Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (49 page)

‘All right dirtbags, I've had enough.'
(Psychopath in
Beer
, US film, 1985)

dirter
n British

an allpurpose term of abuse popular among UK schoolchildren in 2003

dirty
adj

1a.
possessing or containing illicit drugs, a jargon term used by the police, customs officers and drug users

His suitcase came through dirty
.

1b.
British
unsafe, illicit,
hot
. This general sense is employed typically by criminals and the police.

2.
Australian
annoyed, resentful. In this sense the word is often used in the phrase ‘to be dirty on (someone)'.

3.
excellent. A vogue word in club culture since 2000 by analogy with
bad
,
brutal
, etc.
Filthy
is a synonym. ‘It refers to dance music considered so exciting it's positively rude, as used by DJ Brandon Block'.

dirty old man
n See
D.O.M.

disco-stick
n

an erection while dancing. The term, popularised by singer Lady Gaga among others, literally refers to a luminescent tube brandished at celebrations.

discuss Uganda
vb British

to have sex. A euphemism coined in the 1970s by the British satirical magazine
Private Eye
. It has become one of the magazine's long-running jokes and is said to stem from a party at which a female journalist was alleged to have explained an upstairs sexual encounter by saying ‘We were discussing Uganda'.

dish
¹
n

1a.
a very attractive woman. This appreciative term (though offensive to most modern women) is one of many that liken a woman to a tasty snack or meal. Unlike
tart
or
crumpet
, e.g., dish was introduced, or perhaps reintroduced (the metaphor was not unknown in earlier times) into Britain from the USA in the 1930s.

1b.
a very attractive man. Since the mid-1960s the word has also been used of men by women and this usage may now be more common than the original.

‘And those photographs of Mustapha – he was so unattractive, and because you'd had him they said “what a dish”.'
(Kenneth Halliwell, quoted in Joe Orton's diary, 2 May 1967)

2.
American
gossip. From the phrase
dish the dirt
.

‘Oh my, this is prime dish. I can't wait to tell the girls.'
(
Cheers
, US TV comedy series, 1989)

dish
²
vb

to defeat, destroy or ruin. The original sense of this British term of the 18th century was to swindle, deceive or make a fool of. The image behind the expression was probably that of ‘serving up' something (or someone) that has been well and truly ‘processed', exploited, etc.

dish the dirt
vb

to spread scandalous or malicious gossip. ‘Dish' here is, of course, dish up in the sense of ‘serve' to an eager audience.

dishy
adj

very attractive, handsome or beautiful. The adjectival form of
dish
is currently more often used by women than men and is so common in Britain as to be a colloquialism rather than true slang.

diss
vb

to scorn, snub, belittle. This vogue word of the late 1980s entered adolescent speech via the
hip hop
and
rap
subcultures originating in the USA. A typical ‘clipping', like
def
,
treach
, etc., it is based on the verbs to dismiss, disapprove or disrespect [sic] (perhaps influenced by
dish
).

distress
vb

to annoy (someone). A vogue use of the standard term, heard since 2000 and probably originating in black speech.

district nurse
n
,
adj British

(someone or something) unfashionable, earnest and sexually unalluring (or strangely alluring). The ambivalent usage, evoking a quintessentially frumpy, starchy middle-aged female, featured in the banter on George Lamb's BBC6 Music radio show in 2009.

ditch
vb British

1.
to play truant,
bunk off
. The term has been used (intransitively) by schoolchildren since at least 2000. It may be a transferral of the older colloquial sense of ‘ditch'
meaning to abandon or dispose of.
Mitch
is a contemporary synonym.

2.
to throw. The youth slang usage, recorded since the noughties decade, is probably a shift in, or misunderstanding of, the pre-existing colloquial sense of abandon.

I kept telling him to ditch me the ball
.

ditsy, ditzy
adj

silly, eccentric, twee or frivolous. An invented term, popular especially in the USA since the mid-1970s. The word, which is obviously influenced by ‘dizzy', is generally applied to females.

ditz
n

a silly, eccentric and/or frivolous person; someone who is
ditzy
. An Americanism picked up by some British speakers in the mid-1980s.

div
n British

a person who is odd, stupid, weak or deviant in some way. This shortening of
divvy
has become popular among young people of all classes since the 1980s. Before that it was part of the lexicon of criminals, tramps, street-traders and workmen.

‘Him, he's a bit of a div, isn't he?'
(Recorded, student, London University, 1986)

dive
n See
take a dive/tumble/fall

divebombing
n British

1.
attacking something with spray paints in order to cover it with graffiti. Since the late 1970s the term has been used by young graffiti artists or vandals.

2.
picking up cigarette ends from the street (to relight and smoke). A term used by vagrants in the 1980s.

diving
n American

picking pockets. An underworld term which is the equivalent of the British
dipping
.

divot
n American

a toupée or hairpiece. The standard word, denoting a clod of earth and grass dug out by a golfing stroke, has become part of the adolescent lexicon of mockery (like its UK counterparts
syrup (of figs)
,
Irish
, etc.). ‘Divot' itself is an old Scottish word of unknown origin.

divvy
adj British

odd, stupid, deviant, weak or pathetic. This term, of uncertain origin, has existed in the vocabulary of society's ‘marginals' since at least the late 1950s (it is unlikely to derive from deviant, but may be related to ‘daft' or
daffy
, or even by a tortuous etymology from ‘divine' in the sense of possessed). It has recently been revived as a vogue term by schoolchildren, although the short noun form
div
is more common. (Divvy itself has occasionally been recorded as a noun.)

