Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (163 page)

unit
n

1a.
the genitals. An unromantic 1970s and 1980s term used by the self-consciously liberated or promiscuous to refer to the (usually male) sex organs.

1b.
a potential or actual sexual partner or conquest. A cold-blooded piece of singles-bar jargon from the mid-to-late 1970s, similar in usage and connotation to the more common
item
.

‘Would ya look at that li'l unit in hotpants, though!'
(R Crumb cartoon,
Head Comix
, 1970)

2.
Australian
a
bogan
. Unit is a clothing brand popularly associated with the underclass category.

units
n pl American

an abbreviated form of
parental units

unload
vb

a.
to defecate

b.
to
fart

A vulgarism which is heard all over the English-speaking world but which is particularly popular in Australia.

unmentionables
n pl

a.
underwear

b.
the genitals

A mock-Victorian euphemism for taboo personal items. The expression was used fairly seriously in the early 1900s; since at least World War II the usage has invariably been facetious.

unplugged
adj British

behaving naturally and unselfconsciously rather than boisterously, particularly towards a partner or friend. This sense of the word, heard among adolescents in the later 1990s and usually referring to male behaviour, is inspired by the use of the term to describe rock and pop musicians performing informal and relaxed acoustic sets as opposed to more contrived electrified stage shows.

unravelled
adj

an alternative version of
untied

unreal
adj

a.
unbelievably good, excellent

b.
outrageous, excessive or unreasonable in behaviour

Both usages are from the jargon of teenagers, firstly (since the 1960s) in the USA and later elsewhere in the English-speaking world. The expression in fact originated in the
beatnik
era when unreal was an exclamation of hallucinated delight or admiration.

unt-cay
n American

the vagina. An item of
pig Latin
based on
cunt
.

unthinkables
n pl British

a.
underwear

b.
the genitals

‘She left her door open and I got a glimpse of her unthinkables.'
(Recorded, male university student, London, 1988)

A students' facetious mock-Victorian euphemism coined in imitation of the earlier
unmentionables
.

untidy
adj Australian

drunk. A humorous euphemism.

untied
adj

in disarray, confused. Often occurring in the phrase
come untied
, the expression has recently been heard less often than its synonyms
unglued
and
unravelled
.

untogether
adj

disorganised, confused, diffuse. This popular
hippy
-era term more often than not refers to the personality or mood of someone who is not in equilibrium emotionally, intellectually or psychically. It postdates its opposite,
together
. Unto-gether is now rarely heard, but survives in the sociolect of those reaching adolescence in the late 1960s.

up
adj

1.
American
‘dried', having forgotten one's lines. A theatrical term of uncertain origin.

2.
exhilarated or intoxicated,
high

upchuck
vb

to vomit. A humorous reversal of
chuck up
(itself based on ‘throw up'), this expression surfaced in the USA in the 1920s and, having spread to British and Australian speech, has enjoyed a limited currency ever since.

up each other/one another
adj
,
adv Australian

engaged in mutual flattery, ‘in cahoots'. The image is that of mutual sodomy, colourfully suggesting an unhealthy or illegally close relationship (often in a political or business context).

Compare
up oneself

upfront
adj

bold, assertive, open, straightforward, trustworthy. The word is usually used approvingly of someone acting honestly or without guile.

uphill gardener
n British

a male homosexual. The term is one of many pejorative synonyms (
stabber
,
fudge-nudger
,
rear-gunner
, etc.) denoting ‘active' or ‘predatory' homosexuality, heard since the 1990s.

(all) up in someone's grill
adj American See
grill
²
a

up on blocks
adj
,
adv British

menstruating. The expression, used typically by males since 2000, borrows the image of a car which is temporarily out of operation and immobilised in a garage. The reference is to a female who is unavailable for, e.g., sex during her period.

up oneself
adj Australian

self-satisfied, smug, high-handed. A vulgar version of ‘full of oneself', evoking auto-sodomy. Now also heard in the UK.

‘They're all up themselves, that lot.'
(Referring to members of a university department, teacher, Melbourne, 1988)

‘Anyone who thinks their signature is worth £175 is getting up himself.'
(
Guardian
, 2 March 2004)

Compare
up each other/one another

uppers
n pl

stimulant drugs such as amphetamines (i.e.
pep pills
,
speed
) and cocaine, as opposed to
downers
(barbiturates and sedatives)

He acts as if he's on uppers.

uppie, uppy
adj British

exhilarating, exciting, powerful. A term from the lexicon of
rave
and dancefloor culture in the northwest of England in the late 1990s.

uppy
adj

aggressive, assertive. The term, often used in the phrase ‘getting uppy', is heard throughout the English-speaking world but particularly in Lowlands Scottish speech.

up shit creek
adj

in serious trouble. Shit creek was a 19th-century nickname (probably coined by British or American sailors) for any stagnant or dangerous backwater or river. The expression is often embellished to ‘up shit creek without a paddle', sometimes with the addition of ‘in a barbed wire canoe'. ‘Up the creek' is a less offensive version.

