Slang: The Topical Dictionary of Americanisms - Hardcover

Dickson, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802715311 ISBN 13: 9780802715319

Publisher: Walker Books, 2006

Synopsis

Unlike most slang dictionaries that list entries alphabetically, Slang takes on modern American English one topic at a time, from "auctionese" to "computerese", the drug trade and sports slang. Slang was originally published by Pocket Books in 1990 in paperback (ISBN 0671672517, out of print) and revised in 1998 in hardcover and paperback (ISBN 0671549200 and 0671549197; hc out of print soon after publication, pb in print until 2005). The new Slang has 50% new material, including new chapters on slang associated with work cubicles, gaming, hip hop, and coffeehouses. Dickson brings slang into the twenty-first century with such blogger slang as TMPMITW, which stands for "the most powerful man in the world" (the president). Whether you want to be privy to the inside banter of the boardroom, backroom or the Washington Beltway, Slang is an indispensable resource, and a lot of fun. Slang is evidence that the spoken language is continually changing to meet new needs for verbal expressions, tailored to changing realities and perceptions.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Dickson, coauthor of The Bonus Army, has written numerous language books and dictionaries, including War Slang, The Congress Dictionary, and The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary. He has written for Smithsonian, Esquire, The Nation, Town & Country, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. A founding member and former president of Washington Independent writers and a member of the National Press Club, Dickson is a contributing editor at Washingtonian magazine and a former consulting editor at Merriam-Webster, Inc.

Reviews

Slang is so bountiful in American English that it lends itself to a variety of lexicographical approaches. A number of slang dictionaries have treated this most unconventional of vocabularies through the conventions of the standard canonical dictionaries, ranging them alphabetically, assigning usage labels, summarizing their origins, and defining them. At least two have taken different approaches, clustering terms in categories. One is Richard A. Spears' NTC's Thematic Dictionary of American Slang (McGraw-Hill, 1998). Slang: The Topical Dictionary of Americanismsis another.

While Spears' dictionary has more than 800 categories and is more historical than edgy, Dickson's dictionary of American slang differs in significant ways. Its 30 topical areas include the timeless, such as "Food and Drink," "Medical and Emergency Room Slang," "Teen and High School Slang," and, of course, "The Sultry Slang of Sex." It also includes the very contemporary, such as "Java-speak" (modern coffeehouse slang) and "Net-speak." However, the Net-speak chapter falls short through a lack of slang terms from the world of bloggers. Blogassary [http://www.blogossary.com/] offers more.

Dickson's bare-bones entries simply offer definitions on each term--no origins, no usage labels, no examples of the word in use. Occasional sidebars, however, provide fuller information on select terms, such as numbers with special meaning in drug culture, the emergence and acceptance of phat, and bird-watchers' lingo.

A prefatory essay introduces each topical area and characterizes its argot. These essays underscore the creativity of slang as well as its occasional absurdity, as in the grandiose names for what could unpretentiously be called small, medium-sized, and large cups of coffee. Informative, reliable, entertaining, and modern, this topical slang dictionary complements the more staid slang lexicons and more scholarly general dictionaries. James Rettig
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Walker Books
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802715311
• ISBN 13: 9780802715319
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432