bills
n.pl.— «When I was growing up back over there on Merseyside, we didn’t really go in for rhyming slang. However, one term was in common parlance yet I rarely find anyone from outside the Liverpool area who’s familiar with it. It is, to my knowledge, the only example of scouse rhyming slang. “Bills,” meaning underpants: “Bill Grundys.”…it was the 1980s and 90s when me and my mates were using the term “bills.” The small minority of us who knew who Bill Grundy was only knew it from punk history, we were all too young to actually remember him from the Sex Pistols incident, and we’d never heard of him being anywhere else. Yet there we all were, using “bills” and “billies” without even consciously thinking of it as slang.» —“Scouse rhyming slang” by Merrick Bristling Badger (U.K.) Jan. 17, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
While compiling the Oxford English Dictionary, lexicographer James Murray exchanged hundreds of letters a week with authors, advisors, and volunteer researchers. A new collection online lets you eavesdrop on discussions about which words should be...
High school students in Alabama share some favorite slang terms. If someone tells you to touch grass, they’re telling you to get a reality check — but the last thing you’d actually want to touch is dog water! Also, the history of the word hangover...