Taking the Sixties as his starting point, the author traces the changing world of modern sexualit... more Taking the Sixties as his starting point, the author traces the changing world of modern sexuality in a series of frank interviews with people of various ages and every possible inclination. Some are sex professionals but most are ordinary people who talk freely about their own sexual experience.
An entertaining guide to the colourful, inventive and frequently irreverent world of slang which ... more An entertaining guide to the colourful, inventive and frequently irreverent world of slang which enlivens everyday speech.
‘The lexicography of slang: slang’s dictionaries’ considers the slang-related texts that make up ... more ‘The lexicography of slang: slang’s dictionaries’ considers the slang-related texts that make up the slang lexicographical ‘canon’. Traditional English-language slang lexicography can be broken down into three successive periods. The ‘canting’ or criminal slang dictionaries of the 16th to 18th centuries, the ‘vulgar tongue’ works of the late 18th to mid-19th, and the ‘modern’ productions that have appeared since. A fourth category can now be added: on-line dictionaries. Works discussed include Thomas Harman’s Caveat for Common Cursetors (c.1566); The Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, Grose (1785); John Camden Hotten’s Modern Slang, Cant and Vulgar Words (1859); and Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Partridge (1937).
Slang is the language through which we communicate on an everyday basis. Often more colorful and ... more Slang is the language through which we communicate on an everyday basis. Often more colorful and expressive than its formal counterpart, slang is stimulated largely by "sex, money and intoxicating liquor" and, more recently, drugs, and is ever changing and evolving. This lively introduction to the world of slang provides:
Short Message Service, usually abbreviated as SMS, and popularly known as text messaging or, most... more Short Message Service, usually abbreviated as SMS, and popularly known as text messaging or, most popular and simply of all, texting, was created in 1985 as one of the specifications of what was then a new communications system, GSM. The service was launched in 1992 ...
Thus the terse summation of sixteen years' work, brought to an abrupt halt, as the story that fol... more Thus the terse summation of sixteen years' work, brought to an abrupt halt, as the story that follows explains, not, for once, through the havering of a dilatory author, but by the self-defeating inability and aesthetic shortsightedness of a commercial publishing giant to follow through on a deal. I should explain:`Dr Lighter's Lexicon' is properly known as the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (RHDAS). Commissioned in 1984 to create a single-volume dictionary of American slang (a sorely needed contribution, given the manifest inadequacies of the then exemplar of the form: Robert Chapman's Dictionary of American Slang), the linguist Jonathan Lighter, tenured at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, set to work. The single volume was due for 1986 (and a deadline of that nature, even for one volume, might have warned him of problems ahead), but it would not be until 1994 that Random House were able to publish anything: volume 1, the letters A±G. In publishing terms it might have been (a) appallingly late, and (b), for all its size, only one third of the commissioned whole, but in those of lexicography it was a huge and wholly deserved success. Reviewers raved and users knew that here was an outstanding work, not merely of slang collection, but of lexicography on any level. With the exception of its equally impressive linguistic`cousin', Frederick Cassidy's Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE),`Dr Lighter's Lexicon' was shaping up to be the most important essay in American dictionary-making since Webster's Third International of 1961. Lighter, whose studies of slang had commenced in 1972 when, fresh out of college, his glossary of doughboy usages from World War I became one of the longest articles ever published in the academic journal American Speech, had aimed at providing`the OED of slang'. In the light of subsequent problems, he talks of`hubris', but such is hindsight. As a fellow toiler in Dr Johnson's`lower employments of life', I can attest that this was, as the
This history of the development of slang is intended as an enjoyable guide for the writer, the st... more This history of the development of slang is intended as an enjoyable guide for the writer, the student of words, the crossword-puzzle addict and the compulsive browser. A slang term may begin life with one meaning and then gradually take on another; and new terms are constantly emerging, while others disappear. The book tackles its subject theme by theme, taking Standard English words such as "money", "sex" and "alcohol", and tracing the development of their slang equivalents over the past 500 years.
I have been writing slang dictionaries since my first appeared in 1984 (The Dictionary of Contemp... more I have been writing slang dictionaries since my first appeared in 1984 (The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang), and the latest, and I hope the best, is scheduled to appear in a few months. It is called Green's Dictionary of Slang on Historical Principles. It runs to three volumes, and offers 125,000 headwords with nested derivations, compounds and phrases. All of which are backed up by citations and offer where possible etymologies. My intention is to illustrate the nuts and bolts of making such a dictionary. To do this I intend to take a page, or if I find that requires an excess of time, a column (half-page) of the book and show just how it was put together: the choice of headwords, their etymologies, the nesting (or lack of it), the etymology, the sense separation and definitions, and, perhaps most complex, the sourcing and selection of citations. I shall also show the way in which, unlike those of standard English, the slang lexicographer is required to be a detective-cum-translator, in pursuit of his or her material. Certain texts, expecially those encountered as one retreats chronologically, contain a language that is as recondite and elusive as any. One must decode as well as select, define and sort. Slang is about rule-breaking and defying authority, including that of those who attempt to codify it. Thus it is to be expected that slang lexicography of this type, must acknowledge that the language under review is keen to break the rules of dictionary-making. To an extent one is forced to shoe-horn it into an established and thus comprehensible framework so as to make the dictionary both authoritative - as far as that may be possible with so chimerical a lexis - and worth using.
Taking the Sixties as his starting point, the author traces the changing world of modern sexualit... more Taking the Sixties as his starting point, the author traces the changing world of modern sexuality in a series of frank interviews with people of various ages and every possible inclination. Some are sex professionals but most are ordinary people who talk freely about their own sexual experience.
