Tony Thorne

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Tony Thorne (born 1950 in Cairo) is a British author, linguist and lexicographer who focuses on slang, jargon and cultural history. He is a leading expert on how language changes and how people use language in the UK and other English-speaking countries. He studied at Hampton School and the University of Kent at Canterbury.

His Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (Bloomsbury, 2014) stands out because it uses real speech as its source, not just written or broadcast material. Shoot the Puppy surveys the latest buzzwords and jargon, drawing on Thorne’s experience as a communications consultant for multinational companies, NGOs and business schools. 100 Words That Make the English (Abacus, 2011) offers essays on one hundred words that best reflect English identity in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Thorne has also written about unusual history. He produced the English-language biography of Erzsébet Bathory, the 16th-century Hungarian countess accused of murder and famous for the vampire blood myth. His book Children of the Night explores the origins of the vampire legend and its later portrayals in literature and popular culture, including interviews with people who identify as “living vampires.” For younger readers he wrote a biography of Madame Tussaud and he writes about outsider and visionary art.

From 1991 to 2007 he led the Language Centre at King’s College London and is now a Visiting Consultant there. He founded and leads the Slang and New Language Archive at King’s, a library and database that records language change and debates.

Thorne has created language programs for BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. He writes for media discussions on language, technology and lifestyle trends. He has contributed the Yoofspeak column to the Times Educational Supplement and the Bizword column for British Airways’ Business Life. He works as an independent consultant and can act as an expert witness in copyright, branding and slang interpretation cases. Recently he has compiled glossaries on Brexit and populism, and he tracks new language related to the Coronavirus pandemic and to Gen Z and TikTok culture.