violence, drug abuse, family breakdown, even if it is more a product than a cause, will worry many people. Any significant changes in language will disturb and destabilise many people for whom their grasp of and usage of language is a fundamental part of their identity (often seen as something essential and unchanging, even if it isn’t really). For these reasons it’s not enough for linguists (or any liberals, ‘progressives’, descriptivists, etc.) simply to dismiss the concerns of traditionalists and conservatives – and ordinary worried parents, teachers and others. Given that you can’t legislate against such language, it’s important to study it, debate and discuss it and see it for what it is.
One possible reassurance is that MLE has been seen as a temporary, developmental, transitional practice, just as youth slang has been assumed to be something that young people grow out of once they enter the adult world of work, family and other responsibilities. I have written that the vocabulary of multiethnic slang is inherently unlikely to persist into adulthood, dealing as it does with adolescent concerns: dating, sex, experimentation, illicit practices and managing prestige and competition within teenage gangs for instance. My colleague at King’s College London, sociolinguist and discourse specialist Professor Ben Rampton has, however, shown in small-scale studies that some of the features of MLE, in particular the practice of ‘crossing’ or code-switching between languages in mid conversation, may not be confined to ‘youth’ and may not be discarded in that way*. For me, this possibility most obviously relates to its intonation and pronunciation which I think may well come to have a pervasive influence in many circles in the UK, possibly changing ‘mainstream’ English in years to come. This can already be seen not just in young white and Asian people consciously imitating the sound of Jamaican, but in a new rhythm and emphasis in everyday speech which is shared by a wide variety of young adults, so that if you hear but can’t see the speaker, it’s impossible to determine their ethnicity. This was nicely satirised by the TV comedy series PhoneShop but is now really the case in diverse communities like Croydon, the fictional setting for the show, and a few elements of which are showing up in reality TV abominations like Love Island.
For most linguists the yardsticks by which we judge language are not ‘correctness’ or association with prestige – ‘poshness’ in other words, but just two criteria: ‘intelligibility’ (is it mutually comprehensible?) and more importantly ‘appropriacy’ (is it the right kind of language to fit the social context?). If you apply the notion of appropriacy there’s nothing inherently bad about MLE, or slang, providing it is used in a suitable setting, such as a school playground, club, on the street, in private banter, and not in school essays, exams, job interviews, formal encounters, in front of your Gran, etc.
*Some sociolinguists think that focusing on ‘youth language’ itself is discriminatory and is creating false categories. I have been criticised myself, both by conservatives for celebrating ‘ghetto language’ and one or two linguists who accused me of labelling the young and their behaviour. All I can say is that young people I have interviewed have very often referred to multi-ethnic slang as ‘our language’, the language of ‘the youth’.
Three years later, in 2020, I talked to Audrey Damier about MLE, slang and London youth.
Of the TV series that have featured Urban Slang (or so-called MLE, ‘Multiethnic London English’) for me none surpassed, in authenticity, ingenuity and hilarity, the sitcom PhoneShop*, broadcast on Channel 4 between 2010 and 2013. Writer and producer of the series, Phil Bowker tells me ‘Like you, slang’s something that has fascinated me since I was a kid growing up in Liverpool.’ It’s a great privilege to be able to print here, with Phil’s blessing, the script of this sequence intended for his follow-up satire on multicultural Britain for BBC2 The Javone Prince Show**, but never broadcast. Phil explains, ‘I wanted to spoof the kind of BBC London style of hack news reporting but instead of the usual fayre of drugs and knives, I wanted to make it about slang.’ Relish now for the first time this exposé of …Real Talk ‘Slang’…
EXT. URBAN STREET
Andrew Milligan (Jason Barnett) is on a walk and talk.
ANDREW MILLIGAN
“Why is my man Parrin’ me?” “Dat Gyal is pengalicious” “Watcha me come and lick off a ya headtop” Words and phrases that you wouldn’t particularly want to hear coming out of your child’s mouth. But this is an everyday reality for thousands of parents across the Country as unscrupulous dealers are targeting our children at the very place where they’re most vulnerable: The school gate.
