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The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slangand Unconventional English The Concise New Partridge presents, for the first time, all the slang terms from the New Partridge Dictionary of S

The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang

and Unconventional English

The Concise New Partridge presents, for the first time, all the slang terms from the New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English in a single volume.

With over 60,000 entries from around the English-speaking world, the Concise gives you the

language of beats, hipsters, Teddy Boys, mods and rockers, hippies, pimps, druggies, whores, punks, skinheads, ravers, surfers, Valley girls, dudes, pill-popping truck drivers, hackers, rappers and more.

The Concise New Partridge is a spectacular resource infused with humour and learning – it’s

rude, it’s delightful, and it’s a prize for anyone with a love of language.

The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang

and Unconventional English

Tom Dalzell (Senior Editor)

and Terry Victor (Editor)

Dr Richard Allsopp, a native of Guyana, is Director of the

Caribbean Lexicography Project and former Reader in

English Language and Linguistics, University of the West

Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados He edited the Dictionary of

Caribbean English Usage.

Dr Dianne Bardsley is Manager of the New Zealand

Dictionary Centre at Victoria University of Wellington Her

PhD involved the compilation and analysis of a rural New

Zealand English lexicon from the years 1842–2002 She

was contributing editor for the New Zealand Oxford

Dictionary and is currently leading several New Zealand

lexicography research projects.

James Lambert has worked primarily in Australian English,

specialising in slang in general and Australian slang in

par-ticular He was assistant editor of The Macquarie Dictionary

of New Words and general editor of The Macquarie Book of Slang and The Macquarie Slang Dictionary.

John Loftus manages the online archive at www.hiberno

english.com He was a senior research assistant on A

Dictionary of Hiberno-English.

Lewis Poteet is a leading Canadian authority on slang and

dialect He has written extensively about language in

Canada’s maritime provinces and edited Car & Motorcycle

Slang, Hockey Talk, Plane Talk, Car Talk and Cop Talk.

John Williams served as a consulting lexicographer on this

project He has been contributing to general language dictionaries, both monolingual and bilingual, for more than

20 years He is the author of three children’s dictionaries, as well as several articles on the practice of lexicography.

Eric Partridge made a deep and enduring contribution to

the study and understanding of slang In the eight editions

of The Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

published between 1937 and 1984, Partridge recorded and

defined the slang and unconventional English of Great

Britain, and to a lesser extent her dominions, from the

1600s to the 1970s For the years up to 1890, Partridge

was by his own admission quite reliant on Farmer and

Henley’s Slang and its Analogues, which he used as an

‘expansible framework’ When it came to the slang for the

years 1890 to 1945, Partridge was original and brilliant,

especially in his treatment of underworld and military

slang His attitude towards language was scholarly and

fun-loving, scientific and idiosyncratic His body of work,

scholarship and dignity of approach led the way and set

the standard for every other English-language slang

lexicographer of the twentieth century.

Our respect for Partridge has not blinded us to the

features of his work that have drawn criticism over the

years His protocol for alphabetising was quirky His dating

was often problematic His etymologies at times strayed

from the plausible to the fanciful His classification by

register (slang, cant, jocular, vulgar, coarse, high, low, etc.)

was intensely subjective and not particularly useful.

Furthermore, his early decision to exclude American slang

created increasingly difficult problems for him as the years

passed and the influence of American slang grew Lastly,

Partridge grew to lose the ability to relate to the

vocabulary he was recording In 1937, Partridge was a man

of his time, but the same could no longer be said in 1960.

There is a profound relationship between language and

culture, and neither Partridge nor Paul Beale, editor of the

8th edition, seem to have assimilated the cultural changes

that began at the end of World War 2 This left them

without the cultural knowledge needed to understand the

language that they were recording Their lack of cultural

understanding accelerated with time, and this is sadly

reflected in the later entries Beatniks and drug addicts,

and their slang, baffled Partridge and Beale, who lacked

either the personal experience or historical perspective

needed to understand underlying countercultures.

