the oldest surviving slang

[Baker, John]

        I believe that "cunt," in use since at least c. 1230, is still considered slang.  "Cool" goes back to only 1948 and "dope" to 1851, according to the OED.

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: RonButters at AOL.COM [mailto:RonButters at AOL.COM]
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 5:18 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: the oldest surviving slang


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 >>