We cut to a School sign and then back down to Andrew as he crouches down outside the entrance. The floor is littered with discarded pieces of paper the size of christmas cracker jokes. There are lots of ‘capsules’ around too. He reads a couple of them – sickened at what he sees.
A mum (Debra Baker) Is interviewed in her spotless kitchen.
CONTINUED:
MUM
My 10 year old comes home, he calls his little brother a beg, calls me a slosher and tells me he’s goin his drum to blaze…’ What can I do about that? I ain’t got a clue what he’s talkin about….
Andrew Walk and Talk.
ANDREW MILLIGAN
We’ve all seen them plying their vile trade in pubs and car parks the length and breadth of the Country. The So called slang hawkers. You yourself may have even enjoyed using some casual slang at a dinner party. I’m ashamed to say, I have. I had bare laughs. But where does this slang come from? Who’s selling it, and what is the real cost? To find out, I took to the streets.
EXT.STREET. NIGHT
CUT TO:
Shot from a first floor window, we see Andrew making a call from a phonebox.
DEALER
(Voice Disguised) What you after?
ANDREW MILLIGAN
I’m looking for a, uh maybe a five pound deal?
DEALER
Fuck off. (Bleeped) You couldn’t even get a noun for that, you mug.
ANDREW MILLIGAN
What would, say £20 or £25 buy me?
DEALER
A small bag of verbs. Proper, good verbs, I don’t fuck (bleeped) around.
ANDREW MILLIGAN
Sounds good my man, but how can I guarantee the quality of your slang?
DEALER
You heard of swag?
ANDREW MILLIGAN
Yes, Swag. I think I’ve heard Louis Walsh say it.
DEALER
That’s one of mine.
ANDREW MILLIGAN
Wow.
Wide shot of Andrew waiting by the telephone box.
ANDREW (V.O)
In less than five minutes one of the dealer’s word soldiers rode by on a stolen mountain bike.
We see a kid riding past on a bike throwing at book at him. Andrew bends down to pick it up (It’s a dictionary) He opens it up to reveal a hollowed out centre with a small baggy in it. He furtively looks around and then opens the bag, looking at the tiny pieces of paper with words written on them.
ANDREW MILLIGAN
(slightly out of breath) The dealer wasn’t lying. There is a potency to this slang that I haven’t seen before. I have to admit, it’s quite thrilling.
INT. A STUDY
Talking head of Professor EB Black.
PROFESSOR
This is a massive problem we are sleepwalking into. Slang has been around for ever, but it was always kept at an acceptable level. It was fine for criminals, the working classes and immigrants but what we’re seeing now is a huge middle class uptake – it’s extremely frightening and this government needs to do something about it very quickly. I’m reluctant to use the word, but what we’re facing, is an epidemic.
Andrew swings round to camera.
ANDREW MILLIGAN
But what the chickenclart can be done?
CUT TO:
Hard cut to archive. Police raid on property. Shot of battering ram hitting door.
POLICE
Police!! Put the pens down! Drop the Quills! I repeat, Drop the Quills…
We cut to people coming out with their hands on their heads. They are all wearing glasses or visors. They look disorientated.
GANG LEADER
I’ll be back out on the streets in half an hour. You fucking rats.
He looks at the camera.
Penelope, get the bail money! It’s in the study underneath Eric Partridge’s Usage and Abusage….
ANDREW MILLIGAN (V.O.)
This slangmaster is facing a long “sentence” in a “pen” of his own making. But there is a way out. If not fi him, fi someone else.
CUT TO:
Talking head of reformed slang dealer Christian Gibbs.
CHRISTIAN GIBBS
I was always interested in language. The etymology, the syntax. Other kids would be out kicking a ball against a wall. I’d be indoors with me head in a thesaurus.
Andrew Milligan nods.
