Off the back of the lorry

I am stealing english slang. I love slang of all types but I have a special place in my heart for the limeys. I have taken to saying crikey(sp) in lieu of cursing. It's just a good word. I also have the urge to burst out at work and say something like " These geezers treat me like a tosser, holding up me reddies. Old bill can't get in on this one, guv. The blokes make me wanna get tooled up and leave em with claret all over their knickers, wearing a Chelsea smile. I thought about this cause this comedian was talking about getting robbed in a place your not from and slang making it hard to understand. "Word is bond kid, run them Jew-els for the ion start spitting and turn your cabbage into coleslaw." I recall when I was at Morgan (MSU) people couldn't tell where I was from because my love of hip-hop and my grasp of the english languge had seasoned my speach. In fact they only figured out where I was from when I kept saying yo. I didn't realize it was such a "Baltimore" term. I am aware that we can have a whole conversation just using yo and a few other terms. "Yo, you know son from up the joint that run with the lil' yo's, not yo from down the hill, money that used to mess with shorty - the stallion." Because I can speak properly I have a greater appreciation for slang. Similar to foreign languages, slang words can speak a whole sentence. The best example is the word "What". Commonly a question, it can be a threat an expression of surprise or disbelief and truly more things than I can think of now. I used to get into debates with people who would say that their use of proper english made other black kids tease them. Their point was you shouldn't be teased for speaking properly. My problem is they would refer to slang as improper speach. Slang is as old as speach. When people developed words other people would shorten or create new words that gave a more ready description. In fact slang definitions of words make their way into the dictionary after some periods of usage. For instance the meaning of cool that pertains to me [:)] as opposed to the one that is a measurment of temperature are both in the dictionary. When cool was first used in this manner it wasn't accepted. It would have been considered improper. Welcome the slang. Except for the word "hot" it sounds like a sleazy agent from the 80's or something.