Did you know that . . . a soldier’s biggest social blunder is called jack brew<\/b> – making yourself a cuppa without making one for anyone else? That twitchers have an expression for a bird that can’t be identified – LBJ<\/b> (the letters stand for L<\/b>ittle B<\/b>rown J<\/b>ob)? Or that builders call plastering the ceiling doing Lionel Richie’s dancefloor<\/b>? Susie Dent does.<\/p>\n
Ever wondered why football managers all speak the same way, what a cabbie calls the Houses of Parliament, or how ticket inspectors discreetly request back-up? We are surrounded by hundreds of tribes, each speaking their own distinct slanguage of colourful words, jokes and phrases, honed through years of conversations on the battlefield, in A&E, backstage, or at ten-thousand feet in the air. <\/p>\n
Susie Dent has spent years interviewing hundreds of professionals, hobbyists and enthusiasts, and the result is an idiosyncratic phrasebook like no other. From the Freemason’s handshake to the publican’s banter, Dent’s Modern Tribes<\/i> takes us on a whirlwind tour of Britain, decoding its secret languages and, in the process, finds out what really makes us all tick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you ever wondered why hairdressers always ask you where you’re going on holiday or how ticket inspectors discreetly request back-up? What about cabbies’ Knowledge, what rhyming slang really means, or how a magician’s patter works? We are surrounded by hundreds of tribes, each speaking their own distinct slanguage of colourful words, jokes and phrases, honed through years of conversations on the battlefield, in A&E, backstage and at ten-thousand feet in the air. Here, at last, is a witty guide through the linguistic minefields that surround us all. Susie Dent has spent years interviewing hundreds of professionals, hobbyists and enthusiasts and has created an idiosyncratic phrasebook like no other. ‘Dent’s Modern Tribes’ takes us on a whirlwind tour of Britain, decoding its secret languages and finding out what really makes us tick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[343],"product_tag":[622,957],"class_list":["post-100659","product","type-product","status-publish","product_cat-classics-plays-poetry","product_tag-language-history-general-works","product_tag-slang-dialect-humour","pa_book_author-dent-susie","pa_cover-hardback","pa_dewey-427-edition23","pa_imprint-john-murray","pa_language-english","pa_pages-9132","pa_publisher-john-murray-publishers","pa_readership-general-trade-code-k","first","outofstock","taxable","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"yoast_head":"\n