I started mucking around with slang. Making my own words up. Giving them away to mates in school. And then I realised. There was money to be made – and it went from there.
Andrew swings around to camera.
ANDREW MILLIGAN
Christian became so successful, within a year of selling his slang words illegally, he managed to buy his parents a new house, and was engaged to a Countdown semi-finalist. But things quickly went wrong.
CHRISTIAN GIBBS
I got greedy. I started mixing with the wrong people. I got too big too quick. At one point, I was running three or four terraced houses full of young academics twenty-four hours a day. I was effectively controlling most of the slang that was being sold in London. And then it all caught up with me.
EXT OF URBAN BASKETBALL COURT.
Christian is helping some young people to ‘lay up’
ANDREW MILLIGAN
After a spell at her majesty’s pleasure, Christian dedicated his life to helping the very people who once did his bidding in his urban slang factories.
CUT TO:
We see the trad shot of guys having fun. High 5ing etc
CUT TO:
Andrew Walk and Talk down an alley.
ANDREW MILLIGAN (cont’d)
Tragically, a few hours after that lay up we learnt that Christian’s past had finally caught up with him and he was ambushed by a gang of rival wordsmiths in a back alley Scrabble game.
He arrives at the taped off crime scene. There’s an abandoned Scrabble board and associated paraphernalia. He crouches down
ANDREW MILLIGAN (cont’d)
The last words he spelt out on the Scrabble board was a fitting testament to his memory: YOLO/ Gubati/Gggdedjs/
Andrew gets up and continues his Walk and Talk.
ANDREW MILLIGAN (cont’d)
So the next time you’re at a dinner party or even a simple kitchen supper and somebody decides it might be ‘fun’ to pass the ‘slang’ around, remember the real cost and just say no.
Much of the vocabulary of MLE, the speech variety known as Multiethnic or MulticulturalLondon English, derives (not always straightforwardly) from Caribbean or Black British usages, or from London’s white ‘working class’, often dubbed ‘Cockney,’ argot. There are, however, a number of slang expressions, used in the school playground and on the street by younger speakers, which come from elsewhere in the UK’s language matrix, even from archaic or foreign sources. Here are some examples…
Feen (n)
Means: a male person
Usage: “Who’s the feen over by the gate?”
The proper names for Yoofspeak, so linguists tell us, are MLE (multi-ethnic or multicultural London English) or UBE (urban British English, with ‘vernacular’ sometimes substituted for English), but not all playground language emanates from the larger cities and ethnic or ‘cultural’ doesn’t only mean Afrocarribean or Asian.
One term that’s widely used around the UK is rarely if ever heard in the Smoke, but belongs to a 300 year-old tradition. Feen, also spelled fein, has been borrowed from the slang of Travellers, the argot formerly used by Tinkers and known as Shelta, itself deriving mainly from Irish Gaelic. In Irish feen simply means “man” but in slang it sometimes has the extra senses of “stranger” or “rogue”. Don’t confuse this with the verb “to feen” (sometimes “feem”), a modern import from US street-talk, which is an alteration of ‘fiend’ and means craving for, or obsessing over, as in “I’m feenin’ for some weed” or “he’s feenin’ over that new girl.”
Hollage (n)
Means: something hilarious
Usage: “Have you seen Charlotte’s latest outfit? Très hollage!”
Posher teens have their own version of yoofspeak, their own mix of would-be street slang, babytalk and invented expressions, typically in the form of girly yells of approval (by both sexes) and squeals of delight (ditto).
When the denizens of the middle-class playground are trading witticisms a favourite trick is to insert touches of French – the odd real word (“quelle disaster”, “beaucoup trouble”) and Franglais pronunciations. “Rummage” (sex), and “bummage” (enthusiasm) have been frenchified, but current favourite is “hollage”, meaning huge amusement or hugely amusing, pronounced to rhyme with English “college” or like French “collage”, or, some young purists insist, as three-syllable “holla-age”.
