A History of Cant and Slang Dictionaries

Abstract

Abstract Although there are continuities with earlier slang lexicography, particularly in the work of Eric Partridge, the period covered by this volume sees a number of marked social and lexicographical changes. The post-war cultural dominance of the United States is evident throughout, as is the influence of African‐American music and language. Slang dictionaries also document attempts by Britain and its colonies to (re)define their sense of national identity. Musical and cultural trends each produced their own characteristic slang, which was manipulated by commercial interests to target the youth market. Homosexual slang was documented first as a diagnostic tool for psychiatrists, but later became an expression of gay pride. Attempts to associate homosexuality with communism label gay rights as a significant threat to the structure of society. Drugs were another threat that became dominant in this period, and the punitive response saw a rapidly increasing prison population. Dictionaries of crime during this period tend to concentrate on the language used inside prisons rather than by criminals at large. But slang is not just for left-wingers. British dictionaries of rhyming slang and dictionaries of Australian slang both express anxieties about immigration through their attempts to construct a working‐class national identity. Right-wing pressure groups in the United States produced dictionaries of slang to reveal the threat represented by homosexuality and rock music. The biggest backlash is found in the numerous dictionaries of CB radio, which allowed blue‐collar white southerners to reconstruct themselves as freedom‐fighting urban cowboys.

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