Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (23 page)

bolted-up
adj British

a synonym for
fitted up
or
framed
, in criminal jargon of the late 1980s

‘I've got about 30 previous – about half of those, I was bolted-up.'
(Recorded, bag snatcher, London, 1988)

bom
adj British

exciting, impressive. The term, used by young black speakers in London since 2000, may be a form of
bomb
or
boom
.

bomb
vb

to put one's
tag
(personal signature) on a building. From the jargon of graffiti artists.

‘Welcome to a freshly-bombed station.'
(Graffito, East Putney underground station, London, 1988)

bomb, the
n
,
adj

(something) superlative. A vogue term in the USA in
hip
talk, teenage and campus slang since the later 1990s, now also heard in other English-speaking areas. It is often rendered as ‘da bomb' in imitation of Afro-Caribbean speech or hip talk.

bombaclaat
n See
bambaclaat

bombed
adj

drunk or
stoned
on illicit drugs. ‘Bombed out of one's mind/skull' is a common elaboration.

‘Harvey decided his only real option was to get bombed out of his skull; some things never went out of style, thank God…'
(
The Serial
, Cyra McFadden, 1976)

bomber
n

1a.
a pill or capsule of an illicit drug, especially amphetamines.

See also
black bombers

1b.
a
joint
, especially a large or powerful one

2.
a graffiti artist. From the verb to
bomb
.

3.
South African
a train. Recorded as an item of Sowetan slang in the
Cape Sunday Times
, 29 January 1995.

bona
adj
,
exclamation British

excellent, fine, the real thing. An allpurpose term of approbation increasingly heard among working-class Londoners in the 1980s, probably derived from ‘bona fide' or from the Spanish and Italian words for good (
buena
and
buona
). In the 1960s bona was part of the
camp
lexicon (popularised in Kenneth Horne's radio comedy shows), originating in theatrical performers' and prostitutes' argot of the 19th century, in which it often meant ‘beautiful'.

a bona geezer

bonce
n British

the head. Bonce was a mid-19th-century dialect and schoolboy term for a big marble. The word was soon adapted to mean the head, and in that sense remained popular in young people's usage until the 1960s. It now sounds old-fashioned or affectedly upper class, but may be due for revival, in common with other obsolescent but ‘jolly' words.

bone
¹
vb

to have sex. A vulgarism, originating in American speech, in use in many English-speaking areas. Common from the mid-1980s, it was recorded among black Londoners in 1999. This usage may be a back-formation from
boner
.

‘I hate them.
Yeah but would you bone them?'
(
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
, US film, 1992)

bone
²
, bones
n

the drug
crack
. In this sense the usage appeared around 2000.

bonehead
n British

a.
a complete fool

b.
a
skinhead
of unusually low intelligence and/or extremely right-wing views. The expression was used by skinheads themselves to characterise their more brutal fellows, who may also differentiate themselves by having almost completely shaven heads.

boner
n

1.
a clumsy error, serious mistake. The origin of the term is not clear; it may be inspired by ‘bone-headed' or by a ‘bone-jarring' blow.

2.
an erection. ‘Bone', ‘hambone' and ‘jigging bone' are all archaic slang terms for the penis.

‘Do you really want to get all dressed up so some Drakkar Noir-wearing Dexter with a boner feels you up?'
(
10 Things I Hate About You
, US film, 1999)

bones
n pl

1.
dice

2.
American
money

3.
the drug

crack boneyard
n
a cemetery

bong
¹
, bhong
n

a water-pipe for smoking cannabis, strictly one with a carburation hole so that the smoker can add air at will to the smoke. The typical bong is smaller than a hubble-bubble but larger than a pipe. A part of late 1960s drug paraphernalia. From the late 1980s the word referred also to a
crack
pipe.

bong
²
, bong on
vb

a.
Australian
to smoke cannabis in a water-pipe (a
bong
)

b.
American
to smoke
crack

bong
³
vb British

to hit, beat up. Used in street-gang code and its imitations since around 2010. A contemporary synonym is
tump
.

bonged
adj

stoned
after smoking cannabis or
crack

BONGO
n British

a lazy, inert police officer. The police slang term is an abbreviation for ‘books on, never goes out'. Synonyms are
clothes hanger
,
FLUB
and
uniform carrier
.

See also
BINGO seat

bongo'd
adj British

thoroughly intoxicated by an illicit drug or, less commonly, alcohol. A variant form of synonymous terms such as
bombed
and
banjo'd
.

bonk
vb British

to have sex (with). A vogue word of the late 1980s; first heard in the late 1970s and quickly picked up by the media as a useful, vigorous, but printable euphemism for
fuck
. (The word was first broadcast in a British TV comedy series; at a later date, the tennis champion Boris Becker was dubbed ‘Bonking Boris' by the gutter press.) It is a childish synonym for ‘hit'; the sexual sense may derive from the sound of energetic bouncing. Alternatively, an extended correspondence in
Private Eye
magazine suggested that this had long been a schoolboy term meaning to masturbate or ejaculate. It may also be significant that the immediately precedent vogue word for copulate among teenagers was
knob
, which in
backslang
would give bonk.

