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BBC Voices Recordings: Milton Keynes BBC VOICES RECORDINGS http://sounds.bl.uk Title: Milton Keynes Shelfmark: C1190/37/05 Recording date: 31.03.2005 Speakers: Clifford, Simon, b. 1982 Melbourne, Australia; male; council worker (father b. Teddington, HR manager; mother b. Ontario, housewife/office clerk) Collett, Matt, b. 1980 Northampton; male; self-employed skate shop owner (father b. Chelmsford, headteacher; mother b. York, headteacher) Christopher, b. 1988 Glasgow; male; sixth-form student (father b. London; mother b. Scotland, sales representative) Snusher, Liam, b. 1985 Milton Keynes; male; shop assistant (father b. Luton, antique restorer) The interviewees are all skateboarders. PLEASE NOTE: this recording is still awaiting full linguistic description (i.e. phonological, grammatical and spontaneous lexical items). A summary of the specific lexis elicited by the interviewer is given below. ELICITED LEXIS ○ see English Dialect Dictionary (1898-1905) ● see Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage (1996) ∆ see New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2006) ◊ see Green’s Dictionary of Slang (2010) ♥ see Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (2014) ♦ see Urban Dictionary (online) ⌂ no previous source (with this sense) identified pleased happy; chuffed; stoked (“surfing terminology”); rad (“bare◊ rad”, “skater/BMX” term of approval) tired fucked; knackered unwell poorly (“bare◊ poorly”); ill, sick (“bare◊ sick” of genuine illness); unwell (not used); shitty, “feel like I’m dying”♦, fucked♥, death on legs⌂ (of hangover) hot roasting; boiling; baking; hot cold freezing; chilly; treezing⌂ (“treezing, blood”); bare◊ cold http://sounds.bl.uk Page 1 of 24 BBC Voices Recordings annoyed pissed; pissed off; (“bare◊ pissed off”); screwing♥ (“bare◊ screwing”); fucked-off; cunted⌂ (“I’m cunted off” disputed) throw chuck; launch; lob; throw play truant bunk; bunk off; training day⌂ (“teacher training day” used as excuse to parents) sleep kip; peep; peeping play a game play (“play footy”); session∆1 (“session a block/set of stairs” used in skateboarding) hit hard twat∆ (“twatted it” of object) lump (of person); smack (“smacked it” of e.g. baseball); blap♦ (“blapped him”); spark (“spark him”), murk♦ (“I’m gonna murk you” current, associated with ‘Training Day’ film2); “I give him a kicking/shoeing”♥ (of e.g. fight); whack, clubbing it one (of e.g. nail) clothes garms∆; clothes; threads (heard used, considered “ghetto”); gear trousers jeans; bottoms; trousers; trews (abbreviation for ‘trousers’); pants (“American”, used in UK of underwear); pantaloons (suggested jokingly) child’s shoe trainers; plimsoll; pumps; plimsolls mother mum; old dear; old cheese♥ (heard used) gmother grandma; grams♦3; nan; gran; gramps4; even older dear5 (suggested jokingly); gilf∆ (of sexually attractive grandmother, suggested jokingly) m partner bloke∆ (“how’s your bloke?”); boyfriend; man; partner friend mate; matey; pal; blood; buddy; pal; brother∆; son (“you all right, son” used as form of address) gfather grandad; gramps6 forgot name thingy; ting●; thing; thingymejig◊7 [θɪŋimiʤɪg] kit of tools tool-kit; tool-box trendy chav; pikey; scally; scallywag; towny f partner girlfriend; girly⌂; missus; bird; bitch (“oy, bitch” suggested jokingly, not used) baby kid; baby; little’un∆; midget; sprog; cone-head⌂8 (used of friend’s baby) rain heavily piss it down; piss down; heavy flow⌂ (“heavy flow from the heavens”); chucking it down∆; pissing it down; bare◊ rain toilet toilet; bog; shitter; pisser; crapper; hole9; dunny walkway alley; path; pathway long seat chaise-longue (suggested jokingly); settee; sofa; couch (“couch potato” used of person who watches too much TV) run water stream; brook (old-fashioned); tributary, creek (suggested jokingly) main room living-room; lounge; den rain lightly spit (“it’s spitting outside”); drizzling; drizzle 1 New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2006) records ‘session’ in sense of ‘to concentrate effort on a single objective’. 2 US crime thriller released 2001. 3 Urban Dictionary (online) records ‘gram’ in this sense. 4 Collins English Dictionary (online edition at http://www.collinsdictionary.com/) records ‘gramps’ in sense of ‘grandfather’. 5 OED (online edition) records ‘old dear’ in sense of ‘mother’. 6 Collins English Dictionary (online edition at http://www.collinsdictionary.com/) includes ‘gramps’ in this sense. 7 Green’s Dictionary of Slang (2010) records ‘thingymebob’ and ‘thingmejig’ in this sense. 8 Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (2014) records ‘cone-head’ in sense of ‘stupid/socially inept person’ but not in this sense. 