up the duff
adj British

pregnant. A working-class synonym of
up the poke/pole/spout/stick
, here employing the long-established British metaphor of pudding. Duff is an old-fashioned boiled or steamed pudding; the word is a dialect version of ‘dough'. It has an allpurpose sexual sense (encompassing gratification, the penis, semen or a woman and baby).

up the guts
adj Australian and South African

pregnant. A vulgar version of
up the duff
.

up the poke/pole/spout/stick
adj British
pregnant. These expressions are in mainly working-class use. They are all vulgar, simultaneously evoking the male and female sex organs and the idea of a baby being lodged or jammed. They can describe either the act of conception, as in ‘he's put her up the stick', or the condition of being pregnant, as in ‘she's up the stick again'.

uptight
adj

1.
tense, repressed, humourless, unrelaxed. A black slang term which is probably in origin a short form of ‘wound-up tight' or ‘screwed-up tight'. The term was adopted into the
hippy
vocabulary to express the unliberated, repressed characteristics of
straight
society, particularly the authority figures thereof. Since the early 1970s uptight has passed into (mainly middle-class) colloquial usage, although by the late 1980s it had begun to sound rather dated.

‘The cops? Oh, just about as uptight and corrupt as in Britain.'
(Terry Reid interviewed in
Oz
magazine, February 1979)

2.
American
satisfactory, in good order. In black American street-talk the expression retains a second, rare and positive connotation, possibly deriving from ‘locked-up tight', meaning fixed, settled, under control or, alternatively and more probably, from a sexual sense of being ‘coupled' or ‘snuggled-up tight'.

‘It's uptight, everything is all right/Uptight, it's out of sight.'
(Chorus lyric from
Uptight
by Stevie Wonder, 1963)

Upton Park
adj British

(slightly) crazy. The jocular expression is based on the fact that Upton Park underground station is ‘two stops short of
Barking
'.

Compare
two stops short of Dagenham

urban surfing
n

riding on the outside of a moving car, bus, train, etc. A dangerous fad of the later 1980s among adolescents, first in the USA and later elsewhere

Uri (Geller)
n British

(a drink of) Stella Artois lager, playing on the name of the famous illusionist.
David (Mellor)
,
Paul (Weller)
and
Nelson (Mandela)
are synonyms, all popular with students since the late 1990s.

u.s.
adj British

useless. Mainly used by middle- and upper-class speakers, the term can apply to objects or people.

‘This female razor thing is absolutely u.s.'
(Recorded, female, Bath, 1986)

user
adj

a habitual drug user, especially referring to a heroin addict

using
adj

addicted to heroin or habituated to another hard drug. A euphemism employed by law enforcers and drug abusers.

Looks like she's using again.

u.v.s
n pl American

ultra-violet rays, sunshine. A
preppie
and
Valley Girl
usage found in phrases such as ‘catch/cop/grab/soak up some u.v.s'.

v
adj British

very. Often heard in middle-class speech, as in ‘v. good', ‘v. difficult', etc.

vadge
n

the vagina. A vulgarism (it also occurs in the form
fadge
) in use among adolescents in the 1990s and listed in
Viz
comic in 1994.
Vige
is an American synonym.

vagitarian
n British

a lesbian. The term was posted on the b3ta website in 2004.

vajayjay, va-JJ
n

vagina. Baby-talk euphemisms originating in the US and adopted e.g. by pornographers, broadcast media and fashion journalists.

vajazzled
adj

(of a female) having had the genital area decorated, with e.g. jewels. A vogue, and vogue term, of 2011 in the USA and then in the UK and Australia following its use on makeover and reality TV shows.

Vals, Valley Girls
n pl American

a Californian (and later more widespread) youth culture of the early 1980s, based on the habits, mannerisms and distinctive vocabulary of teenage girls from the San Fernando Valley region of outer Los Angeles. The Vals, daughters of affluent parents working typically in the media, music industry or professions, had developed a sybaritic lifestyle in which consumerism (‘recreational shopping') and leisure activities were elevated to a social code. Vals employed a colourful hyperbolic repertoire of slang, typically expressed in a high-pitched, breathless drawl. Their lexicon was partly invented and partly adopted or adapted from the argot of surfers, college and high-school students and other sources. (
Grody
,
gnarly
and
to the max
are examples). Many of these terms became teenage vogue expressions on a wider scale in the mid-1980s.

‘The greatest creative work that any Val does is trying to think of a good slogan for her [car number] plate.'
(
Harpers and Queen
magazine, 1983)

Valspeak
n American

the jargon of
Valley Girls
, as spoken in California in the early 1980s, and subsequently elsewhere

‘Valspeak is an almost impossible farrago of surfer expressions, Midwesternisms and irrational neologisms, delivered in nasal lockjawed whining tones.'
(
Harpers and Queen
magazine, 1983)

vamoose
vb American

to leave, go away, get moving. The word, familiar since its use in cowboy-era fiction and subsequent film and TV drama, is a corruption of the Spanish
vamos
(‘we're going') or ¡
vamonos
! (‘let's go!').

OK, I think it's time we vamoosed.