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Dictionary of American Slang

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The Dictionary of American Slang is an English slang dictionary. The first edition was edited by Stuart Flexner and Harold Wentworth and published in 1960 by Thomas Y. Crowell Company.[1] After Wentworth's death in 1965,[2] Flexner wrote a supplemented edition which was published in 1967.[3] Flexner then wrote and published the 2nd supplemented edition in 1975.[2] HarperCollins acquired Thomas Crowell Company in 1980[4] and took over publishing the dictionary. After Flexner passed 1990,[5] Barbara Ann Kipfer and Robert L. Chapman took over the editing. The 3rd edition was published in 1995[6] and the 4th in 2007.[7]

English professor[8] Albert H. Marckwardt called the first edition a "highly useful work". He critiqued it for inconsistencies on what constitutes slang, but compared it favorably to Eric Partridge's Smaller Slang Dictionary because of the latter's lack of offensive terms.[9] Linguistics professor Madeleine Mathiot criticized the exclusion of "fad" terms, which were omitted because the authors required two usages of a term separated by at least five years for it to be included.[10]

The dictionary was banned from some schools in California in 1963[11] as part of larger concern with its potential obscenity, including concern from Los Angeles City Councilman John C. Holland.[12] It was banned from certain schools in Colorado in 1981.[13]

References

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  1. ^ Wentworth, Harold; Flexner, Stuart Berg (1960). Dictionary of American slang (1st ed.). New York: Crowell.
  2. ^ a b Wentworth, Harold; Flexner, Stuart Berg (1975). Dictionary of American slang (2nd supplemented ed.). New York: Crowell. ISBN 978-0-690-00670-4.
  3. ^ Wentworth, Harold; Flexner, Stuart Berg (1967). Dictionary of American slang (Supplemented ed.). New York: Crowell.
  4. ^ "Harper Absorbs Lippincott & Crowell; Some Will Join Harper Three New Names Statement From Knowlton". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  5. ^ "Stuart Berg Flexner, 62, Editor Of Random House Dictionaries". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
  6. ^ Chapman, Robert L.; Kipfer, Barbara Ann; Wentworth, Harold (1995). Dictionary of American slang (3rd ed.). New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-270107-7.
  7. ^ Kipfer, Barbara Ann; Chapman, Robert L., eds. (2007). Dictionary of American slang (4th ed.). New York: Collins. ISBN 978-0-06-117646-3.
  8. ^ "Dr. Albert H. Marckwardt Dies; Taught English and Linguistics (Published 1975)". The New York Times. 22 August 1975. Retrieved 4 January 2021.
  9. ^ Marckwardt, Albert H. (1961). "The Lexicography of Slang". American Speech. 36 (4): 278–280. doi:10.2307/453802. ISSN 0003-1283. JSTOR 453802.
  10. ^ Mathiot, Madeleine (1962). "Review of Dictionary of American Slang". American Anthropologist. 64 (3): 672–676. doi:10.1525/aa.1962.64.3.02a00490. ISSN 0002-7294. Retrieved 4 January 2021.
  11. ^ Langguth, Jack (12 July 1963). "SLANG DICTIONARY SPELLS TROUBLE; California Debates Issue of Its Access to Youth Opposes Book Burning". New York Times.
  12. ^ "Council Asks Dictionary of Slang Study: Wants to Find if Book Violates Obscenity Laws". Los Angeles Times. 21 June 1963. Retrieved 4 January 2021.
  13. ^ "Topics; Chuckles, Zones and Bones; Strangling Language". The New York Times. 31 December 1981.
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