These timelines, based on the Timeglider.com software system, have been taken from my ever-expanding database of slang, which was also the source of Green’s Dictionary of Slang, published in 2010. Slang covers many areas, but there are certain major themes which have dominated the vocabulary for over 500 years. To sum them up as sex, drugs and, in its widest sense, rock ‘n’ roll wouldn’t be so far from the truth. Plus crime, drunkenness, insults, racism and a number of other of our less savoury but quite inescapable activities. What you will find here are the first examples of what I intend to be a look at all of them. Prepare to be amused, informed, even shocked. Subversive, cynical, witty and sometimes cruel, whether we like it or not, slang is humanity at its most human.

Jonathon Green aka 'Mr Slang’

click a link below to view a timeline



NB: The purpose of these timelines is to illustrate the wide range of terms that slang uses for a single topic. They are not a dictionary, with definitions and etymologies, simply an example of slang’s remarkable creativity over time. Their aim is to inform, but also to entertain. I do not pretend that all of them are in common use or ever were. What I do know is that I have found them in print, in lyrics, in scripts, online or elsewhere. There are certainly more that I have yet to discover. I must also add that the dates are not set in stone. Slang research is always changing what we know and there is only one rule: words are always older than you think. When I find proof, I shall make the necessary changes.