The First English Dictionary of Slang

In the Siine office we have all kinds of wonderful books about languages. They’re for research – naturally - but some of them provide excellent entertainment too.

Take, for example, The First English Dictionary of Slang, a reprint of a tome first published in 1699 by an enigmatic author B.E Gent. It is a treasure trove of slang, some of which we think is ripe for re-introduction.

Is there a better word ever invented for “puny little fellow” than “Dandyprat”, for example? Or how about the wonderful “Jumble-gut-lane” a word used for “any very bad or rough road”?

Swear Your Way

Did you know that in English roughly 80 to 90 of the words spoken every day - or 0.5% to 0.7% of the total - are swear words? By comparison, first-person plural pronouns (we, us and our) make up around 1% of spoken words. 

Did you know, too, that swear words exist in all human languages? 

There’s even swearing in the Bible: the Authorised King James Bible from 1611 talks of men who “eat their own dung, and drink their own piss” which, while not the strongest language in the world, you’d still think twice about saying in front of your Gran.