Talk the Talk: The Slang of 65 American Subcultures

by Luc Reid

Do You Know Your Subculture Slang? &break;&break;"If your house hasn't been looted yet, it will be, so put everything you can in the bank and make mule characters carry the rest."

&break;&break;"She will act as his beard when his parents come over and at office parties."

&break;&break;"Surely a duck kicker would not disturb ducks this old?"

&break;&break;Do you ever feel like people are talking, but you have no idea what they're saying? Do you ever feel like you don't belong? Then you need "Talk the Talk." This handy little book is your guide to the unique vernacular of 65 subcultures from hip hop to punk rock, from surfers to construction workers and more. You'll learn 3,500 slang terms, many of which you've never heard of. Author Luc Reid introduces each group and its key characteristics to give you an informative insider's peek at culture and diversity in America–plus he includes warnings when certain terms should be used with caution so that you don't commit any faux pas.

&break;&break;Discover the meanings of: &break;bleep (goths), page 155&break;buildering (rock climbers), page 287&break;contactee (UFO believers), page 373&break;funnel (skydivers), page 333&break;ground control (drug pushers and users), page 118&break;mob (online gamers), page 236&break;relaxicon (sci-fi and fantasy fans), page 312&break;rules lawyer (role-playing gamers), page 296&break;warlock (Wiccans, witches, and neo-pagans), page 384&break;zombie gimmick (magicians), page 207

Genres: Reference, Writing, Language, Nonfiction, Linguistics

422 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Megan Kiekel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meant to be a reference book, this book detailing the slang of 65 American subcultures is actually an interesting, albeit not academically accurate, cover to cover read.

Or maybe I’m in the minority; do people actually read glossaries for fun? I liked this much more than the glossary-type books I read in 2011 (I read one about misunderstood words in June 2011 and one about dirty words in July 2011), mostly because each of the 65 sub-culture sections in the book began with a few paragraphs about the sub-culture before diving into the section’s glossary. This broke up the monotony of reading in the glossary format and also made the slang terms more interesting.

I found this fun and will keep it around as reference for my creative writing, but it wasn’t very well researched, so I’ll make sure to double-check the actual usage of any terms that I decide to use. I know to be skeptical because the few sub-cultures that the book covered that I am/was a part of (punk rockers/ straight edgers, tattoo enthusiasts, and thespians) or that Jake is/was a part of (programmers/hackers and online gamers) weren’t entirely accurate. I was especially irritated that the book’s brief history of Straight Edge was entirely wrong. So I’m not going to put too much stock into the sections I don’t know much about – I’m a fact checker, people. You’d think a person publishing a book would be too, but there you go. That’s what you get when you write a book based pretty much solely on interviews with a non-representative sample of a population. That’s my sociology degree coming out; sorry about that.

[Sana Burton · Rating 2 out of 5]

It could have been good.

An interesting concept, but I noticed a lot of inaccuracies, and it didn't go as in depth about the origins and signifigance of the terms as I wanted.