Dictionary of American Slang

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]

  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.