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A glossary of terms used by Kane.  I've included words and phrases which are generally obscure (ES3) as well as those which are not well known outside Britain (Elland Road).  Updates and queries are welcome.  Also see the quotations page.

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199714424

the meaning is not generally known.  Simon Kane on the site the site discussion pages says only a few people know the actual meaning, though it is NOT a telephone number.  A reasonable guess (by Jess on the site discussion pages) is that it is a number Kane was given as a patient in hospital (1997 being the year).  Another theory (by M on the site discussion pages) is that it refers to the year 1997, the year of the love that killed Sarah, in N.Y. and then the other refers to the number of days spent together in an 24 hour day base. The Dutch performances substituted a mobile phone number, which is probably most satisfying for the audience. (Crave).

100 91 84 81...

the doctors give the patient a simple arithmetic text.  The patient is so confused/ drugged he/she gives answers slowly and incorrectly (4.48 Psychosis).

100 93 86 79...

as for the previous entry, now however the patient is able to do the arithmetic, subtracting 7,  easily. (4.48 Psychosis).  Compare with Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer after a patient has been given an injection "Shall I start counting backwards from a hundred?... One hundred!  Ninety-nine! Ninety-eight!  Ninety-seven!  Ninety-six!  Ninety-five- Oh!- A already feel it!"

 

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A Levels

English school exam (Blasted).

anorexia

a mental condition where someone starves themselves to become thinner (Crave).

ASAP

abbreviation for As Soon As Possible, meaning please be quick (4.48 Psychosis).

aspirin

commonly available drugs for headaches etc (4.48 Psychosis).

aye

yes (Blasted).

bagel

a type of pastry (a food, something between bread and cake) (Crave).

base 1, base 2, base 3, base 4, bingo

"...could be a baseball/date success analogy, as used in lots of things. In baseball you run between the three bases then home, hence bingo! In the film Twins Danny DeVito describes a date like baseball, "Base 1, you hold hands. Base 2 you kiss. Base 3 you get a little feel, then Bingo!"- Jaidn on the site discussion pages (Crave).

bastard

insulting word for a person (Phaedra's Love).

bender

homosexual (Cleansed).

besos brujos que me matan

Spanish: The literal meaning is "Witches kisses that kill me".  It means the kisses are so loving that they go straight to the heart (Crave).  Thanks to Pilar for this and the other Spanish translations.

Billyboy

variant of Billy (Skin).

bog

public toilet, sometimes meeting place for homosexuals (Phaedra's Love).

bits and bobs

rubbish, junk (Phaedra's Love).

brain and bollock, innard and eyelid...

sausages traditionally are made up of (disgusting) waste meat (Skin).

bric a brac

rubbish, junk (Phaedra's Love).

bubbly

lively (Blasted).

Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon

a wine (4.48 Psychosis).

bulimia

a mental condition where someone eats little, then eats excessively, then forces themselves to vomit (Crave).

 

caps up, caps down

instructions to use capitals (up) or stop using capitals (down) in the sentence, based on typewriters where the caps (capital) key was used (Blasted).

cig

cigarette (Blasted).

citalopram

an anti-depressant drug (4.48 Psychosis).

clean slate

beginning again without any previous problems (Crave).

Col

name of girlfriend (Blasted).

cocksucker

offensive term for a male homosexual (Blasted).

coloured brethren

offensive racist term for coloured people, copying politically correct language (Blasted).

comma

instructions to insert a comma (,) in the sentence (Blasted).

conker

offensive racist term for coloured people (Blasted).

coon

offensive racist term for coloured people (Blasted).

copy ends

end of the article for the newspaper (Blasted).

coven

a place for witches, so suggesting someone is as nasty as a witch (Blasted).

coward's way out

suicide (Crave).

cracked (I think I've cracked it)

I think I've solved it (Cleansed).

Crown against the crown

British courts enforce the law, which is formalised by the monarchy (the crown).  So if a royal person is charged with a crime, it is the crown (the laws) against the crown (the royal person) (Phaedra's Love).

cry blue murder

to shout and scream and make a commotion (Crave).

cum

sperm (Phaedra's Love).

cunt

offensive term for someone (male or female, in this case male) (Blasted).

Danish

a type of pastry (a food, something between bread and cake) (Crave).

dash

instructions to insert a dash (-) in the sentence (Blasted).

dealer

someone who sells drugs (Cleansed).

dotted line across the throat

in magazines advertisements which have to be cut out have dotted lines to guide the scissors.  Here the phrase suggests a razor cutting a throat (4.48 Psychosis).

down under

in Australia (Blasted).