It looks as if the little sophisticates have adapted “holla”, (the hip-hop version of “holler”, meaning to yell), one of cool Yoof’s iconic expressions from the noughties, and slightly misunderstood it in the process, since it originally described phoning, praising or seducing rather than braying with laughter. In the US the very similar-looking “holla-age” has indeed been used to describe “the appropriate way to acknowledge or compliment a female.”
Dinlo (n)
Means: an idiot
Usage: “You can tell Callum anything and he’ll believe it, he’s a right dinlo.”
Some linguists are claiming that far from dying out, regional dialects – and that includes local slang terms – are being helped by messaging, chatting and tweeting on social media sites, as well as old-fashioned word of mouth – to spread further across the UK. A probable example of this is yet another term for a complete dope, or dupe, (in practice nearly always male) which originated in Romany (and not in Cantonese as claimed on Urban Dictionary) as dinilo and has long been in use from the New Forest, via Portsmouth’s ‘Pompey – slang’ to East Anglia. Dinlo(w) is the usual form, although “dinler”, “dindler” and “dingle” have also been recorded. Yoof elsewhere have now added these to their already rich lexicon of insults, sometimes abbreviating to “dinny” or just “din”.
Trek (v,n)
Means: (to go on) a long and tedious journey
Usage: “Man we been trekkin’ for hours!” “From her endz to ours is a trek.”
Researchers into Yoofspeak will know that in nearly every batch of new expressions offered up as the latest teen lingo, there are one or two which are not really slang at all. This is because most of the younger generation are not familiar with them and don’t realise that they are standard English: also, to be fair, because they sound and look exotic, possibly subversive to the uninitiated. “Trek”, used more or less in its original sense is a popular feature of playground complaints – the moaners probably don’t know much Afrikaans (from which we got the word), and even Star Trek the Prequel is a distant memory. More recently the word, or the variant “treks!” can be an exclamation, declaring that something, not necessarily a journey, is too tiring or boring to bother with or to finish, but one post on Urban Dictionary defines it much more specifically – and perhaps just slightly more positively – as a “4-10-mile” walk undertaken to counteract the effects of drugs or alcohol.
Examples of the same phenomenon are “luka” or “lookah”, used by some London kids to mean money, which seems like Multiethnic dialect but is really the picturesque old phrase ‘filthy lucre’ after a makeover. (Oddly, in the US, the Slavonic boy’s name Luka seems to have been conflated with the colloquial “looker” to denote an attractive male.) “Burly”, which one user explained as a blend of “beautiful” and “gnarly”, expresses admiration for a tough-looking male, and “reek” as in “Ben’s room really reeks” is also considered a really cool novelty. (Incidentally and tangentially, adult informants tell me that for them “reek” mainly registers these days as the name of a character in TV fantasy Game of Thrones, or as a mistyping of ‘wreak.’)
(These terms were first recorded in my Youthspeak column in the TES)
I have a fairly extensive archive of new language, including contemporary slang, from which glossaries, dictionaries and articles are spun off. When I interview young people to ask them about the language they use, to collect examples, or to animate discussions, I use extracts from the archive, but in the form of a simplified glossary. The glossary consists only of terms with their definitions, with all other ‘lexicographical paraphernalia’ – parts of speech, etymologies, regional labels, notes on usage, etc. – removed. This material is not intended for publication, except by me, (or if commercially in return for payment) but is often used by researchers, authors, teachers and students to stimulate discussion and to help with fieldwork and projects. Here, by way of illustration, is a selection from the letter B…
B
B – (male) friend
Badmanz – important and/or tough male
Bae – sweetheart, girlfriend or boyfriend
Bag – much, many
Baggamanz – a lot (of people)
Bag someone out – to criticise, harass
Bait – obvious, intrusive
Bangin’ – attractive, exciting
Bangout – failure
Bang-out – successful, skilful
Bants, bantz – banter
Bare – much, many
Bars – (part of) a song
Bashment – party
Basic – unoriginal, conforming to current fashions
Basic B, basic bitch – pretentious but conformist female
Bats – combat trousers
Bayden – solvent, rich
Beast – excellent, impressive, admirable, cool
Beaut – expression of admiration or approval
Beef – disagreement, angry altercation
– to aggress
Begfriend – sycophant
Beggin’ – talking nonsense
Beige – boring, tedious
Bell-end, bell – foolish and/or annoying person (usually male)
Bennin’ – overcome by laughter.