Partridge himself observed, ‘More than almost any

other kind of book, a dictionary constantly needs to be

revised; especially, of course, if it deals with the current

form of a language and therefore has to be kept up to

date’ With The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and

Unconventional English we tried to do just that We picked

up where Partridge left off, recording the slang and

unconventional English of the English-speaking world since

World War 2 with the same scholarship and joy in

language that characterised Partridge’s work We are not,

and cannot be, Partridge: but we can strive to be proud

heirs of Partridge and to speak with a voice that Partridge

would recognise as an echo of his own We have worked

hard to continue the Partridge tradition, observing high

standards of lexicography while producing an accessible

work informed by, and infused with, the humour, mischief

and energy that are endemic to slang This Concise version of the New Partridge contains every entry in New Partridge as well as several hundred new words that have come into the slang lexicon since 2005 The Concise is presented without the hundreds of thousands of citations

in the New Partridge, creating an affordable alternative to our update of Partridge Lastly, we improved dating infor- mation given on hundreds of headwords.

Criteria for inclusion

We use three criteria for including a term or phrase in this dictionary We include (1) slang and unconventional English, (2) used anywhere in the English-speaking world and (3) after 1945.

Rather than focus too intently on a precise definition

of slang or on whether a given entry is slang, jargon or colloquial English, we take full advantage of the wide net cast by Partridge when he chose to record ‘slang and unconventional English’ instead of just slang, which is, after all, without any settled test of purity We have con- sidered for inclusion all unconventional English that has been used with the purpose or effect of either lowering the formality of communication and reducing solemnity and/or identifying status or group and putting oneself in tune with one’s company A term recorded here might be slang, slangy jargon, a colloquialism, an acronym, an initialism, a vulgarism or a catchphrase In all instances,

an entry imparts a message beyond the text and literal meaning This approach is especially useful when dealing with world slang and unconventional English A broader range has permitted inclusion of many Caribbean entries, for instance, which merit inclusion but might not meet a stringent pure-slang-only test Our only real deviation from Partridge’s inclusion criteria is a much diminished body of nicknames The regiment nicknames that populate Partridge’s work no longer fulfil the language function that they did in the United Kingdom of Partridge’s day.

If there was a question as to whether a potential entry fell within the target register, we erred on the side of inclusion We generally chose to include poorly attested words, presenting the entry and our evidence of usage to the reader who is free to determine if a candidate passes probation.

Partridge limited his dictionary to Great Britain and her dominions We elected the broader universe of the English-speaking world Globalisation has affected many facets of life, not the least of which is our language There are words that are uniquely Australian, American or British, but it is impossible to ignore or deny the extent of cross-pollination that exists between cultures as regards slang We were aided in our global gathering by indigenous contributors from Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Ireland and New Zealand We also include pidgin, Creolised English and borrowed foreign terms used

by English-speakers in primarily English-language conversation We include slang and unconventional English

heard and used at any time after 1945 We chose the end

of the war in 1945 as our starting point primarily because

it marked the beginning of a series of profound cultural

changes that produced the lexicon of modern and

contemporary slang The cultural transformations since

1945 are mind-boggling Television, computers, drugs,

music, unpopular wars, youth movements, changing racial

sensitivities and attitudes towards sex and sexuality are all

substantial factors that have shaped culture and language.

No term is excluded on the grounds that it might be

considered offensive as a racial, ethnic, religious, sexual or

any kind of slur This dictionary contains many entries and

citations that will, and should, offend To exclude a term

or citation because it is offensive is to deny the fact that

it is used: we are not prescriptivists and this is simply not

our job At the same time, we try to avoid definitions or

editorial comment that might offend.

We were tempted, but finally chose not to include an

appendix of gestures, although many serve the same

function as slang Examples include the impudent middle

finger, Ralph Cramden’s Raccoon greeting and handshake,

the elaborate mimes that signal ‘jerk-off’ or ‘dickhead’,

Johnny Carson’s golf swing, Vic Reeves’ lascivious thigh

rubbing and Arsenio Hall’s finger-tip-touch greeting.

Neither did we include an appendix of computer language

such as emoticons or leet speak, although we have

included throughout several of the more prominent

examples of Internet and text messaging shorthand that

have become known outside the small circle of initial

users.

We tried but in the end decided not to include the

word/word phenomenon (‘Is she your friend friend or

friend friend?’) or the word/word/word construction (‘The

most important three things in real estate are location,

location, location’) We could not include the obvious

pregnant silence that suggests ‘fuck’ (‘What the **** do

you think you’re doing?’) We shied away from the

lexicalised animal noises that often work their way into

informal conversation, such as a cat noise when someone

is behaving nastily We similarly did not include musical

phrases that have become part of our spoken vocabulary,

such as the four-note theme of The Twilight Zone which is

used to imply an uncanny weirdness in any coincidence, or

melodramatic hummed violin music that serves as vocal

commentary on any piteous tale.