‘Who's your friend with the glasses? 'E looks a bit divvy.'
(Recorded, street-gang member, London, 1967)

diz
n American

a foolish, eccentric or disoriented individual. The term, in use among US teenagers in the 1990s, was probably a variant form of
ditz
or may be based upon ‘dizzy'.

dizzle
n American

1.
an unnamed or unnameable thing

Help me get rid of this dizzle
.

2.
the penis

She got a squint at his dizzle
.

3.
a friend

Yo, how's it hangin' my dizzle?

These usages, all recorded in 2003 and 2004, may involve words like deal,
dong
and
dawg
with the substitute syllables
-izzle
.

DL
See
on the DL do
¹
vb

1.
to have sex with. More a shorthand vulgarism than an evasive euphemism, the term was widely used in the USA from the late 1960s and since the 1990s has been popular among adolescents in Britain.

‘Debbie does Dallas'
(Title of 1970s US porno film)

‘Is she really doing that dreamboat in the sixth form?'
(
Just Seventeen
magazine, August 1996)

2.
to kill. A term used by criminals and street-gang members and their fictional counterparts.

He didn't say a goddam word, he just went and did her
.

do
²
n American

a hairstyle. This shortened form of hairdo originated in black slang. It is now also heard among younger British speakers.

do
³
, doo
n
excrement. A nursery word used all over the English-speaking world, although in Britain the plural form
dos
is probably more common. The word in this sense is probably pre-World War II and derives from the Victorian notion of doing or performing one's bodily functions dutifully.

D.O.A.
adj

unconscious, inert. A facetious use of the American police and hospital jargon ‘dead
on arrival' to mean ‘dead to the world', particularly after taking drugs or alcohol.

do-able
adj American

sexually attractive. This term, used to categorise a potential partner, was popular among female Californian high-school students in the 1990s and was featured in the 1994 US film
Clueless
.

‘There's no getting round the style question. If you want to be “do-able”…you cannot afford to dress “random”.'
(
Sunday Times “Style”
magazine, 22 October 1995)

do a Geraghty/Gerrity
vb British

to become enraged, run amok. One Londoner described the expression thus in 2008: ‘Have heard this quite often in and around South East London (Catford, Lewisham, Deptford). Means losing your temper to such a degree that you become mad. I have heard that it may come from Deptford docks – but this may be just a rumour.'

do a job on (someone)
vb

to deceive, thoroughly overwhelm, devastate someone. Originally an Americanism, this unspecific phrase is now in fairly widespread use in Britain and Australia.

do a number on (someone)
vb

to cheat, frustrate, defeat, demoralise someone. Like the previous phrase, this expression, the precise meaning of which depends on its context, originated in the USA and is now used elsewhere.

‘A talk that made it clear that Ari intended “to do a number on Bolker, he wanted to hurt the fellow, not do him in, but certainly to harm him in some way”.'
(Nigel Dempster, writing in the
Sunday Times
, 24 September 1989)

do a runner
vb British

to escape, run away or disappear. A phrase from semi-criminal and subsequent working-class usage which has become a generally popular term since the early 1980s. It originally referred specifically to the practice of leaving a restaurant, bar, etc. without paying.

‘I decided to “do a runner”, i.e. to leg it out of the restaurant without paying the bill.'
(
Great Bus Journeys of the World
, Alexei Sayle, 1988)

dob, dob in, dob on
vb Australian

to inform (on someone), tell tales. A schoolchildren's term since the late 1970s which was previously, and still is, part of underworld terminology. ‘Dob' was a British dialect word meaning something between drop and lob (it survives in the noun form in colloquial expressions such as ‘a dob of butter'). ‘Dob in' has been introduced to British audiences via Australian soap operas of the 1980s.

‘I tell you what you do, dob her in to the governor.'
(
Prisoner, Cell Block H
, Australian TV series, 1982)

docker
n British

a partly smoked cigarette, put out for later relighting. This word, which is more common in the north of England than elsewhere, originates in ‘dock', meaning to cut short, or the related archaic use of dock, meaning the ‘solid part of an animal's tail'.

doctors and nurses
n

sexual activity or sex play. To ‘play (at) doctors and nurses' is a humorous euphemism, sometimes used by adults, deriving from the children's game which often involves sexual experimentation.

dodgy
adj British

a.
doubtful, suspect. A common term in British English and nowadays hardly slang. It arose in the later 19th century and derives from the sense of dodge as an artful or risky ruse. In the 1960s ‘dodgy!' was the counterpart of ‘swinging!' in the catchphrases of TV compère Norman Vaughan.

b.
stolen, illegal. A narrower sense of
dodgy a
, common since the 1960s in such euphemisms as ‘dodgy gear/merchandise'.

doer
n American

a perpetrator of a crime, suspected criminal. The term, a synonym of
perp
, is probably a shortening of ‘wrongdoer' in police jargon.