Bestie – best friend
Betty – girl
BFF – ‘best friend forever’
Big – excellent
Biggin’ up – complimenting, celebrating
Billies, bills – money, banknotes
Bin off – to throw away, reject, dump (a suitor for instance)
Bitz – area, neighbourhood
Blates – excessive, outrageous
– expression of delight or approval
Blazin’ (up) – smoking
Blad – ‘mate’, friend
Bleh – expression of dismissal, disapproval, indifference
Blem – cigarette
Blemboss – someone who smokes to show off
Bless (up) – expression of approval or farewell
Blick – dark
Blonks – big person, usually male
Blud – close friend
Boggin’ – stinking
Bollerz – money
Bonk – to exhaust oneself, tire
Boog – bad, inferior
Booky – suspicious, doubtful, inferior
Boom-ting – party, exciting event
Booty – posterior
– sexy female(s)
Bounce – to depart, flounce off.
Bovvered – unconcerned, indifferent
Boyed – humiliated
Boyment – humiliation
Boyz – money
Braap, blaap – a greeting or expression of approval or agreement.
Brass – bad
Bredder – someone who copies someone
Bredgie – friend
Bredren, bledren – friends
Breeze – nonsense, rubbish
Brev – male friend, mate
Bro – male friend
Bruck, brok – in bad condition, ugly
Bruv – brother, male friend
Buck – to give
Buff – physically attractive
Bullet – greeting or expression of approval or agreement
Bully van – police vehicle
Bummage – enjoyment
Bump – to trick, defraud, steal from
Bunnin’ – smoking
Bupzin’ – treating or looking after (someone)
– taking advantage (of someone)
Burned – bested, humiliated
Burner – gun
Buss (out) – to perform (dance moves)
Busted – ugly, unattractive
Bust (off) – to perform (dance moves)
– to recite (lyrics)
But(t) – friend
Butterz – ugly, unattractive
I would be very grateful indeed for any additions to my lists. Donations and/or comments will be very welcome and contributors will be acknowledged. If you would like to use the glossary, please contact me.
Students and fellow participants at King’s College London’s Language and Popular Culture Laboratory wrote about a joint presentation that Iranian colleague Dr Negar Ardakani and I gave last year. The talk took a first look at comparative data on Persian and English youth slang collected in glossaries and lexicons from the two countries.
Negar and I hope to refine our material and publish a more complete version of our talk in due course. In the meantime, if anyone is interested, we can provide more details in very rough draft form if contacted directly.
Gal-dem, also galsdem or gyalsdem, refers in London’s multiethnic street-talk to a group of females (mansdem is the male counterpart). It’s also the name of a magazine for women of colour. I talked to Faima Bakar about the street attitudes that mean that girls are criticised for using slang and profanity while boys use them with impunity. The topic relates both to MLE, the mixed urban dialect favoured by many young people, and Banter, a hot issue again in 2016. Both of these are treated elsewhere on this site, but here’s Faima’s article on boys and slang…
The second and main component (the first, the glossary, was posted here previously) of Chris Nott‘s design project for the Royal College of Art is this book on the complex urban language variety known as MLE, Multiethnic London English.
This unique document brings together the authentic words of London youth, interviews with me and with other commentators, press articles and more technical language notes. It will fascinate lovers of language, those interested in sociocultural change and, although the features described are not exclusive to younger speakers, anyone involved in teaching about youth culture, popular culture, style and music.
Chris has agreed to make the entire work freely available* and it can be accessed below. The design project is in its original unedited form. For anyone needing corrected pages, I have interviews and quotes in Word format that I can provide on request.