“Slanguage,” back-page essay in the New York Times Book Review on the latest in slang dictionaries. (Apr. 3, 2011)
Back in 1937, when Eric Partridge’s groundbreaking “Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English” was first published, The New York Times Book Review ran a glowing notice. “The lost words of the language have finally come to roost,” it began. “The unmentionables are mentioned and carefully placed in proper alphabetical form.”
Now, nearly 75 years later, can a slang dictionary possibly hope to uncover any “lost words”? Are there any unmentionables left to mention?
Read the rest here.