An entertaining guide to the colourful, inventive and frequently irreverent world of slang which ... more An entertaining guide to the colourful, inventive and frequently irreverent world of slang which enlivens everyday speech.
‘The lexicography of slang: slang’s dictionaries’ considers the slang-related texts that make up ... more ‘The lexicography of slang: slang’s dictionaries’ considers the slang-related texts that make up the slang lexicographical ‘canon’. Traditional English-language slang lexicography can be broken down into three successive periods. The ‘canting’ or criminal slang dictionaries of the 16th to 18th centuries, the ‘vulgar tongue’ works of the late 18th to mid-19th, and the ‘modern’ productions that have appeared since. A fourth category can now be added: on-line dictionaries. Works discussed include Thomas Harman’s Caveat for Common Cursetors (c.1566); The Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, Grose (1785); John Camden Hotten’s Modern Slang, Cant and Vulgar Words (1859); and Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Partridge (1937).
Slang is the language through which we communicate on an everyday basis. Often more colorful and ... more Slang is the language through which we communicate on an everyday basis. Often more colorful and expressive than its formal counterpart, slang is stimulated largely by "sex, money and intoxicating liquor" and, more recently, drugs, and is ever changing and evolving. This lively introduction to the world of slang provides:
Short Message Service, usually abbreviated as SMS, and popularly known as text messaging or, most... more Short Message Service, usually abbreviated as SMS, and popularly known as text messaging or, most popular and simply of all, texting, was created in 1985 as one of the specifications of what was then a new communications system, GSM. The service was launched in 1992 ...
Thus the terse summation of sixteen years' work, brought to an abrupt halt, as the story that fol... more Thus the terse summation of sixteen years' work, brought to an abrupt halt, as the story that follows explains, not, for once, through the havering of a dilatory author, but by the self-defeating inability and aesthetic shortsightedness of a commercial publishing giant to follow through on a deal. I should explain:`Dr Lighter's Lexicon' is properly known as the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (RHDAS). Commissioned in 1984 to create a single-volume dictionary of American slang (a sorely needed contribution, given the manifest inadequacies of the then exemplar of the form: Robert Chapman's Dictionary of American Slang), the linguist Jonathan Lighter, tenured at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, set to work. The single volume was due for 1986 (and a deadline of that nature, even for one volume, might have warned him of problems ahead), but it would not be until 1994 that Random House were able to publish anything: volume 1, the letters A±G. In publishing terms it might have been (a) appallingly late, and (b), for all its size, only one third of the commissioned whole, but in those of lexicography it was a huge and wholly deserved success. Reviewers raved and users knew that here was an outstanding work, not merely of slang collection, but of lexicography on any level. With the exception of its equally impressive linguistic`cousin', Frederick Cassidy's Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE),`Dr Lighter's Lexicon' was shaping up to be the most important essay in American dictionary-making since Webster's Third International of 1961. Lighter, whose studies of slang had commenced in 1972 when, fresh out of college, his glossary of doughboy usages from World War I became one of the longest articles ever published in the academic journal American Speech, had aimed at providing`the OED of slang'. In the light of subsequent problems, he talks of`hubris', but such is hindsight. As a fellow toiler in Dr Johnson's`lower employments of life', I can attest that this was, as the
This history of the development of slang is intended as an enjoyable guide for the writer, the st... more This history of the development of slang is intended as an enjoyable guide for the writer, the student of words, the crossword-puzzle addict and the compulsive browser. A slang term may begin life with one meaning and then gradually take on another; and new terms are constantly emerging, while others disappear. The book tackles its subject theme by theme, taking Standard English words such as "money", "sex" and "alcohol", and tracing the development of their slang equivalents over the past 500 years.
I have been writing slang dictionaries since my first appeared in 1984 (The Dictionary of Contemp... more I have been writing slang dictionaries since my first appeared in 1984 (The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang), and the latest, and I hope the best, is scheduled to appear in a few months. It is called Green's Dictionary of Slang on Historical Principles. It runs to three volumes, and offers 125,000 headwords with nested derivations, compounds and phrases. All of which are backed up by citations and offer where possible etymologies. My intention is to illustrate the nuts and bolts of making such a dictionary. To do this I intend to take a page, or if I find that requires an excess of time, a column (half-page) of the book and show just how it was put together: the choice of headwords, their etymologies, the nesting (or lack of it), the etymology, the sense separation and definitions, and, perhaps most complex, the sourcing and selection of citations. I shall also show the way in which, unlike those of standard English, the slang lexicographer is required to be a detective-cum-translator, in pursuit of his or her material. Certain texts, expecially those encountered as one retreats chronologically, contain a language that is as recondite and elusive as any. One must decode as well as select, define and sort. Slang is about rule-breaking and defying authority, including that of those who attempt to codify it. Thus it is to be expected that slang lexicography of this type, must acknowledge that the language under review is keen to break the rules of dictionary-making. To an extent one is forced to shoe-horn it into an established and thus comprehensible framework so as to make the dictionary both authoritative - as far as that may be possible with so chimerical a lexis - and worth using.
Panel discussion on the Scope and Limits of the OED in the 21st century. Video of live panel and ... more Panel discussion on the Scope and Limits of the OED in the 21st century. Video of live panel and discussion, 1 August 2013, Randolph Hotel, Oxford, UK. A debt of gratitude is owed to Oxford University Press for hosting the meeting and for making the videos available in open access on the internet.
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