Slang: The Topical Dictionary of Americanisms

by Paul Dickson

Book Overview

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.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802715311
• ISBN13: 9780802715319
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Walker & Company
• Length: 418 Pages
• Weight: 1.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.7" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Our Language is Evolving, Boy is it Evolving.

The French have a special committee to ensure that the purity of the language doesn't get corrupted by among others those vulgar Americans. As such, they are effectively marginalizing their language to the past and preventing people from being able to discuss current trends. The English language, especially the American variant lacks any such sense of formality and is creating new words just as fast as anyone can think them up. Many of them, especially in the computer field aren't words at all but TLA's (Three Letter Acronym) that substitute brevity to save typing. Every aspect of American society has been busy creating new words, almost it would seem just for the fun of it. And this book is organized (if you can call it organized at all) by the general areas where the new words began, such as: Automotive, Bureaucrat, Computer, Drugs, Media, Medical (Sub-title: words you don't want to hear from your hospital bed --C & T Ward: Place where comatose patients are placed in a hospital - it stands for 'cabbages and turnips.'), politics, schools, and on and on. It's easily enough to keep you ROTFLOL - Rolling on the Floor Laughing Out loud, or even ROTFLMAO - Rolling on the Floor Laughing My A__ Off.

A revised, updated version of a classic slang dictionary arranged by topic

Regional U.S. slang and uniquely 'American' terms are covered here in Slang: The Topical Dictionary of Americanisms: a revised, updated version of a classic slang dictionary arranged by topic. The unique arrangement by subject rather than word allows for easier cross-comparison of slang: having an updated version with new chapters and 10,000 words further enhances its usefulness as a definitive slang reference. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

My longtime lexical guru comes through, again!

My shelf of Paul Dickson's books on language originated more than twenty-five years ago, and it's been growing steadily ever since. Dickson obviously takes professional delight in being one of the English-language's foremost compilers. His invitations to readers to contact him with their own suggested words and terms for future editions (on page 419 of his latest book), get plentiful response. I know because I've sent him a few of my own suggestions on those rare occasions that he hasn't already beaten me to the punch. And owning more than one edition of some of his evergreen language references, I can see how substantially they grow and evolve during the intervals between printings. Dickson's latest and greatest third edition of Slang is a strong case in point. First, Dickson's topical organization of Slang puts it heads and shoulders above other slang books in terms of utility. (That brilliant approach dates back to the original edition first published in 1990.) Thus, as a writer and editor by trade, I keep it nearby as an "elbow reference" whenever I'm writing to, for, or about a specialized group--whether it be professional (information tech, doctors, businessmen) political (politicians, pundits, and decisionmakers), or cultural (youth audiences, artists and performers, advertisers and marketers). Many a time, Dickson has given me just the right expression or term to stretch the presentation of my knowledge or insight just the little bit that helped me save face. And thus he's also aided and abetted my appearing to be up to date and cool, even hip, when it comes to my available vernacular vocabulary. Thus I reveal myself to be standing defiantly on the cusp of geezerdom, but with the help of Paul Dickson's Slang, I will continue to hold my own with the lingo of specialists and across generational divides --whether I'm talking to a computer salesman or deciphering e-mails from my sons. Cudos, too, to Dickson's publisher Walker Books for bringing out this much-expanded edition in such an elegant and highly useful format. My Paul Dickson reference shelf will be squeezed a bit tighter as I move over his new edition of Labels for Locals (which appeared earlier this fall from Collins) to make space for Slang 3e. The former book is an equally valuable reference to what to call people from wherever in the world they're from and to whatever identity group they may belong, especially in our p.c. era of sensitivity to names and labels.

New Words for New Times

I had always thought that slang was what your mother told you not to use at the dinner table. That turns out to be an old-fashioned idea. Slang, according to this enlightening, entertaining, and--dare I say it?--educational book, is the way the American language replenishes itself. (Some words once labeled slang: bogus, clumsy, snide, and spurious.) The latest round of replenishment comes from the Internet, which, author Paul Dickson says, "could be the greatest of all dispensers of slang and new English since the invention of movable type." One of the innovations of this book is the division of slang into categories: You look up definitions by turning to "Net-speak," say, to find out what, say, "kevork" means: "To ban electronically from a site or bulletin board. From the name Jack Kevorkian, a doctor who assisted suicides." Net-speak is one of thirty categories. Others include Java-speak (black eye: "Expresso mixed with brewed coffee") and that grand old American dialect, Bureaucratese (fuzz: "To blur on purpose; to make less direct"). As you can see, it's a book not for just looking things up but for browsing, for searching out new words, and for replenishing your own noggin.

As colorful inside as the cover

I tried to stump the new (2006) edition with nautical and military terms and found remarkable completeness, crisp definitions, interesting histories and some laugh-out-loud usages.