Books : Slang: The Topical Dictionary of Americanisms

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Author name: Paul Dickson

: Slang: The Topical Dictionary of Americanisms
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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 427.973
EAN num: 9780802715319
ISBN number: 0802715311
Label: Walker & Company
Manufacturer: Walker & Company
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 464
Printing Date: October 03, 2006
Publishing house: Walker & Company
Release Date: October 03, 2006
Sale Popularity Level: 403942
Studio: Walker & Company



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Editor's Notes and Comments:

Product Description:
Slang is evidence that the spoken language is continually changing to meet new needs for verbal expressions, tailored to changing realities and perceptions. Unlike most slang dictionaries that list entries alphabetically, Slang takes on modern American English one topic at a time, from “auctionese” to “computerese”, the drug trade and sports slang. Slang was originally published by Pocket Books in 1990 in paperback (ISBN number 0671672517, out of print) and revised in 1998 in hardcover and paperback (ISBN number 0671549200 and 0671549197; hc out of print soon after publication, pb in print until 2005). The new Slang has 50% new material, including new chapters on slang associated with work cubicles, gaming, hip hop, and coffeehouses. Dickson brings slang into the twenty-first century with such blogger slang as TMPMITW, which stands for “the most powerful man in the world” (the president).  Whether you want to be privy to the inside banter of the boardroom, backroom or the Washington Beltway, Slang is an indispensable resource, and a lot of fun.




Customer Reviews
User popularity level: out of 5 stars

Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - 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.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - 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.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - 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


Rated by buyers 1 out of 5 stars - What a huge disappointment.
I bought this book after hearing about it on NPR, and was really looking forward to reading through it. But after reading it cover to cover, I was appalled at the number of inaccurate definitions of commonly used slang terms. Did no one fact check this book? Some of the definitions aren't even from the US, they are from other countries - and the meanings are very different. The way the book was organized wasn't very logical either, it appeared to jump all over the place, making finding a particular term difficult. I can't recommend this book for someone wanting to learn about American slang.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - New Words for New Times
I had always thought that slang was what your mother told you not to use at the dinner table. That turns out to be an old-fashioned idea. Slang, according to this enlightening, entertaining, and--dare I say it?--educational book, is the way the American language replenishes itself. (Some words once labeled slang: bogus, clumsy, snide, and spurious.) The latest round of replenishment comes from the Internet, which, author Paul Dickson says, "could be the greatest of all dispensers of slang and new English since the invention of movable type." One of the innovations of this book is the division of slang into categories: You look up definitions by turning to "Net-speak," say, to find out what, say, "kevork" means: "To ban electronically from a site or bulletin board. From the name Jack Kevorkian, a doctor who assisted suicides." Net-speak is one of thirty categories. Others include Java-speak (black eye: "Expresso mixed with brewed coffee") and that grand old American dialect, Bureaucratese (fuzz: "To blur on purpose; to make less direct"). As you can see, it's a book not for just looking things up but for browsing, for searching out new words, and for replenishing your own noggin.



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