Using The Concise New Partridge

We hope that our presentation is self-evident and that it

requires little explanation We use only a few abbreviations

and none of the stylistic conceits near and dear to the

hearts of lexicographers.

Headwords

We use indigenous spelling for headwords This is

especially relevant in the case of the UK arse and US ass.

For Yiddish words, we use Leo Rosten’s spelling, which

favours ‘sh-’ over ‘sch-’ An initialism is shown in upper

case without full stops (for example, BLT), except that

acronyms (pronounced like individual lexical items) are

lower case (for example, snafu).

Including every variant spelling of a headword

seemed neither practical nor helpful to the reader For the

spelling of headwords, we chose the form found in

standard dictionaries or the most common forms, ignoring

uncommon variants as well as common hyphenation variants of compounds and words ending in ‘ie’ or ‘y’ For this reason, citations may show variant spellings not found

headword; for example, burn rubber, lay rubber and peel rubber are all listed as phrases under the headword rubber.

Definition

In dealing with slang from all seven continents, we encountered more than a few culture-specific terms For such terms, we identify the domain or geographic location

of the term’s usage We use conventional English in the definitions, turning to slang only when it is both substantially more economical than the use of convention-

al English and is readily understood by the average reader.

Gloss The voice and tone of The New Partridge Dictionary of

Slang and Unconventional English is most obvious in the

gloss: the brief explanations that Partridge used for torial comment’ or ‘further elucidation’ Partridge warned against using the gloss to show what clever and learned fellows we are – a warning that we heed to the very limited extent it could apply to us We chose to discontinue Partridge’s classification by register.

‘edi-Country of origin

As is the case with dating, further research will undoubtedly produce a shift in the country of origin for a number of entries We resolutely avoided guesswork and informed opinion.

is spoken before it is written, and this is especially true of unconventional terms The recent proliferation of elec- tronic databases and powerful search engines will undoubtedly permit the antedating of many of the entries Individualised dating research, such as Allen Walker’s hunt for the origin of ‘OK’ or Barry Popik’s exhaustive work on terms such as ‘hot dog’, produces dramatic antedatings:

we could not undertake this level of detailed research for every entry.

Conclusion

In the preface to his 1755 Dictionary of the English

Language, Samuel Johnson noted that ‘A large work is

difficult because it is large,’ and that ‘Every writer of a long work commits errors’ In addition to improvements in our dating of terms and identification of the country of origin, it is inevitable that some of our definitions are

incorrect or misleading, especially where the sense is

subtle and fleeting, defying paraphrasing, or where kindred

senses are interwoven It is also inevitable that some

quotations are included in a mistaken sense For these

errors, we apologise in advance.

We carry the flame for words that are usually judged

only by the ill-regarded company they keep Just as

Partridge did for the sixteenth century beggars and rakes,

for whores of the eighteenth century, and for the armed

services of the two world wars, we try to do for the slang

users of the last 60 years We embrace the language of

beats, hipsters, Teddy Boys, mods and rockers, hippies, pimps, druggies, whores, punks, skinheads, ravers, surfers, Valley Girls, dudes, pill-popping truck drivers, hackers, rappers and more We have tried to do what Partridge saw

as necessary, which was simply to keep up to date.

Tom Dalzell, Berkeley, California Terry Victor, Caerwent, South Wales

Spring 2005 Re-edited for the Concise edition in the spring of 2007

Our debt to Sophie Oliver defies description With good

humour and a saintly tolerance for our so-called wit and

attempts to corrupt, she herded this project through from

a glimmer in the eye to print on the page.

We bow to and thank the following who helped along

the way: Mary Ann Kernan, who was charged with putting

this project together in 1999 and 2000; John Williams,

who must be credited for all that is right about our

lexicography and excused for anything that is not; Robert

Hay and Mike Tarry of Alden for their unending work on

the database and cheerful handling of every problem we

could throw at them; Claire L’Enfant; James Folan for

rescuing us in the content edit phase; Louise Hake for her

cheerful determination in the editing and production

phases; our fine copy editors Sandra Anderson, Howard

Sargeant and Laura Wedgeworth; and Aine Duffy for her

enthusiastically scurrilous vision of the whole project as it

developed.

