One of the most notable features of the book is its unique dialect: an imagined, future version of the English language. This language blends puns, phonetic spelling, colloquialisms, and is influenced by the dialects of East Kent as Hoban heard them before 1980, where the events of the book are set.[5] Professor of English John Mullan praised the novel's dialect as an "extraordinary risk" and noted that the language "naturalises the shattered world" of the novel, absorbing and engaging readers.[6] Author Peter Schwenger described the language as "quasi-illiterate, largely phonetic," arguing that it "slows us to the pace of an oral culture."[7]
Some features include:
- Technological idioms: progam for plan, gallack seas for the heavens, Puter Leat for the computer elite, pirntowt for printout (or conclusion), the Littl Shyning Man the Addom for the atom
- Capitalized nouns: Plomercy for diplomacy, Trubba for trouble, Master Chaynjis for changes, or the apocalypse
- Phonetic spelling: fizzics for physics, vackt our wayt for evacuated, soar vivers for survivors
- Place names: Inland for England, Cambry for Canterbury, Do It Over for Dover, Fork Stoan for Folkestone
- Titles: Wes Mincer for Westminster, Pry Mincer for prime minister, Guvner for leader, Ardship of Cambry for Archbishop of Canterbury
- Colloquialisms: bye bye hump for burial mound, doing the juicy for sex, Bad Time for nuclear armageddon
- Kent dialect: parbly for probably, arnge for orange, barms for bombs
