[Ads-l] _beatnik_: interdating

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS occasionally cites this.

Real occasionally.

JL

On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 9:26 AM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      Re: _beatnik_: interdating
>
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>
> On Sat, Aug 15, 2015 at 11:07:47PM -0400, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> > On Sat, Aug 15, 2015 at 10:43 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> > >
> > > Ebony - May 1960 - Page 63
> > > https://books.google.com/books?id=QoVz2rpp-skC
> > > _Beatnik_ Dictionary
> > > "SWINGIN' SYLLABLES"
> > > The Official Handbook
> > > For Everyone In Orbit
> > > Packed with words and phrases straight
> > > from infinity. A perfect novelty gift.
> > > Send One Skin (1.00)
> > > To: Kimbrough Pub. Co., Dept. E
> > > 4639 Poplar Ave., Memphis, Tenn.
> >
> > Haven't seen this, but Tom Dalzell mentions it in his chapter on "The
> > Beat Counterculture" in _Flappers 2 Rappers: American Youth Slang_:
>
> I have a copy of this. It's a fun one.
>
> > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/pmjs/bBre4Nm2xiE/aHBvv9-C9JMJ
> > Incidentally, regarding "usage" as an issue in lexicography, in 1959
> > my father compiled and sold a small, pamphlet-like dictionary called
> > the "Swinging Syllables Beatnik Dictionary."  He advertised it in
> > Playboy Magazine and sold copies through the mail for $1 each.  I
> > mentioned to him a couple of years ago that his humble dictionary was
> > recently cited in a scholarly dictionary of American slang.  He
> > thought that was pretty funny, because, as he said, since he wasn't a
> > beatnik and he didn't know enough beatnik slang to fill out a
> > dictionary, he supplemented his "research" with a bunch of words and
> > phrases that sounded to him like things that beatniks might say.
>
> I hear stories like this all the time. When I meet authors of
> self-published or similarly casual slang dictionaries/glossaries, they
> often dismiss their work--"Oh, I was young, I just wrote down the stuff
> I heard, and made up some things."
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
>
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