Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #677847 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-03
• Released on: 2006-10-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 464 pages

From Booklist
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

Review
Praise for Paul Dickson:  "With focus, a passion for language, and a word-class ear, Dickson has produced brilliant chapter after brilliant chapter, any one of which would be a lifetime achievement for most lexicographers."—Tom Dalzell, Senior Editor The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English and author of Flappers 2 Rappers--American Youth Slang and The Slang of Sin

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.

Customer Reviews

Open your eyes . . . there a whole world you dont know!
Yes, this book is great. It opens one's eyes to all the ethnicities in the world and how the different "tribes", albeit it Mexican, Black, White, Teenagers, Asian, Mixed with two or three ethnicities, etc., communicate. So, read it and learn to love people for their character, not the slang they speak.

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