Online competition:
Win a copy of Chambers Slang Dictionary, also available from Bookshelf)
With some 85,000 slang words and phrases, the Chambers is probably the largest single-volume slang dictionary you will find. It looks at slang across the last 500 years, and while most of it will be words from the 20th and 21st centuries, some of it is a good deal older. The use of ‘fig’ as a slang word (as in ‘give a fig’) dates from the late 16th century, whilst ‘mouse potato’ as a slang term for someone who spends an excessive amount of time in front of their computer, came here from the US in the last few years. Slang was very much the language of the markets, streets and pubs of London’s East End, but in recent years it has begun to shed its street lingo image, partly because much new slang (like mouse potato) is related to computers and to business practice. Some modern slang is also what is known as popney (as opposed to cockney) rhyming slang: Britneys for beers for example, derived from the rhyming Britney Spears, and Claire Rayners for trainers.
Slang is a fascinating branch of our language, and the Chambers Slang defines and explains it from aachibombo (a codfish fritter in the 1940s) to zutupeck (West Indian 1990s slang for an unattractive woman). And you can win a free copy of Chambers Slang by answering this question based on an entry in the Chambers:
Send us your answer on the entry form below and e-mail it to us by 31 July. All the correct answers received by that date will go into a draw and the winner will receive the prize copy of Chambers Slang Dictionary. Please note that each entrant is allowed only one entry.
How to Enter
You could win a free copy by correctly answering this simple question:
Competition Rules:
The competition will be drawn on Saturday, July 31, 2010 and the winner will be notified by e-mail
The prizes must be accepted as offered. There can be no alternative awards, cash or otherwise.
Only one entry per household is permitted: multiple entries will be disqualified
Employees and family members of any company associated with this competition are not eligible to enter.
All entries become the property of Warners Group Publications plc. The decision of Warners Group Publications is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
Competition is open to everyone except employees of Warners Group Publications or anyone connected with this offer.
The winner of the copy of Faux Pas competition was Bruce Ringrose from West Chiltington.
