Since its premiere on Netflix on March 13, Adolescence has captivated audiences with its intense, emotionally charged storyline that is both difficult to watch and impossible to look away from. As the series builds to its harrowing conclusion, the final episode hinges on a British slang term that might be unfamiliar to many American viewers, but plays a crucial role in unravelling the plot.
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What does the term ‘Nonce’ mean?
The four-episode miniseries Adolescence opens with the arrest of 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper), accused of murdering his classmate, Katie Leonard. Each episode unfolds in real-time, taking place over a single hour across the 13 months following the crime. In the final episode, Jamie’s family is seen grappling with their altered reality. Eddie Miller (played by Stephen Graham), Jamie’s father, wakes up in a positive mood, eager to celebrate his birthday.
However, his brief sense of joy quickly fades when his daughter, Lisa (Amelie Pease), notices the word “nonse” spray-painted on the side of Eddie’s van. The misspelling hints that a younger individual may have been responsible for the vandalism.
The term ‘nonce’ in its simplest definition is a British slang term which means “paedophile.” The Cambridge dictionary spelt it “nonce” and defined the term as “a person who commits a crime involving sex, especially sex with a child.”
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What does nonce mean in the native language?
A Yorkshire native, Emmeline Armitage told Today.com that the power of the term has shifted. She continued that the word that’s sort of associated with certain types of British humour,” like “TV shows from like 10-15 years ago.” She also used The Inbetweeners which was a show about teenage boys which ran from 2008 to 2020 as an example where the word “would get thrown around.”
Armitage added that the term “definitely carried less weight at a certain time,” she says. “But I’m wondering if it carries a bit more weight to it now that we are in a culture where people are more aware of the things that they’re saying.”
The community’s blame seems directed at Eddie and the environment in which Jamie was raised, with the graffiti symbolising the stigma on the Miller family. While Jamie’s guilt is clear—his actions caught on video in the first episode—the bigger question is why he killed Katie. Creator Stephen Graham told Rolling Stone that, when he sees such events in the news, he is not alone in sometimes blaming the parents. However, with Adolescence he wanted to create a narrative where fingers were not pointed at the parents.