Event: The Secret Slang of Britain's Tribes

UCL Students are being offered a 50% discount for the below event, bringing the ticket price to £10. Email lucy.jordan@ucl.ac.uk for the discount code.

Countdown’s Susie Dent on the Secret Slang of Britain’s Tribes at The School of Life on Marchmont Street.

Please see the website for more information and to book tickets.

“Find your tribe in this Sunday Sermon, as Countdown's Susie Dent takes us on a whirlwind tour through the weird and wonderful subcultures of Great Britain.

Have you ever wondered why football managers all speak the same way, what a cabbie calls the Houses of Parliament, or how ticket inspectors discreetly request back-up?

We are surrounded by hundreds of tribes, each speaking their own distinct slanguage of colourful words, jokes and phrases, honed through years of conversations on the battlefield, in A&E, backstage and at ten-thousand feet in the air. 

As the resident word-expert on Countdown’s Dictionary Corner, Susie Dent knows her way around the English language. In this Sunday Sermon, she’ll show you how to decode modern Britain’s secret languages and discover what really makes us tick. You’ll discover terms like:

jack brew (Army) making yourself a cuppa without making one for anyone else

bert (trainspotter) someone who simply sees trains as a way of getting from A to B

VIP (doctor in A&E) Very Intoxicated Person

Kate Moss (golfer) a shot that's a bit thin

little brown job (twitcher) any bird that can't be definitely identified

disco rice (bin men) maggots

crotch watch (flight attendant) the walk through the cabin carrying out a seatbelt check

Join us for a witty guide through the linguistic minefields that surround us all.”