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<"nonce" is prison cant for someone who is "doing time" for a sexual offence>
Rhubarb -- there is some discussion of this word in Marina Warner's latest book: No Go the Bogeyman: Scaring, lulling and making mock. (A fascinating study of ogres and giants, bogeyman and bugaboos which I finished reading just today.)
She says: The canting word for a sex offender in jail is 'nonce'. 'Nonce' means nothing; noncification turns someone into nothing.
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