Finally, we thank Oxford University Press for

providing us with access to the ‘Oxford English Dictionary

Online’, a brilliant online presentation of the Oxford

English Dictionary, one of the leading sources for dating.

Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor

This dictionary would never have seen the light of day

without the time and support given to me by my family –

Cathy most notably, also Jake, Julia, Rosalie and Charlotte.

I thank and owe you big-time, major league and

humongously Who knew it would take so much? In their

own ways, and from a distance, my parents guided.

Audrey, Emily and Reggae started the project with me but

did not stay for the end.

I also thank: my slang mentors Paul Dickson and

Madeline Kripke (and better mentors you could not hope

for); Archie Green, who saved Peter Tamony’s work for

posterity and encouraged me throughout this project;

Jesse Sheidlower, Jonathon Green and Susan Ford, slang

lexicographers, friends and comrades in words; Dr Lisa

Winer for her voluminous and fine work on the slang of

Trinidad and Tobago; Jan Tent for his excellent collection

of Fijian slang; Dr Jerry Zientara, the learned and helpful

librarian at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human

Sexuality in San Francisco, which kindly opened its

incomparable library to me; Tom Miller, Bill Stolz, John

Konzal and Patricia Walker, archivists at the Western

Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri at

Columbia, for their help and insights during my work with

the Peter Tamony archives; the Hon Sir Colville Young for

leading me to Richard Allsopp; Jim Holliday for his help on

the slang of pornography; Jennifer Goldstein for her help

on the slang of sex dancers; Richard Perlman for his

patient and Zen-like technological help; Angela Jacobson,

Elizabeth McInnis and Caitlan Perlman, who helped as

readers; Mr Baldwin, Mr Muir, Mr Lee, Dr Robert Regan and Dr Gordon Kelly for the English and popular culture they taught me.

lexicographers who were generous in their encouragement, advice and assistance: Reinhold Aman, a brave and brilliant pioneer, the late Robert Chapman, Gerald Cohen, Trevor Cralle, Jim Crotty, Connie Eble, Jonathan Lighter, Edward MacNeal, Geoffrey Nunberg, Judi Sanders, Leslie Savan and Oliver Trager.

Our Australian contributor, James Lambert, was given recourse to the various databases of the Macquarie Library Pty Ltd, who publish synchronic dictionaries for the Australian and Asian markets, and for these vast resources

as well as allowing me access to the playground language

of our time I must also thank Gerri Smith for her tolerant understanding that I could not be in two places at once Serendipity brought me to Tom Dalzell and through him I have had the advantage and benefit of all of the influences and providers of expertise that he names above, especially Jonathon Green In addition to those

encouragement of Michael Quinion and David Crystal; and, in matters polari, Paul Baker.

For particular contributions I would like to thank: Flight Lieutenant Andrew Resoli; Lisa and Tim Hale; David Morrison; some of the inmates at HMP High Down in the summer of 2002; Antonio Lillo for his work on rhyming slang; various magazine editors and journalists who addressed so many of my queries of modern usage; and, for a splendid collection of cocaine-related slang, a certain group of musicians (whose management would prefer that they remain anonymous) I also enjoyed the advan- tage of the correspondence that the Partridge and Beale 8th edition still attracts: I am grateful to all who wrote

in, and I look forward to seeing more contributions at

www.partridge-slang.com.

Above all, I must make mention of two people: Eric Partridge, who is my hero, and Tom Dalzell, who is my friend.

Terry Victor

OBSERVATIONS ON SLANG AND UNCONVENTIONAL ENGLISH

Some notes on the challenges of lexicography, drawn entirely from the writings

of Eric Partridge (1894–1979)

Partridge wrote widely on matters concerning the English

language He did not, by any means, restrict his interest to

matters slang and unconventional; however, it is his work

in this area that had, and continues to have, the greatest

impact, and on which his reputation is most celebrated.

He wrote more than forty books in his lifetime,

considering such diverse topics as abbreviations, American

tramp and underworld slang, British and American English

since 1900, comic alphabets, English and American

Christian names, Shakespeare’s bawdy, usage and abusage,

and he contributed to many, many more It is so

substantial a body of work that any list short of a full

bib-liography will inevitably do his great achievement a

disservice He was a philologist, etymologist, lexicographer,

essayist and dictionary-maker; he is a legend and an

inspi-ration.

