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Dent's Modern Tribes: The Secret Languages of Britain

Dent's Modern Tribes: The Secret Languages of Britain

by Dent, Susie
No customer reviews yet ISBN 9781473623897 John Murray

Did you know that . . . a soldier's biggest social blunder is called jack brew - making yourself a cuppa without making one for anyone else? That twitchers have an expression for a bird that can't be identified - LBJ (the letters stand for Little Brown Job)? Or that builders call plastering the ceiling doing Lionel Richie's dancefloor? Susie Dent does.

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.

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 takes us on a whirlwind tour of Britain, decoding its secret languages and, in the process, finds out what really makes us all tick.

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Product details

BrandJohn Murray
Pub dateNov 27, 2018
ISBN-101473623898
ISBN-139781473623897
Paperback336.0 pages
LanguageEnglish
Dimensions7.8 × 0.88 × 5.15 in
Weight2 lb
Last updated 2026-09-08 10:59
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