| Synopsis: |
Slang is language at its most human, focusing on sex, body parts and what they do, drink and drugs and wide-spectrum hedonism; it's also about hatreds - both intimate and and national - about the insults that follow on, the sneers and the put-downs. For caring, sharing and compassion, it is necessary to look elsewhere because slang can't even spell them. There may be over 10,000 terms focusing on sex in one way or another, but love? Not one.The dictionary, it has been said, is just a novel out of order. Jonathon Green has drawn on his own database, or dictionary, of over 600,000 citations, to tell the wonderfully entertaining stories of slang, from its first, sixteenth-century collection to today. Because his aim was to provide something new, 'filth' may have its moments in the book, but he has included neither 'dirty' words nor rhyming slang. He covers both the major themes, from crime and criminals, through drinking and drunks to STDs and vomiting, and also the etymologies, or the stories behind the word or phrase in question, where these can be determined, though better no etymology than a bad etymology. Most slang plays with standard English, but it is a mongrel tongue, drawing on Scottish, Irish and Welsh. Latin, too, has a role, as do Yiddish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Romani, Hindi and others.There are also localisms from indigenous languages in Australasia and southern Africa and island terms from the Caribbean. The Stories of Slang provides a round-up of the very best of slang's stories, arranged in categories from Bodily Charms (a slang anatomy) to cutting-edge grime and MLE (Multi-cultural London English), via Down Under, animals in slang, Lushingtons and Piss Artists (drink and drinking), Polari and LGBT slang, prizefighters, Shakespeare and the slang of noir. |