cross-post of interest to us

[Jonathan Lighter]

Coleman's two volumes represent a long overdue and beautifully executed survey of the contents and reliability of early slang dictionaries and glossaries. Nobody with a serious interest in slang or lexicography can afford to overlook her work.

I'm not easily impressed, either.

JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: cross-post of interest to us
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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1392. Mon May 02 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.1392, Books: Historical Ling/Lexicography, English: Coleman

Title: A History of Cant and Slang Dictionaries
Subtitle: Volume 2: 1785-1858
Publication Year: 2005
Publisher: Oxford University Press
http://www.oup.com/us

Book URL: http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-925470-2

Author: Julie Coleman, University of Leicester
Hardback: ISBN: 0199254702 Pages: 352 Price: U.K. £ 45.00


Abstract:

The second volume of Julie Coleman's fascinating and entertaining history
of the uses and the recording of slang and criminal cant takes the story
from 1785 to 1858 and explores its first manifestations in the USA and
Australia.

During this period glossaries of cant are thrown into the shade by
dictionaries of slang, which now include the language of thieves and cover
a broad spectrum of non-standard English. Cant represented a practical
threat to life and property. Slang, the author reveals, was a threat to the
moral core of society, insidiously seductive to a wide section of the public.

Julie Coleman shows how Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
revolutionised lexicography of non-standard English. She explores the
earliest Australian and American slang glossaries, whose authors included
the thrice-transported James Hardy Vaux and George Matsell, New York City's
first chief of police.
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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1392



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