SLANG, suggested spendthrift lexicographer Francis Grose in his Classical Dictionary of of 1785, ought to inspire pride in British hearts. Ribald, scatological, inventive, vigorous and witty, slang, he said, was the preserve of a nation without shackles, proof of British ‘freedom of thought and speech, arising from… our constitution’. ‘Vulgar’ it undoubtedly was, ‘suiting to the common people’, as Dr Johnson defined vulgarity in 1755. Yet slang was more than throaty grossness.
