Dictionary of American Slang

The Dictionary of American Slang was edited by Stuart Flexner and Harold Wentworth and first published in 1960 by Thomas Crowell Company.[1] The first three editions (1960, 1967, 1975) were edited by Flexner and Wentworth, while the fourth (1995) and fifth editions (2010) were largely reworked and edited by Barbara Ann Kipfer and Robert L. Chapman.[2][3]

English professor[4] 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.[5] 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.[6]

The dictionary was banned from some schools in California in 1963[7] as part of larger concern with its potential obscenity, including concern from Los Angeles City Councilman John C. Holland.[8] It was banned from certain schools in Colorado in 1981.[9]

References
  1. Reynolds, Horace (30 July 1960). "HOW TO DIG THE HIPS' YACKETY-YAK". New York Times. pp. 41, 57. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
  2. Kipfer, Barbara Ann; Chapman, Robert L. "Dictionary of American Slang 4e". HarperCollins US.
  3. Chapman, Robert L.; Kipfer, Barbara Ann; Wentworth, Harold (1995). Dictionary of American slang. HarperCollins. LCCN 97002771.
  4. "Dr. Albert H. Marckwardt Dies; Taught English and Linguistics (Published 1975)". The New York Times. 22 August 1975. Retrieved 4 January 2021.
  5. Marckwardt, Albert H. (1961). "The Lexicography of Slang". American Speech. 36 (4): 278–280. doi:10.2307/453802. ISSN 0003-1283. JSTOR 453802.
  6. 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.
  7. Langguth, Jack (12 July 1963). "SLANG DICTIONARY SPELLS TROUBLE; California Debates Issue of Its Access to Youth Opposes Book Burning". New York Times.
  8. "Council Asks Dictionary of Slang Study: Wants to Find if Book Violates Obscenity Laws". Los Angeles Times. 21 June 1963. Retrieved 4 January 2021.
  9. "Topics; Chuckles, Zones and Bones; Strangling Language". The New York Times. 31 December 1981.
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