The flavour, and wisdom, of Partridge’s work is

gathered in the quotations that follow, loosely grouped by

subject, and presented under sub-headings that make new

use of a selection of his book and article titles.

Slang Today and Yesterday

From about 1850, slang has been the accepted term

for ‘illegitimate’ colloquial speech: but since then,

especially among the lower classes, ‘lingo’ has been

a synonym, and so also, chiefly among the cultured

and the pretentious, has ‘argot’ Now ‘argot’, being

merely the French for ‘slang’, has no business to be

used thus – it can rightly be applied only to French

slang of French cant: and ‘lingo’ properly means a

simplified language that, like Beach-la-Mar and

Pidgin-English, represents a distortion of (say)

English by coloured peoples speaking English indeed

but adapting it to their own phonetics and grammar.

‘Jargon’ – originally as in Chaucer, used of the

warbling of birds – has long been employed loosely

and synonymously for slang, but it should be

reserved for the technicalities of science, the

pro-fessions and the trades: though, for such

technical-ities, ‘shop’ is an equally good word.1

[S]lang is much rather a spoken than a literary

language It originates, nearly always, in speech.1

Slang is easy enough to use, but very hard to write

about with the facile convincingness that a subject

apparently so simple would, at first sight, seem to

demand But the simplest things are the hardest to

define, certainly the hardest to discuss, for it is

usually at first sight only that their simplicity is what strikes one the most forcibly And slang, after all, is a peculiar kind of vagabond language, always hanging

on the outskirts of legitimate speech, but continually straying or forcing its way into the most respectable company.2

Language in general and every kind of language belongs to everyone who wishes to use it.3

Slang, being the quintessence of colloquial speech, must always be related to convenience rather than scientific laws, grammatical rules and philosophical ideals As it originates, so it flourishes best, in colloquial speech.1

Slang may and often does fill a gap in accepted language.1

Words, Words, Words!

Every group or association, from a pair of lovers to a secret society however large, feels, at some time or other, the need to defend itself against outsiders, and therefore creates a slang designed to conceal its thoughts: and the greater the need for secrecy, the more extensive and complete is the slang[.]1

The specialization that characterizes every vocation leads naturally to a specialized vocabulary, to the invention of new words or the re-charging of old words Such special words and phrases become slang only when they are used outside their vocational group and then only if they change their meaning or are applied in other ways […] But, whatever the source, personality and one’s surroundings (social or occupational) are the two co-efficients, the two chief factors, the determining causes of the nature of slang,

as they are of language in general and of style.1

One kind of eyewash, the army’s innumerable ‘states’ and ‘returns’ was known as bumf, short for bum-

fodder: the abbreviation was common in English

public schools from before 1900; the full term for toilet-paper dates back to the seventeenth century, when it was coined by Urquhart, the translator

of Rabelais; Urquhart is one of the most prolific originators of the obscenities and vulgarities of our language, and with him rank Shakespeare and Burns.4

In English, the ideas most fertile in synonyms are

those of drinking, drunkenness, money, and the

sex-ual organs and act.1

entertainments), from the joy of life, from a gay

abandon: for this reason it has been wittily called

‘language on a picnic’.1

Common to – indeed, very common in – the

jazzman’s and the Beatnik’s vocabulary is the noun

pad, whence the entirely Beatnik pad me, a cat’s

invitation to a chick to share his room and bed […]

The Beatniks got it from the jazzmen who got it

from the American underworld who got it from the

British underworld (pad, a bed) who got it from

Standard English of the sixteenth–eighteenth

centuries (pad, a bundle of straw to lie on).5

The metaphors and allusions [in slang] are generally

connected with some temporary phase, some

ephemeral vogue, some unimportant incident; if the

origin is not nailed down at the time, it is rarely

recoverable.1

[B]orrowings from foreign languages produce slang;

and every language borrows Borrowings, indeed,

have a way of seeming slangy or of being welcomed

by slang before standard speech takes them into its

sanctum.1

War always produces a rich crop of slang.6

[W]ar (much as we may hate to admit the fact),

because, in all wars, both soldiers and sailors and,

since 1914, airmen and civilians as well, have

imported or adopted or invented hundreds of words,

terms, phrases, this linguistic aspect ranking as, if we

except the unexceptable ‘climate of courage,’ the

only good result of war.7

Human characteristics, such as a love of mystery and

a confidential air (a lazy freemasonry), vanity, the

imp of perversity that lurks in every heart, the

impulse to rebellion, and that irrepressible spirit of

adventure which, when deprived of its proper

outlook in action, perforce contents itself with verbal

audacity (the adventure of speech): these and others

are at the root of slang[.]1

Here, There and Everywhere

When we come to slang and familiar speech

gener-ally, we come to that department of the vocabulary

in which British and American differences are

naturally greater than anywhere else, just as they are

greater in the colloquial language generally than in

the literary.8

American slang is more volatile than English and it

tends, also, to have more synonyms, but a greater

number of those synonyms are butterflies of a day;

