[1] The nations of the United Kingdom, which are England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all have their own slang words, as does London.
[4] The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar (1994) defines it as "Words, phrases, and uses that are regarded as informal and are often restricted to special contexts or are peculiar to specific profession, classes etc".
[8] The first books containing slang also appeared around that time: Robert Copland's The hye way to the Spytlell hous was a dialogue in verse between Copland and the porter of St Bartholomew's Hospital, which included thieves' cant; and in 1566, Thomas Harman's A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors, vulgarly called vagabonds was published.
The Caveat contained stories of vagabond life, a description of their society and techniques, a taxonomy of rogues, and a short canting dictionary which was later reproduced in other works.
[8] In 1698 the New Dictionary of the Canting Crew by B. E. Gent was published, which additionally included some 'civilian'[clarification needed] slang terms.
It remained the predominant work of its kind for much of the 18th century, until the arrival in 1785 of The Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Captain Francis Grose, which ran to more than five expanded editions.
This book provided the major part of Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (1937).
[8] It was not until the 1950s that slang began to make regular appearances in books and in the relatively new media of motion pictures and television.
Chiefly associated with cockney speech spoken in the East End of London, words are replaced with a phrase which rhymes.
[16][17][18] Examples of this include the old naval terms, "Talking bilge" (nonsense) and "A loose cannon" (an unorthodox person with the potential to cause harm).