Pimp Your Vocab - Tapa dura

An old English proverb says 'he that converses not, know nothing' - but you might be forgiven for thinking that young people nowadays speak a completely different language from the English you were taught at school. A vast number of bewildering terms, with no apparent relevance to the rules of grammar or sense, have proliferated among 'the youth of today'. You might hear this strange new language on the back of the bus, in student bars across the land, and online - indeed, wherever teens chat breeze (make conversation) together. And how to decipher this cryptic talk? Unfortunately, a trawl through Webster's or the OED won't enlighten you as to what a milf is, things that are alternately sick and skankaroo, or what it means to get poked on Facebook. As for expletives, well, in the modern age the F-word is the most versatile part of speech around - a handy verb, adjective or noun. Pimp Your Vocab! is your insider's guide to making sense of Teenglish. To bridge the communication gap between teachers and students, parents and kids, here is a dictionary of the words du jour...standard.

Lucy Tobin is a freelance writer with Evening Standard. She has had articles published in numerous national newspapers, including The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Sunday Times. This is her first book.