English synonyms are used more for variety than

from weariness or a desire to startle American slang

is apt to be more brutal than English[.]1

Canada also has an extensive and picturesque objective slang, but that slang is 80 per cent American, with the remainder rather more English than native-Canadian[…] it is linguistically unfair to condemn it for being so much indebted to its near and ‘pushing’ neighbour[.]1

Australian speech and writing have, from the outset,

unconventionality is linguistic.9The truth is that South African slang, as distinct from indispensable Africanderisms, is not intrinsically

so vivid, humorous, witty, or divinely earthy as Canadian and Australian slang, nor is it nearly so extensive, nor has it, except during the Boer War, succeeded in imposing itself upon English slang, much less upon Standard English[.]1

New Zealand is like South Africa in that its lation is too small to have much influenced the language of the mother country whether in Standard

popu-or in unconventional English.1Usage and Abusage Some of the upstart qualities [of slang] and part of the aesthetic (as opposed to the moral) impropriety spring from the four features present in all slang, whatever the period and whatever the country: the search for novelty; volatility and light-headedness as well as light-heartedness; ephemerality; the sway of fashion In the standard speech and still more in slang we note that the motive behind figurative expressions and all neologisms is the desire to escape from the old accepted phrase: the desire for novelty operates more freely, audaciously, and rapidly

in slang – that is the only difference […O]f the numerous slang words taken up by the masses and the classes, most have only a short life, and that when they die, unhonoured and unsung, they are almost immediately replaced by novelties equally transitory: the word is dead, long live the word! […S]lang, as to the greater part of its vocabulary and especially as to its cuckoo-calling phrases and it’s parrot-sayings, is evanescent; it is the residuum that, racy and expressive, makes the study of slang revel- atory of the pulsing life of the language.1

[S]lang is indicative not only of man’s earthiness but

of his indomitable spirit: it sets him in his proper place: relates a man to his fellows, to his world and the world, and to the universe.10

And slang is employed for one (or two or more) of thirteen reasons:

1 In sheer high spirits; ‘just for the fun of the thing’.

2 As an exercise in wit or humour.

3 To be ‘different’ – to be novel.

4 To be picturesque.

5 To be startling; to startle.

6 To escape from cliché’s and long-windedness.

7 To enrich the language.

8 To give solidity and concreteness to the abstract and the idealistic, and nearness to the

distant scene or object.

9 To reduce solemnity, pain, tragedy.

10 To put oneself in tune with one’s company.

11 To induce friendliness or intimacy.

12 To show that one belongs to a certain school,

trade or profession, intellectual set or social

class In short to be in the fashion – or to

prove that someone else isn’t.

13 To be secret – not understood by those around

one.11

But no real stylist, no-one capable of good speaking

or good writing, is likely to be harmed by the

occasional employment of slang; provided that he is

conscious of the fact, he can employ it both

frequently and freely without stultifying his mind,

impoverishing his vocabulary, or vitiating the taste

and the skill that he brings to the using of that

vocabulary Except in formal and dignified writing and

in professional speaking, a vivid and extensive slang is

perhaps preferable to a jejune and meagre vocabulary

of standard English; on the other hand, it will hardly

be denied that, whether in writing or speech, a sound

though restricted vocabulary of standard English is

preferable to an equally small vocabulary of slang,

however vivid may be that slang.1

The Gentle Art of Lexicography

I began early in life: and it is the course of my life

which, allied to a natural propensity to original sin,

has made a lexicographer out of me.12

For most of us, a dictionary is hardly a book to read;

a good dictionary, however, is a book to browse in.

