Green’s Dictionary of Slang

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

I was out shopping the other day and I saw a smiley.

A smiley?

Yes. Now, Grant is not the kind of smiley that you’re probably thinking of.

George Smiley from the spy novels?

No, not George Smiley. Not the little round face and not the little emoticon.

I was out shopping and I saw a smiley.

Do you know what that could be?

Okay, we’re going into slang territory here.

We are.

Okay, what is it?

I don’t know.

I have no idea.

We’re right smack dab in the middle of slang territory.

One definition of the word smile is bare flesh appearing between the top of a skirt or pair of trousers and the shirt or blouse.

And a smiley, according to this slang dictionary, is a man who’s showing a smile.

We’re not talking about the smile-shaped crevice when the rolls of fat are exposed?

Something like that. It’s like a muffin top.

And I know what book you were looking at, by the way.

I bet you do.

You were looking at Jonathan Green’s brand new three-volume historical dictionary of slang, right?

Yes, sir. What a dictionary.

This is an amazing work, isn’t it?

Yes.

This is something that he’s been working on for nearly two decades.

It is tiny type, three massive volumes.

It is A to Z all the way through American English, British English, and all of the other Englishes in this work.

It’s amazing.

It has linguists all aflutter, doesn’t it?

It does because it’s complete.

You know, I used to work on a slang dictionary, a big one that was never completed because of various institutional reasons.

He found a way to do it.

Actually, part of it was he got a bequest from an uncle who passed away and it allowed him to work on this dictionary and finish it.

That is what it takes to do a work of great scholarship.

Dead uncles.

But I have to say a complete historical slang dictionary is an amazing thing.

Right.

And by historical, we mean every entry includes uses of the word.

That solves a problem with slang dictionaries.

And that’s the one you were working on, right?

The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang.

Historical dictionaries allow you to see a word in context so that when you want to use the word yourself, you don’t make a lot of foolish mistakes.

You can use it as other people have used it.

And the examples are right there on the page, right?

Slang is not just a lot of rolling around in the gutter.

Oh, no, not at all.

It is an academic, it can be an academic pursuit.

He has identified and cataloged a substantial body of English that has been left out by traditional lexicographers who were either snotty or elitist or just refused because of time issues to include this stuff.

And what I love about it is it’s a taste of the living language.

I mean, I spent a couple of hours last night just flipping through the pages and found all these fantastic examples.

Tarantula juice.

What’s that?

That’s inferior whiskey.

Isn’t that great?

Tarantula juice.

It’s like tiger juice, right?

Yeah, or a touch of the seconds.

Do you know what a touch of the seconds is?

Sounds very British, the way you said that.

It is.

And he’s British, right?

Yes, he is.

Yeah, a touch of the seconds is a last-minute hesitation.

So, like, you know, you get to the altar, and all of a sudden you have a touch of the seconds.

So 53,000 entries from all over the English-speaking world.

This is a dictionary that every library should have.

Well, this is the show about slang and grammar and words and how we use them.

If you want to talk about language, give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.