Slang and Euphemism: A Dictionary of Oaths, Curses, Insults, Sexual Slang and Metaphor, Racial Slurs, Drug Talk, Homosexual Lingo, and Related Matters

Abstract

The struggle for mastery over words aptly describes both the problem Spears faced in creating his dictionary and the problem the reader faces in trying to use it. Spears' solution presumes ambiguity for his front matter but authority for his entries; the reader is left with Alice's question for the former, its obverse for the latter. Slang and Euphemism is useful to the extent that readers can adjust their needs to the master and his judgment. The dictionary's problems begin with its title. Slang and Euphemism is misleading-Spears makes no attempt to gather slang of all types. He omits, for example, those terms of general approbation most readily identified as slang by a popular audience: cool, neat,fine, sharp, keen, prime and choice (from meatpacker's argot), bad, tough, nifty, groovy, hip, funky, and their synonyms. He even omits OK-according to Mencken the most successful of all American slang terms (1963, p. 707). The author limits himself to collecting those items identified in his subtitle, though related matters must be understood to have very wide application: dictionary is a record of the usage [sic] of prohibited words and subjects among speakers of English. It is a record of the terms of avoidance used in the English-speaking world since the beginnings of the English language (p. vii). This is an ambitious program. It also turns out to be an ambiguous program. Spears' introduction and explanation of editorial principles and practices gives the reader no distinct sense of what slang is, of what actually will be included in the dictionary, or of how to interpret the entries. He provides no adequate differentiation between slang, colloquialism, argot, jargon, and other nonstandard expressions (see especially pp. xvi-xix), and does not dis

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