Green’s Dictionary of Slang

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

You know, I’m a refugee from the dictionary business. It is a business that has not gone all that well over the last 30 years, right? Layoffs, big projects canceled, books that people trusted just disappearing because no new editions are being made.

Yeah, or not being finished.

Not being finished, which is why there’s some good news on the horizon that I want to share that comes out of the dictionary business.

Oh, great.

There’s a British lexicographer by the name of Jonathan Green who has for decades, I think it’s almost 35 years, been working on a database of English language slang. Now, he’s published a bunch of smaller works, and he has published a three-volume version of what is called Green’s Dictionary of Slang.

But now he’s done something new. He’s taken that entire database, and he’s put it online mostly for free.

Oh, wow.

You can go and there’s 132,000 terms. You can look them up, get the word, get the meaning, an etymology if there is one, at no cost to you. It’s really interesting.

And so this man’s life work is now available on the Internet. And it’s like one of these success stories out of the dictionary business that is just amazing to me.

I know he’s had setbacks. He had publishers change. Money that was promised didn’t come through maybe. He’s had to kind of finagle some help from people here and there.

But he’s done it finally. And it is a really good work. Green’s Dictionary of Slang at greensaddictofslang.com.

That is fantastic news.

Right? And you know his work, too. You’ve heard of Jonathan Green.

Well, of course.

Yeah, yeah. I have his books. But to have that online and have it searchable.

Have it searchable, right?

And so what’s happened to me is now, you know, I have this like pantheon of these great works. The essentials, as I call them. You know them.

Yeah.

The Oxford English Dictionary. The Dictionary of American Regional English. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, Garner’s Modern English Usage, and now you can add Green’s Dictionary of Slang to this canon of essential language works that make your job and my job easier, but also just generally understanding this crazy English language easier.

Yeah, yeah, and slang is such poetry. I can’t wait to get to my computer and look that up.

I agree, yeah. Slang Poetry of the People.

That’s the title of a book by Michael Adams.

There you go. It absolutely is poetry.

Yeah, yeah. So where do I go to get this poetry?

So it’s greensdict, that’s D-I-C-T, of slang.com, greensdictionaryofslang.

Well, this is a monumental advance.

Yeah, and congratulations to Jonathan. I know it’s a big moment for him.

Yeah, yeah, life’s work. Wow.

Well, we talk about slang and family stories about language and grammar and word origins, all kinds of things here on this show.

So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your questions and stories about language and email to words@waywordradio.org.