9 OED (online edition) records ‘hole’ in sense of ‘unpleasant place’. http://sounds.bl.uk Page 2 of 24 BBC Voices Recordings rich minted (“Minty10 out of EastEnders”11); well rich; loaded left-handed cack-handed; left-handed unattractive stink bag12 (“dirty stink bag”); dirt bag; rough; ugly; minger lack money pikey♦; skint; poor drunk pissed up; cunted◊; pissed; leathered∆; steaming∆ pregnant damaged13 (“damaged goods” suggested jokingly); preggers, up the duff attractive fit; a fitty14; lush; tang♦ insane Joe (i.e. name of friend, suggested jokingly); ADD; mental moody stressy♥; pissed (also used for ‘drunk/annoyed’); stressed; moody (“bare◊ moody”) SPONTANEOUS LEXIS aggy♦ = annoyed, angry (0:28:28 well I guess ‘aggy’ means a bit sort of, like, ‘aggy’, like, (you got ‘aggravated’) ‘aggravated’ (yeah, ‘aggravated’) or, like, yeah, I was I was really ‘annoyed’ and and ‘stressed out’ and (“bare aggy”) yeah, annoyed with paying my taxes and working seven days sort of thing, “it just makes me aggy”) back in the day = in the past, some time ago (0:37:22 they don’t sort of take offence to it as as often I mean it’s they might say, “oy, Simon, watch your tongue” or whatever but they’re not I mean back in back in the day they would’ve been screwing) bad = great, excellent, impressive (0:27:32 so if you said to someone, “oh that trick was so bad” then they’d know that, you know, it was ‘goo…’, you know, “oh that was actually amazing” (or like ‘sick’ as well) whereas if I said to my mum, like, “oh I done the baddest trick today” she’d just think, “well why did you bother if it wasn’t that good why did you try?”) bare◊ = very, really (0:03:58 (‘you’d better leave him alone’) “better leave him alone” (“you’d better leave it out, mate, I’m too moody”) ‘too moody’ ‘bare moody’; 0:09:32 you can’t get better than ‘bare’ […] like, it’s, like, just the maximum extent so ‘bare sick’ is ‘I’m really really really sick’ (“I can’t get no sicker than this”) or “I’m bare rich” ‘I’ve got loads of money’; 0:28:28 (well I guess ‘aggy’ means a bit sort of, like, ‘aggy’, like,) (you got ‘aggravated’) (‘aggravated’) yeah, ‘aggravated’ (or, like, yeah, I was I was really ‘annoyed’ and and ‘stressed out’ and) “bare aggy” (yeah, annoyed with paying my taxes and working seven days sort of thing, “it just makes me aggy”)) blatantly♥ = obviously, definitely (0:07:34 (and what about you, Chris, what would you call them?) (‘plimsolls’) (‘plimsolls’) (uh, ‘trainers’ all the way) ‘trainers’ blatantly (it’s them little things with, like, suckers on the bottom that’s what it looks like) suckers on the bottom (yeah, they had, like, little round bits, didn’t they, on the bottom of the plimsolls); 0:47:37 (but I mean you can get, like, rude boys they’d they’d probably go over to the chavs, wouldn’t they?) oh yeah, yeah, blatantly) bling = ostentatious jewellery (0:46:23 (the blatant gold jewellery which looks really cheap but they are wearing it as if it’s like, “yeah, look at us”) “check my bling”) bone∆ = to have sexual intercourse with (0:15:54 (’cause it can happen um) it can happen (yeah, so there should be a name for it I was just asking the name that you what you’d c…) when was the last time that you saw a grandma that you would actually bone?) bothered∆ = sarcastic response expressing lack of care/interest in something that has just been said (0:39:23 when I’m talking to mates and that all we do is just cuss each other it’s, like, it’s only a laugh, isn’t it, at the end of the day to swear at each other and that it’s just like, “yeah, bothered”) 10 Richard Peterson, fictional character in British soap opera ‘EastEnders’ – see footnote 11 below - played by English actor Cliff Parisi from 2002-2010. 11 Long-running British soap opera broadcast on BBC since 1985 set in fictitious area of Walford, London. 12 OED (online edition) records ‘dirt bag’ in this sense. 13 OED (online edition) includes ‘damaged goods’ in this sense. 14 Collins English Dictionary (online edition at http://www.collinsdictionary.com/) includes ‘fitty’ in this sense. http://sounds.bl.uk Page 3 of 24 BBC Voices Recordings cane up = to devour, consume to excess, esp. alcohol/drugs (0:01:32 you know that that s… that drink that you mix it’s, like, powder and you cane it up and it’s summertime) carrier⌂ = non-skateboarder who carries skateboard around in order to impress (0:24:27 you get people that carry skateboards (yeah) ‘carriers’ and then they sort of the image gets put that that’s, you know, to the (you don’t actually see a lot) to the to the general public who don’t see people going to s…, you know, go to skateparks) chavtastic∆ = unashamedly chav (0:45:19 (can you explain ‘chav’) (‘chav’) can you explain ‘chav’ it’s chavtastic) check (out) = to look at, appraise (0:05:45 (I’m putting down what people do say) (oh, I see) (so ‘threads’ or dunno) “check out them threads”; 0:46:23 (the blatant gold jewellery which looks really cheap but they are wearing it as if it’s
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