The Stories of Slang

The Stories of Slang PDF Author: Jonathon Green
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472139674
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
'If you're up for an adventure through the back alleys of English, The Stories of Slang will not disappoint.' Kory Stamper, Times Literary Supplement 'Few lexicographers are lucky enough to have both endlessly pleasurable work and the talent to write amusingly about [slang]. Jonathon Green is one . . . Lovers of language should be grateful to those who create slang, and to those few like Mr Green who make it their work to open this window into the psyche for the benefit of all.' - The Economist 'By turns bawdy, sweary and irreverent, this book . . . is a fascinating look at how centuries of slang came to inform all aspects of social life, how it was used, and how much of it still lingers.' History Revealed Like the flesh-and-blood humans whose uncensored emotions it represents, slang's obsessions are sex, the body and its functions, and intoxication: drink and drugs. Slang does not do kind. It's about hatreds - both intimate and and national - about the insults that follow on, the sneers and the put-downs. Caring, sharing and compassion? Not at this address. There are over 10,000 terms focusing on sex, but love? Not one. Jonathon Green, aka 'Mr Slang', has drawn on the 600,000-plus citations that make up his magisterial Green's Dictionary of Slang (published 2010, now online at www.greensdictofslang.com) to tell some of slang's most entertaining stories. Categories range from The Body to Pulp Diction, via multi-cultural London English and pun-tastic gems. Mostly gazing up from the gutter, slang, perhaps surprisingly, also embraces the stars. These stories may look at drunken sailors, dubious doctors, and a shelf of dangerously potent cocktails, but slang does class acts as well. None more so than Shakespeare. Devotee of the double entendre, master of the pun, first to put nearly 300 slang terms in print. 'Shakespeare, uses, at my count, just over five hundred "slang" terms, of which 277 are currently the first recorded use of a given term. Among these are the beast with two backs, every mother's son, fat-headed, heifer (for woman), pickers and stealers (hands), small beer (insignificant matters), what the dickens, and many more.' http://jonathongreen.co.uk

The Stories of Slang

The Stories of Slang PDF Author: Jonathon Green
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472139674
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
'If you're up for an adventure through the back alleys of English, The Stories of Slang will not disappoint.' Kory Stamper, Times Literary Supplement 'Few lexicographers are lucky enough to have both endlessly pleasurable work and the talent to write amusingly about [slang]. Jonathon Green is one . . . Lovers of language should be grateful to those who create slang, and to those few like Mr Green who make it their work to open this window into the psyche for the benefit of all.' - The Economist 'By turns bawdy, sweary and irreverent, this book . . . is a fascinating look at how centuries of slang came to inform all aspects of social life, how it was used, and how much of it still lingers.' History Revealed Like the flesh-and-blood humans whose uncensored emotions it represents, slang's obsessions are sex, the body and its functions, and intoxication: drink and drugs. Slang does not do kind. It's about hatreds - both intimate and and national - about the insults that follow on, the sneers and the put-downs. Caring, sharing and compassion? Not at this address. There are over 10,000 terms focusing on sex, but love? Not one. Jonathon Green, aka 'Mr Slang', has drawn on the 600,000-plus citations that make up his magisterial Green's Dictionary of Slang (published 2010, now online at www.greensdictofslang.com) to tell some of slang's most entertaining stories. Categories range from The Body to Pulp Diction, via multi-cultural London English and pun-tastic gems. Mostly gazing up from the gutter, slang, perhaps surprisingly, also embraces the stars. These stories may look at drunken sailors, dubious doctors, and a shelf of dangerously potent cocktails, but slang does class acts as well. None more so than Shakespeare. Devotee of the double entendre, master of the pun, first to put nearly 300 slang terms in print. 'Shakespeare, uses, at my count, just over five hundred "slang" terms, of which 277 are currently the first recorded use of a given term. Among these are the beast with two backs, every mother's son, fat-headed, heifer (for woman), pickers and stealers (hands), small beer (insignificant matters), what the dickens, and many more.' http://jonathongreen.co.uk

Bible Stories in Cockney Rhyming Slang

Bible Stories in Cockney Rhyming Slang PDF Author: Kevin Park
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN: 1843109336
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
Retells Bible stories in the British regional dialect, with many passages ending, "Amen-innit!"

