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The greatest survey of slang ever published and winner of the 2012 Dartmouth Medal

About the Author

Jonathon Green is the English-speaking world's foremost lexicographer of slang. His many publications include Chambers Slang Dictionary, the Slang Thesaurus and Slang Down the Ages. He has also compiled dictionaries of quotations and oral histories of modern culture.

Reviews

'No previous work of lexicography has ever stood as such a monument to mankind's baseness and wilful disinclination to self-improve'

'Multi-faceted and unflinching'

'Green's astonishing, peerless collage ... is the entire anglophone world unmediated'

'[Green] belongs to a rare pantheon'
*Jonathan Meades, The Evening Standard*

'the reference work of the vulgar tongue to which all others must now be referred [...] he has now exhibited English slang in more detail than any lexicographer before him'
*Jeremy Noel-Tod, The Telegraph*

'... It's not hyperbolic to suggest that it's the OED of slang'
*Michael Quinion, World Wide Words.com*

'After more than a decade's labour, Jonathon Green, lexicographer of the subversive, has produced as fine a three-volume dictionary of slang as you would desire to piss upon (1700: phrase meaning "excellent, first-rate").'
*Steven Poole, The Guardian*

' ... any language lover will find this as compelling a read as a thriller ... The dictionary is a stupendous achievement, in range, meticulous scholarship, and not least enterainment value'
*Christopher Hart, The Sunday Times*

'this is the sort of book that, even when examined for a specific purpose, invites sustained perusal'
*Henry Hitchings, Financial Times*

'A magnificent work of scholarship'
*Colin MacCabe, The New Statesman*

'The range of sources is breathtaking'
*James Sharpe, Times Literary Supplement*

'a wonderfully politically incorrect source of education and entertainment'
*Prof. Chris Williams, walesonline.co.uk*

'This is the most significant dictionary of slang that has ever been produced ... Get it.'
*Australian Book Review*

'With the historical context and sample sentences, Green's shows the depth and breadth of slang as we've never seen it. It is now the number one authority on slang--for etymology, appropriateness, and social context. If words are your trade, you just don't have a full toolbox without Green's'
*www.copyediting.com*

**** WINNER OF THE 2012 DARTMOUTH MEDAL, RECOGNISING THE MOST OUTSTANDING REFERENCE WORK OF THE YEAR ****
*American Library Association*

"Jonathan Green's is a dictionary for the ages, as special a catalogue of word-biographies as James Murray himself might have created, and likely to endure as long as the OED...To praise another way: Green's dictionary is, in short, the dog's bollocks."
*New York Review of Books*

'Quite simply the best historical dictionary of English slang there is, ever has been ... or is ever likely to be'
*Julie Coleman, Journal of English Language and Linguistics*

'A treasure trove of a dictionary. Green's preface hits the nail on the head when he says that it is a work for anyone who is curious enough to open it. Dipping in and out of these three volumes has been a treat and through this process I have definitely increased my vocabulary.'
*The Linguist*