Some dictionaries are so well written that one just

goes on and on To write such a dictionary has

always been my ambition.12

Slang [etymology/lexicography] demands a mind

constantly on the qui vive; an ear constantly keyed to

the nuances of everyday speech, whether among

scholars or professional men or craftsmen or

labourers; a very wide reading of all kinds of books.13

I have read much that is hopelessly inferior,

hopelessly mediocre; and much that, although

interesting, is yet devoid of literary value But ever

since my taste acquired a standard, I have been able

to extract some profit from even the most trashy

book.14

There is far more imagination and enthusiasm in the

making of a good dictionary than in the average

novel.15

Words at War: Words at Peace

For over a century, there have been protests against

the use of slang and controversies on the relation of

slang to the literary language or, as it is now usually

called, Standard English Purists have risen in their

wrath and conservatives in their dignity to defend

the Bastille of linguistic purity against the

revolutionary rabble The very vehemence of the

attack and the very sturdinessof the defence have ensured that only the fittest survive to gain entrance

to the citadel, there establish themselves, and then become conservatives and purists in their turn.16Any term that prevents us from thinking, any term that we employ to spare us from searching for the right word, is a verbal narcotic As though there weren’t too many narcotics already…17

Words are very important things; at the lowest estimate, they are indispensable counters of communication.18

Notes/bibliography

1 Slang Today and Yesterday, 1933: George Routledge &

Sons, London

2 Slang Today and Yesterday, 1933, quoting Greenough

and Kittredge, Words and their Ways in English

Speech, 1902: George Routledge & Sons, London

3 ‘The Lexicography of Cant’, American Speech, Volume

26, Issue 2, May 1951: The American Dialect Society, Durham, North Carolina

4 ‘Byways of Soldier Slang’ in A Martial Medley, 1931:

Scholartis Press, London

5 ‘A Square Digs Beatnik’, August 1959 Originally published for private circulation Christmas 1959/New

Year 1960 Collected in A Charm of Words, 1960:

Hamish Hamilton, London

6 ‘Words Get Their Wings’, originally published in

Chamber’s Journal, July-August 1945 Collected in Words at War: Words at Peace, 1948: Frederick Muller,

London

7 ‘Introduction’ in Dictionary of New Words, Mary

Reifer, 1957: Peter Owen, London

8 British and American English Since 1900, co-authored

with John W Clark, 1951: Andrew Dakers, London

9 ‘Australian English’ in A Charm of Words, 1960:

Hamish Hamilton, London

10 Usage & Abusage, 1947: Hamish Hamilton, London

[originally published in the US in 1942]

11 The World of Words, 2nd edition, 1939: Hamish

Hamilton, London [reduced by Eric Partridge from a

fuller consideration in Slang Today and Yesterday,

1933, and based on the work of M Alfredo Niceforo,

14 Journey to the Edge of Morning, ©1946, reprinted

1969: Books for Libraries Press, New York

15 As Corrie Denison, a pseudonymous epigraph to A

Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Captain

Francis Grose (3rd edition, 1796), edited by Eric Partridge, 1931: Scholartis Press, London

16 Here, There and Everywhere, 1950: Hamish Hamilton,

London

17 ‘Verbal Narcotics’, originally published in Good

Housekeeping magazine, June 1949 Collected in From Sanskrit to Brazil, 1952: Hamish Hamilton,

London

18 ‘Words in Vogue: Words of Power’, 1942: collected in

Words at War: Words at Peace, 1948: Frederick Muller,

London

Anoun1amphetamineUS , 1967.2LSD An abbreviation ofACID US ,

1977.3in a deck of playing cards, an aceUS , 1988.< get A into G;

get your A into Gto stop idling; to apply yourself to an activity;

to start doing something useful Euphemistic forGET YOUR ARSE IN

GEAR NEW ZEALAND , 2002

Aadjective1reserved for the best; the bestUS , 1945.2analUS , 1997

a2mnouna scene in a pornographic film in which an object or body

part is withdrawn from a rectum and taken into a mouth without

either washing or editing Shorthand for ‘ass-to-mouth’US , 1997

A3anytime, anyplace, anywhere An abbreviation used in text

messagingUK , 2003

AAAnounan amphetamine tablet In the US, the AAA is the national

automobile club, which, like an amphetamine tablet, helps you get

from one place to anotherUS , 1993

A and Anounin the military, a leave for rest and recreation A

jocular abbreviation of ‘ass and alcohol’US , 1966

A and Bnounassault and batteryUS , 1986

aap; arpnouna marijuana cigarette From Afrikaans for ‘monkey’

