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The Slang Thesaurus
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.
- GenresReference
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
19 people want to read
About the author
Jonathon Green
92 books26 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
I am a lexicographer, that is a dictionary maker, specialising in slang, about which I have been compiling dictionaries, writing and broadcasting since 1984. I have also written a history of lexicography. After working on my university newspaper I joined the London ‘underground press’ in 1969, working for most of the then available titles, such as Friends, IT and Oz. I have been publishing books since the mid-1970s, spending the next decade putting together a number of dictionaries of quotations, before I moved into what remains my primary interest, slang. I have also published three oral histories: one on the hippie Sixties, one on first generation immigrants to the UK and one on the sexual revolution and its development. Among other non-slang titles have been three dictionaries of occupational jargon, a narrative history of the Sixties, a book on cannabis, and an encyclopedia of censorship. As a freelancer I have broadcast regularly on the radio, made appearances on TV, including a 30-minute study of slang in 1996, and and written columns both for academic journals and for the Erotic Review.
My slang work has reached its climax, but I trust not its end, with the publication in 2010 of Green’s Dictionary of Slang, a three volume, 6,200-page dictionary ‘on historical principles’ offering some 110,000 words and phrases, backed up by around 410,000 citations or usage examples. The book covers all anglophone countries and its timeline stretches from around 1500 up to the present day. For those who prefer something less academic, I published the Chambers Slang Dictionary, a single volume book, in 2008. Given that I am in no doubt that the future of reference publishing lies in digital form, it is my intention to place both these books on line in the near future.
I am a lexicographer, that is a dictionary maker, specialising in slang, about which I have been compiling dictionaries, writing and broadcasting since 1984. I have also written a history of lexicography. After working on my university newspaper I joined the London ‘underground press’ in 1969, working for most of the then available titles, such as Friends, IT and Oz. I have been publishing books since the mid-1970s, spending the next decade putting together a number of dictionaries of quotations, before I moved into what remains my primary interest, slang. I have also published three oral histories: one on the hippie Sixties, one on first generation immigrants to the UK and one on the sexual revolution and its development. Among other non-slang titles have been three dictionaries of occupational jargon, a narrative history of the Sixties, a book on cannabis, and an encyclopedia of censorship. As a freelancer I have broadcast regularly on the radio, made appearances on TV, including a 30-minute study of slang in 1996, and and written columns both for academic journals and for the Erotic Review.
My slang work has reached its climax, but I trust not its end, with the publication in 2010 of Green’s Dictionary of Slang, a three volume, 6,200-page dictionary ‘on historical principles’ offering some 110,000 words and phrases, backed up by around 410,000 citations or usage examples. The book covers all anglophone countries and its timeline stretches from around 1500 up to the present day. For those who prefer something less academic, I published the Chambers Slang Dictionary, a single volume book, in 2008. Given that I am in no doubt that the future of reference publishing lies in digital form, it is my intention to place both these books on line in the near future.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 15, 2017
It's da bomb! For real! Word!
COOL BLAST!
Any language have its own fair quantity of slang, even countries sharing the same language can have different slangs on each particular nation, so when one is beginning to read, specially prose novels about contemporary situations, it's very likely that you'll meet slang terms that if you don't look for them in the proper dictionary, you'll keep to be clueless about...
...what da heck that bozos were talkin' about!
So, it can be wise to spend some bucks in a dictionary like this one, or any other in the same line, just to avoid feeling in outer space for what should be a regular conversation and don't screw it up.
In that way, your next reading can be a piece of cake!
Because, when you go to a proper English course, they teach you the well-bred English that it hasn't anything wrong about it, but it can be sweet to know the smart talkin' in da streets, you know? So, you can have the best of both worlds.
Well, enough of spillin' da beans on this, I don't wanna begin to shoot the breeze here.
Peace!
Drop the mike!
COOL BLAST!
Any language have its own fair quantity of slang, even countries sharing the same language can have different slangs on each particular nation, so when one is beginning to read, specially prose novels about contemporary situations, it's very likely that you'll meet slang terms that if you don't look for them in the proper dictionary, you'll keep to be clueless about...
...what da heck that bozos were talkin' about!
So, it can be wise to spend some bucks in a dictionary like this one, or any other in the same line, just to avoid feeling in outer space for what should be a regular conversation and don't screw it up.
In that way, your next reading can be a piece of cake!
Because, when you go to a proper English course, they teach you the well-bred English that it hasn't anything wrong about it, but it can be sweet to know the smart talkin' in da streets, you know? So, you can have the best of both worlds.
Well, enough of spillin' da beans on this, I don't wanna begin to shoot the breeze here.
Peace!
Drop the mike!
Displaying 1 of 1 review