Guy Fawkes' night and meanings of words

Guy Fawkes’ night: time to celebrate villains, slang, and three types of banger

by Jeremy Bale on November 5, 2009

English loves short, direct, expressive, onomatopoeic words, of Germanic origin, with multiple meanings – like bang, crash, smash and whoosh. They are a fertile source of slang, and a popular word can – confusingly – acquire different meanings. A topical example is banger and three of its meanings are given below:

Banger 1
Bonfire Night has come round again. On the fifth of November 1605 Guy Fawkes was caught trying to blow up Parliament. Ever since then, his effigy has burned on bonfires across the land, as fireworks explode and rockets shoot skywards, commemorating the event.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November, Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot …

Here in my village, after dark, as the celebration approaches, intermittent bangs and random whooshes can be heard nightly as the local children practice, like an orchestra tuning up. This brings on nostalgia for my boyhood days, when a penny banger was well worth the pocket money, and a threepenny cannon with the power of a hand grenade was on sale to small children at the sweet shop. I can still smell the bonfire smoke, the reek of cordite, and the succulent waft of sausage and mash.

Banger 2
And so, a sausage is the second type of banger, presumably because it sizzles and, if left unattended, explodes with a bang.

Banger 3
But wasn’t there a newspaper headline last month about Bangers for cash? When the Government extended its scrappage scheme? No, HM Government has not yet been reduced to flogging fireworks or sausages, but is offering a £2,000 sweetener if you trade in your old car – the third type of banger. I’m a bit miffed to think of mine as a banger because the exhaust pipe is fine, rarely pops, and certainly never goes bang.