Did you know that.. . a soldier`s biggest social blunder is called jack brew
- making yourself a cuppa without making one for anyone else? That twitchers have an expression for a bird that can`t be identified
- LBJ (the letters stand for Little Brown Job)? Or that builders call plastering the ceiling doing Lionel Richie`s dancefloor? Susie Dent does. 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 & phrases, honed through years of conversations on the battlefield, in A&E, backstage, or at ten-thousand feet in the air. Susie Dent has spent years interviewing hundreds of professionals, hobbyists & enthusiasts, & the result is an idiosyncratic phrasebook like no other. From the Freemason`s handshake to the publican`s banter, Dent`s Modern Tribes takes us on a whirlwind tour of Britain, decoding its secret languages &, in the process, finds out what really makes us all tick.