Sounds and Furies

Sounds and Furies PDF Author: Jonathon Green
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 9781472141927
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
'When it comes to distaff dirtiness, mainstream males such as Dickens and Dekker make easy pickings, but Green finds the greatest treasures when he mudlarks on the margins. In Sounds & Furies, he has dredged up some gems.' Emma Byrne, Spectator 'From fishwives to flappers and from music hall performers to Mumsnetters, women have indeed made contributions to the slang vocabulary of English; by bringing together so much fascinating material about their words and their worlds, this book makes its own contribution to the history of both women and language.' Professor Deborah Cameron, Professor of Language and Communication, Worcester College, University of Oxford 'Green comprehensively disproves that slang is inherently masculine. Mumsnetters and bulldaggers, flappers and slappers, shicksters and hash-slingers all put in their claims as slang-users in their own right in this entertaining and thought-provoking book. Any writer venturing into the contentious area of women as users, creators or objects of slang from now on will look to Green for guidance or for arguments.' Julie Coleman, author of The Life of Slang Slang. The ultimate in man-made languages. The male gaze made verbal. A world where words for intercourse mean 'man hits woman', the penis is a gun, a knife or club and the vagina a terrifying tunnel. Possibly with teeth. Two thousand words for woman and every one a put-down. Even 'mother' is simply short for the grossest of obscenities. Thus the story, now and for several hundred years. But stories are just that and perhaps there's an alternative. In this book Jonathon Green, the leading collector of English-language slang and drawing on forty years of research in the field, asks whether women have another role to play. As slang's active, positive, rebellious subject, rather than its endlessly derided, submissive object. Sounds & Furies represents a quest to overturn a long-established, but far from invulnerable belief system. To show that throughout a recorded history that starts with Chaucer's bawdy, mouthy and magnificently self-willed Wife of Bath and carries on through a cast of working girls and villainesses, playwrights and bestselling authors, shop-girls and fish-wives and through to the modern, on-line worlds of Mumsnet and Tinder, women have always made slang their own. If slang has always been the language of the margins, then women, for all their numbers, have also been consigned to the margins. Those days, it is ever more clear, are over. If slang has a role then it is to represent us at our most human. That may not mean 'admirable' but it surely means 'true'. And humanity is on offer to everyone, whatever gender they may claim. That goes for language, whatever its variety, too. From the foreword by sex historian Kate Lister: 'Patriarchal cultures have understood women, controlled women, and marginalised women. But, this book also reveals that it is the rebellious women who used slang: the fishwives, the scolds, the whores, and the harridans. Long may they continue to do so.'

Trouble & Strife

Trouble & Strife PDF Author: Steve Brewer
Publisher: Down & Out Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 139

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Book Description
Welcome to the world of Cockney rhyming slang, where what is said means something completely different than how it sounds. Originally, it was a coded language created by criminals for deceiving undercover police officers during Victorian times. Common phrases like septic tank, holy water, brown bread, tomfoolery and mince pies don’t mean what you think they mean. Others, like Barnaby Rudge, gypsy’s kiss, smash and grab, butcher’s hook, kick and prance and bubble and squeak paint a picture. There are stories to be written about these phrases and in Trouble & Strife, the coded and colorful phrases of Cockney rhyming slang became the inspiration for eleven killer crimes stories from writers on both sides of the pond. A few choice words include: Babbling Brook is a talkative inmate at the state penitentiary. A hairdresser has to pay his dues for a crime that took place at Barnet Fair. And you never want to meet a Lady from Bristol. You don’t have to understand rhyming slang to enjoy this book. You just have to enjoy a damn good story. To see what the authors have come up with you'll have to turn the page and have a butcher’s. Edited by Simon Wood with stories by Steve Brewer, Susanna Calkins, Colin Campbell, Angel Luis Colón, Robert Dugoni, Paul Finch, Catriona McPherson, Travis Richardson, Johnny Shaw, Jay Stringer, and Sam Wiebe.

The Stories of English

The Stories of English PDF Author: David Crystal
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1468306170
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
A groundbreaking history of worldwide English in all its dialects, differences, and linguistic delights: “Informative . . . distinctive . . . a spirited celebration.” —The Guardian In this “well-informed and appealing” work (Publishers Weekly), David Crystal puts aside the usual focus on “standard” English, and instead provides a startlingly original view of where the richness, creativity, and diversity of the language truly lies—in the accents and dialects of nonstandard English users all over the world. Whatever their regional, social, or ethnic background, each group has a story worth telling, whether it is in Scotland or Somerset, South Africa or Singapore. He reminds us that for several hundred wonderful years, there was no such thing as “incorrect” English—and traces the evolution of the language from a few thousand Anglo-Saxons to the 1.5 billion people who speak it today. Moving from Beowulf to Chaucer to Shakespeare to Dickens and the present day, Crystal puts regional speech and writing at center stage, giving a sense of the social realities behind the development of English. This significant shift in perspective enables us to understand for the first time the importance of everyday, previously marginalized, voices in our language—and provides an argument too for the way English should be taught in the future. “A work of impeccable scholarship [that] could easily serve as a standard textbook for students of linguistics, but Mr. Crystal, reaching out to a more general audience, recognizes that even the most avid reader might flinch at the sections on Old Norse grammatical influence. Cleverly, he has sprinkled the book with little digressions, set apart in boxes, that address historical mysteries, strange loanwords, interesting etymologies and the like.” —The New York Times “Learned and often provocative . . . demonstrates repeatedly that common conceptions about language are often historically inaccurate—split infinitives bothered no one until recently (likewise sentence-ending prepositions).” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Simply the best introductory history of the English language family that we have. The plan of the book is ingenious, the writing lively, the exposition clear, and the scholarly standard uncompromisingly high.” —J.M. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