‘They do call it bonking after all, which, as everyone knows, is THE word used by promiscuous people who DON'T REALLY LIKE SEX.'
(Julie Burchill,
Elle
magazine, December 1987)

bonkers
adj

a.
crazy. A common colloquialism in Britain since the mid-1960s (it seems to have existed in restricted use since the 1920s), bonkers has more recently been adopted by American teenagers. The inspiration behind it is uncertain, but it may refer to a bang (‘bonk') on the head.

b.
fun. Influenced by the associated notions of wild, excessive and unrestrained, this adapted sense of the term has been popular among adolescents since 2000.

We had a bonkers day out
.

bonzer
adj Australian

excellent, great. A word sometimes adopted for humorous use by British speakers. It may derive from bonanza or from Latinate words for ‘good'.

boo
n American

1a.
a term of endearment, especially towards a partner of either sex

1b.
a ‘significant other', e.g. a partner, girl/boyfriend

An expression used on campus in the USA since around 2000.

2.
marihuana. A former black slang word, adopted by
hippies
in the late 1970s. It is possibly a pre-World War II adoption of
jabooby
, an African term for fear, or else derives from the adjectival sense.

boob
¹
, boo-boo
vb

to blunder, commit a gaffe or error. The verb to boob, based on the earlier nouns ‘booby' and ‘boob' in the sense of a fool, has been in use since before World War II, the reduplicated form boo-boo since the 1960s.

boob
²
n British

jail. An item of prison slang from the 1990s, probably a shortened version of
booby hatch
in the sense of an institution in which one becomes crazy.

boobs
n pl

female breasts. The only slang word for the breasts which is currently acceptable in ‘polite circles'. (It is also used in the singular form, ‘boob'.) It is a less brusque variant of the more vulgar
bubs
or
bubbies
which probably derive from the noises made by suckling babies. Boobs has been a fashionable term since the mid-1960s; bubbie since the 17th century.

‘Gimme the good old days – when a pair of boobs was a couple of dumb guys.'
(
Smokey and the Bandit III
, US film, 1983)

booby hatch
n

a psychiatric hospital. A jocular term, originally from North America. The association with
boob
and ‘booby' is obvious; hatch or hutch is an archaic term for many different enclosures and containers.

boo-coo(s)
n
,
adj American

variant forms of
bokoo

boof, boof-head
n Australian

a stupid person. The terms are heard throughout the English-speaking world, but probably originated in Australian usage before World War II.

boog
n British

a foolish, unfortunate or unpleasant person, a misfit. In use among adolescents since 2000. It is probably an arbitrary coinage, possibly influenced by
booger
and/or
bugger
.

booger
n American

a piece of mucus from the nose. This is the American version of
bogey
.

book
¹
vb American

to depart, leave. A fashionable term of the 1990s in black street usage and also heard among white adolescents. A variety of euphemisms (like its contemporaries
bail
,
bill
,
jam
and
jet
) for ‘run away' are essential to the argot of gang members and their playground imitators. The origin of this usage is not certain; it may derive from an earlier phrase ‘book it', meaning that someone has to return home quickly in order to record a transaction.

book
²
adj British

cool
. When using predictive text in text messaging, an attempt to enter ‘cool' will prompt the option ‘book', hence its ironic substitution by teenagers also in speech.

booky
adj

a.
suspicious

b.
strange. The term was defined by one user as ‘weird or actin' weird'.

First attested in the early noughties, the youth slang term may derive from a pejorative interpretation of ‘bookish' in the sense of excessively earnest and studious. Later in the decade a possibly folk etymology claimed that it was inspired by the shadiness of bookmakers or ‘bookies'.

boom
¹
n

1.
American
a stereo cassette player, particularly one fitted in a car. A teenagers' term recorded in California in 1987.

2.
a party. A teenagers' term in use in Britain and the USA since the early 1980s.

boom
²
adj

a.
excellent, exciting

b.
sexually attractive

The usage, popular since 2000, probably originated in Afro-Caribbean speech. In 2005, pupils at a South London secondary school excused their apparent booing of Prime Minister Tony Blair by claiming that they were in fact chanting ‘boom!'

boomer
n

1.
Australian
a particularly large kangaroo. ‘Boom' is an archaic term meaning to rush or move forcefully.

2.
Australian
something excellent, admirable, exciting

3.
American
a member of the so-called baby-boom generation born between 1945 and 1960. The term came into prominence in the 1990s as the adult lifestyle of this age-group came under renewed scrutiny.

boom-ting
n British

something excellent or impressive. An item of black British slang adopted by adolescents during the 1990s, combining the slang sense of
boom
and the Afro-Caribbean pronunciation of ‘thing'.

boondocks, the boondocks
n American