SOUTH AFRICA , 1946

aardvarknounan F-111 combat aircraft or any aircraft that is

awkward-looking or difficult to fly Vietnam war usageUS , 1963

abnounan abscess, especially as a result of injecting drugsUS , 1952

ABnoun1the Aryan Brotherhood, a white prison gang in the USUS ,

1990.2the bleed period of the menstrual cycle An abbreviation of

‘Annie Brown’NEW ZEALAND , 1996

ABAnouna traveller’s chequeUS , 1985

abbadjectiveabnormalUS , 1991

abba-dabbanounchatter, gossip Undoubtedly originated with the

song ‘The Aba-Daba Honeymoon’, written in 1913 and re-released

with great success by Larry Clinton and His Orchestra in March

1948, in which ‘abba-dabba’ is the chatter of monkeysUS , 1961

abba-dabbaadjectivedark-skinned, especially ArabicUS , 1975

abbedadjectivehaving well-defined abdominal musclesUK , 2002

abbeynouna swindler who impersonates a priestUS , 1950.< on the

abbeyengaged in a swindle involving clergy impersonationUS , 1992

abbottnouna capsule of pentobarbital sodium (trade name

Nembutal™), a central nervous system depressant From the name

of the manufacturerUS , 1971

Abby Singernounin television and film making, the next-to-last

shot of the day Singer was active in US television from the early

1950s until the late 1980s; his name became an eponym when he

was an Assistant Director in the 1950sUS , 1990

ABCnoun1an American-born ChineseUS , 1984.2in poker, the ace,

two and threeUS , 1988

ABCadjective of a piece of chewing gum, already been chewed.

ABC’snoununderwearUS , 1949

ABC-yaused as a farewell Intended as a clever variant of ‘I’ll be

seeing you’US , 2002

abdabs; habdabs; screaming abdabsnouna condition of anxiety,

uneasiness, nervousness; also, but rarely, delirium tremens or a

state of enraged frustration Always following ‘the’, usually nowphrased (to give someone) the screaming abdabsUK , 1946

abdicateverbto vacate a public toilet upon orders of a rousting attendant The royal imagery is derived from the homo-sexual asQUEEN US , 1941

homosexual-Abdulnoun1used as a term of address for any Turkish soldier WorldWar 1 coinageUK , 1925.2any male Arab Gulf war usageUS , 1991

Abenoun1a five-dollar note An abbreviation ofABE LINCOLN US , 1945.

2any Jewish male Also variant ‘Abie’ From the archetypal Jewishname: AbrahamUS , 1914

A beannouna capsule of MDMA, the recreational drug best known

abfabadjective absolutely fabulous Originally the slang of Australian

teenagers From early 1990s in the UK it has been the widely

fam-iliar short-form of popular television situation comedy Absolutely

be unable to do what you are told to doBARBADOS , 1996

Able Dognounthe propeller-driven Douglas AD Skyraider Based onthe letters A and D in phonetic alphabet The Skyraider wasmanufactured between 1946 and 1957; it saw service in Korea andVietnamUS , 1961

able Grablenouna sexually attractive girlUS , 1945

abonounan Australian Aboriginal An abbreviation of ‘aborigine’blended with the ‘-o’ suffix Now a strongly taboo word, formerly

in frequent use by white people, and viewed by them as lessmarked than other terms such as ‘boong’ or ‘coon’ It was evenused in names for products, businesses, etcAUSTRALIA , 1906

aboadjectiveAustralian Aboriginal; of, or pertaining to, AustralianAboriginalsAUSTRALIA , 1911

aboardadverbpresent, part of an enterpriseUS , 1957.< go aboard

of someoneto act vigorously and aggressively, to attack, or scoldvigorouslyCANADA , 1980

A-bomb; atom bombnounmarijuana combined in a cigarette withcocaine, heroin or opium The addition of narcotic enhancements

to a BOMB (a marijuana cigarette) is signified by the ‘A’US , 1969

A-bombedadjectiveunder the influence of amphetaminesUS , 1975

A-bonenouna Model A Ford car, first built in 1927US , 1951

abootprepositionused as a humorous attempt to duplicate aCanadian saying ‘about’US , 1995

abortverbto defecate after being the passive partner in anal sexUS , 1972

abortionnouna misfortune; an ugly person or thingUS , 1943

about-facenouna 180-degree turn executed while driving fastUS , 1965

about it; ’bout itadjectivein favour of somethingUS , 2001

about right correct, adequate