Dr. This and Dr. That and Dr. Whatsis

she does not know the names of the doctors (4.48 Psychosis).

du bist die Liebe meines Lebens

German: You are the love of my life.  A very common and sentimental phrase (Crave).

dyke

offensive term for a lesbian (Blasted).

dyskinesia

see tardive dyskinesia (4.48 Psychosis).

dysphoria

medical term for the feeling that a person is other than his/her physical gender- a woman feeling more comfortable as a man or vice versa (4.48 Psychosis).

 

El dinero viene sola

Spanish:  The literal meaning is "Money comes alone".  It means that someone who plays (gambles) because they need the money, will certainly lose.  The phrase is used by Lorca as well as other people (Crave).

Elland Road

home of Leeds football club (Blasted).

ES3

Cleansed is dedicated "for the patients of ES3", the hospital ward Sarah Kane stayed in (Cleansed and Crave).

estas astravesada como el dia Miercoles

Spanish: The Spanish is incorrect, astravesada should be atravesada.  In the original edition dia was also incorrectly given as di.  The literal meaning is "you are like a Wednesday". Possibly this is a joke, as the phrase which translates as "you are like a Thursday" means someone who is in the way, just as Thursday is the middle day of the week.  Maybe it takes the religious view and assumes Sunday is the first day of the week rather than Monday, making Wednesday the middle day.  Alternatively, maybe the errors are deliberate "the translation was very bad" Crave p160 (Crave).

fag

cigarette (Crave).

fiddled (kids getting fiddled)

children being sexually molested (Blasted).

Florent

a 24 hour restaurant in New York (Crave).

fluoxertine hydrochloride (Prozac)

an anti-depressant drug (4.48 Psychosis).

foreign affairs

news from outside Britain (Blasted).

Foreign Office

British government department dealing with issues outside the United Kingdom (Blasted).

gag for a fag

desperate for a cigarette (Crave).

gash

See sucking gash.

gay

homosexual (Phaedra's Love).

goldfish memory

short memory, so someone who forgets quickly (Crave).

gonorrhoea

a sexual disease (Phaedra's Love).

ha ha ha

sound of laughter (Crave).  JMGK on the discussion forum says "...the text actually includes three lines: C: Ha ha ha B: Ho ho ho M: He he he To me this is reminiscent of the laughter on the Beatles' I am the Walrus, although the order on the song is actually "Ho ho ho, He he he, Ha ha ha." I am not sure what the significance of the connection is, except that there is death imagery in I am the Walrus, or it could be another free association on Kane's part".

halitosis

bad breath (Phaedra's Love).

hessian

a type of cloth (Crave).

hide-and-seek

a childrens' game where one child hides and other tries to find him/her (Crave).

home journalist

journalist covering British (home) issues (Blasted).

hypochondria

excessive fear of illness and assuming one has a number of serious medical problems (4.48 Psychosis).

in den bergen, da fuhlst du dich frei

German: It appears in English in T.S. Eliot´s The Waste Land as "in the mountains, there you feel free".  The translation to German is a joke by Kane (Crave).

Indian (I'll take you out for an Indian)

A meal in an Indian restaurant, very common in Britain (Blasted).

jeben radoznale

common Serbian slang: "If I find you to be one of those bastards excessively inquisitive about other people's affairs, I wouldn't hesitate to tell you Fuck the nosy." Thanks to Boban for this and the other Serbian translations. (Crave).

joey

offensive term for a mentally handicapped person (Blasted).

kid

child (Blasted).

the king is dead, long live the king

a common phrase.  When a king dies (the king is dead) his son immediately becomes the new king (long live the king).  It shows the fragility of life and the survival of institutions (the monarchy).  Eugene Ionesco also uses the phrase in his play Le Roi Se Meurt (the king has died) (Crave).

kleptomaniac

someone who can´t help stealing.  A literary kleptomaniac is then someone who quotes other writers (4.48 Psychosis).

 

lesbos

offensive term for a lesbian (Blasted).

life in the old dog

cliched phrase jokingly meaning the person may seem too old/weak to do anything, but is in fact still capable of action (Cleansed).

lobotomy

chemical lobotomy refers to the use of drugs (such as thorazine) to "cure" mental illness, but the result can be worse than the illness (4.48 Psychosis).

lofepramine

an anti-depressant drug (4.48 Psychosis).

 

made her lick me clean

forced her to give oral sex (Blasted).

melleril

an anti-depressant drug (4.48 Psychosis).

meni ni iz dzepa, ni u dzep

common Serbian slang: "If you want to tell me you're out of pocket or can't profit from a situation whatever you do, perhaps I am none the richer would do well enough". (Crave).