New Dictionary of American Slang

New Dictionary of American Slang PDF Author: Robert L. Chapman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780333441251
Category : Americanisms
Languages : en
Pages : 485

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Book Description


Hash House Lingo

Hash House Lingo PDF Author: Jack Smiley
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486481123
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Originally published in 1941, this pocket-sized volume preserves the language of diners and roadside restaurants during the '30s and '40s. From "all hot" (baked potato) to "dog soup" (water), the long-lost terms are part fascinating, part funny, and often politically incorrect by today's standards. Historic photos from the Library of Congress add nostalgic appeal.

Stories of Your Life and Others

Stories of Your Life and Others PDF Author: Ted Chiang
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 1931520895
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
From the author of Exhalation, an award-winning short story collection that blends "absorbing storytelling with meditations on the universe, being, time and space ... raises questions about the nature of reality and what it is to be human" (The New York Times). Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—with some sense of normalcy. With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today's most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic. Includes “Story of Your Life”—the basis for the major motion picture Arrival

Odd Job Man

Odd Job Man PDF Author: JONATHON. GREEN
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
ISBN: 9781787330238
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
For thirty years Jonathon Green has been collecting slang - the indefinable language of the gutter, the brothel, the jail, the barroom - producing a succession of dictionaries, most recently the three-volume Green's Dictionary of Slang, that have been recognised as the most comprehensive and authoritative ever compiled. In this fascinating memoir Green reveals that he first began collecting slang in the 1970s, noticing that the contemporary authorities (notably Eric Partridge) preferred the past to the present, unaware of the huge array of new slang being coined by the counter-culture. He ponders why he still does this strange, lonely job, exploring the satisfaction that can be gained by tracking down the first use of a term just encountered in one of the cheap dime novels he devours for research. The lexis leans towards pimping and prostitution, crime and imprisonment, violence and cruelty, drunken and drugged debauches: what does this say about the man who spends every day truffling for it? A fascinating look at how one man has built a lexis of 125,000 words that includes 1,740 words for sexual intercourse, 1,351 for the penis, 540 for defecation/urination, 247 for fat, 219 for vomiting and 180 for anal sex, Odd Job Man will delight all those who love the words that the conventional dictionaries leave out.

The Illustrated Compendium of Essential Modern Slang

The Illustrated Compendium of Essential Modern Slang PDF Author: Tyler Vendetti
Publisher: Cider Mill Press
ISBN: 1951511026
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The Illustrated Compendium of Essential Modern Slang is an illustrated dictionary of the zaniest jargon, including everything from ankle-biter to zazzy! Complete with definitions, roots, and absurd usage quotes, these 300+ words are sure to make you go, What does that mean? What do your grandmother, your math teacher, your soccer coach, and your booger of a brother all have in common? They all have used slang at some point in their lives! Whether they were getting jiggy with it in the'90s or raving about the cat's pajamas in the' 20s, everyone has experienced the joy that comes with these coded exchanges. In this illustrated volume, we'll take a walk down memory lane, exploring the best, worst, and most lit terms that have ever graced the pages of the English dictionary. Need an example? We've got plenty--300+ to be exact!--including: Canary (noun): a female singer, the likes of which you might find chirping along at the front of the jazzy musical group that your mom hired for your bat mitzvah. Greaser (noun): a tough guy who is as slick as the hair products that he soaks his fro' in. Tubular (adjective): breathtaking, like the wave the dad who said it is probably cruising on. Bounce (verb): to leave quickly and suddenly before anyone can hear you use the word bounce. Tea (noun): The hot goss that your friend's been holding onto, like a literal cup of burning tea she's waiting to toss in your face when the time is right. The Illustrated Compendium of Essential Modern Slang is jam-packed with dope slang words, their origin stories, hilarious usage quotes, and a pronunciation guide so you can properly enunciate that funny word that no one understands. From millennial jargon to Gen Z lingo, this comprehensive collection of modern slang is sure to make you go cray (in a good way).