the oldest surviving slang

[Alice Faber]

RonButters at AOL.COM said:
>How about DOPE as in "Don't be such a dope."? Surely that is older.
>
>In a message dated 7/1/02 4:16:21 PM, dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU writes:
>
><< On Mon, 1 Jul 2002, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>>I always trot out "cool" as the longest-surviving lexical item that
>>has retained its slang categorization.
>
>Works for me.
>
>Bethany >>

A number of years ago, I bought a reprint of a late 18th or early
19th century book of London "argot" (or "slang"--it's at home, so I
can't check). While quite a number of its entries, understandably,
seemed quite dated, some weren't. One that I recall offhand was "pig"
for policeman.

Alice