MNO

MNO could mean the telephone number 6 (Jess on the site discussion pages). "I think that the telephone number is MNO and stops there (6). She doesn't want to call anymore" (M on the site discussion pages).  Another explanation is that it represents police terminology for types of death "Murder, Natural death and Occasional death, though Kane has forgotten one letter, which is S, for Suicide" (site visitor Frida (Crave).

new par

new paragraph (instruction to start the next sentence on a new paragraph) (Blasted).

nigger

offensive racist term for a black person (Blasted).

nod (given the nod)

agreed to what was being said (Blasted).

Official Secrets Act

A contract which forbids people working in certain areas of the government or military from divulging secrets (Blasted).

Oxfam

A British charity (Phaedra's Love).

paedophile

someone who is sexually attracted to children (Crave).

paki

offensive racist term for an immigrant.  Derived from Pakistan (Blasted).

pale (beyond the pale)

not acceptable, beyond what is acceptable (Crave).

palsy

a medical condition affecting the muscles (4.48 Psychosis).

par

paragraph (instruction to start the next sentence on a new paragraph) (Blasted).

per se

Latin phrase used in English meaning "as such".  So "older than me, not older per se" means "looks and feels older than me, though may not be physically older" (Crave).

perv

perverted person (Cleansed).

pig shit thick

very very stupid (Phaedra's Love).

piss (taking the piss)

making fun of someone (Blasted).

pissed

drunk (Blasted).

pleurococcus

a green fungus (Phaedra's Love).

point

instructions to insert a full stop (.) in the sentence (Blasted).

post coital

after sex (Phaedra's Love).

prick (making a prick of myself)

making a fool of myself (Blasted).

prozac

an anti-depressant drug (4.48 Psychosis).

puke

vomit (Blasted).

QED

abbreviation of Latin (Qoud Erat Demonstandum- that which has been proven) originally used in English by mathematicians after a theory had been proven, nowadays meaning generally "it has just been proven correct" or "I was right" (Crave).

Queens English

English spoken very properly (Blasted).

queer

(sometimes offensive) term for a homosexual (Blasted).

retard

offensive term for a mentally handicapped person. Derived from retarded (Blasted).

RSVP

abbreviations of French Respondez S´íl Vous Plait. Initially used on formal invitations requesting a formal answer, now common slang for please reply (4.48 Psychosis).

Rudy's

a restaurant (Crave).

sarky

sarcastic (Blasted).

sarnies

sandwiches (Blasted).

scouse

someone from Liverpool (Blasted).

scum

worthless people (Phaedra's Love).

screwing (still screwing the taxpayer)

cheating (Blasted).

serial killer

murderer who kills more than one people on different occasions (Blasted).

seroxat

an anti-depressant drug (4.48 Psychosis).

sertraline

an anti-depressant drug (4.48 Psychosis).

shag (a great shag)

someone who gives good sex (Phaedra's Love).

shag (wanted to shag me)

wanted to have sex with me (Phaedra's Love).

shit (who gives a shit)

who cares (Blasted).

shitless (bores you shitless)

bores you very very much (Phaedra's Love).

show trial

a political trial where the result is decided in advance (Phaedra's Love).

slag

offensive term for a woman (Blasted).

sleep with a dog and you wake with fleas

a saying. You accept the consequences of your own actions (4.48 Psychosis).

Solar Plexus

a part of the body (Crave).

sooty

offensive racist term for coloured people (Blasted).

spaz

offensive term for a spastic, a mentally/ physically handicapped person (Blasted).

stroppy (don´t get stroppy, Strophe)

don't get argumentative, don't be difficult.  There is also a play on the sound "don´t get stroppy Strophe" (Phaedra's Love).

sub-intentional death

self harming which may lead to death (4.48 Psychosis).

sucking gash

giving a woman oral sex (Blasted).

sunshine

romantic sentimental name (Cleansed).

sweetheart honey baby

romantic sentimental names (Cleansed).

tardive dementia

a side-effect of the use of anti-depressant drugs causing mental problems (4.48 Psychosis).

tardive dyskinesia

a side-effect of the use of anti-depressant drugs.  Symptoms include repetitive behaviour (4.48 Psychosis).

tart

prostitute, also offensive term for a woman (Blasted).

tat

rubbish, junk (Phaedra's Love).

thick (too thick to understand)

stupid (Blasted).

token of their esteem

sign of how much they admire you (Phaedra's Love).

turn myself in

surrender to the police (Phaedra's Love).

turn the other cheek

accept an insult without fighting back (Blasted).

venlafaxine

an anti-depressant drug (4.48 Psychosis).

wank

masturbation, self-sex (Blasted).

whodat

offensive racist term for coloured people (Blasted).

wog

offensive racist term for coloured people (Blasted).

wogland

a country full of wogs- see wog (Blasted).

zopiclone

an anti-depressant drug (4.48 Psychosis).