Slang and uncoventional english part 2 doc

CONTRIBUT ORS
Dr Richard Allsopp, a native of Guyana, is Director of the
Caribbean Lexicography Project and former Reader in
English Language and Linguistics, University of the West
Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. He edited the Dictionary of
Caribbean English Usage.
Dr Dianne Bardsley is Manager of the New Zealand
Dictionary Centre at Victoria University of Wellington. Her
PhD involved the compilation and analysis of a rur al New
Zealand English lexicon from the years 1842–2002. She
was contributing editor for the New Zealand Oxford
Dictionary and is currently leading several New Zealand
lexicography resear ch projects.
James Lambert has worked primarily in Australian English,
specialising in slang in general and Australian slang in par-
ticular. He was assistant editor of The Macquarie Dictionary
of New Words and general editor of The Macquarie Book of
Slang and The Macquarie Slang Dictionary.
John Loftus manages the online archive at www.hiberno
english.com. H e was a senior research assistant on A
Dictionary of Hiberno-English.
Lewis Poteet is a leading Canadian authority on slang and
dialect. He has written extensively about language in
Canada’s maritime provinces and edited Car & Motorcycle
Slang, Hockey Talk, Plane Ta lk, Car Talk and Cop Talk.
John Williams served as a consulting lexicographer on this
project. He has been contributing to general language
dictionaries, both monolingual and bilingual, for more than
20 years. He is the author of three children’s dictionaries, as
well as several articles on the practice of lexicography.

PREFACE
Eric Partridge made a deep and enduring contribution to
the study and understanding of slang. In the eight editions
of The Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English
published between 1937 and 1984, Partridge recorded and
defined the slang and unconventional English of Great
Britain, and to a lesser extent her dominions, fr om the
1600s to the 1970s. For the years up to 1890, Partridge
was by his own admission quite reliant on Farmer and
Henley’s Slang and its Analogues, which he used as an
‘expansible framework’. When it came to the slang for the
years 1890 to 1945, Partridge was original and brilliant,
especially in his treatment of underworld and military
slang. His attitude towar ds language was scholarly and
fun-loving, scientific and idiosyncratic. His body of work,
scholarship and dignity of approach led the way and set
the standard for every other English-language slang
lexicographer of the twentieth century.
Our respect for Partridge has not blinded us to the
features of his work that have drawn criticism over the
years. His protocol f or alphabetising was quirky. His dating
was often problematic. His etymologies at times strayed
from the plausible to the fanciful. His classification by
register (slang, cant, jocular, vulgar, coarse, high, low, etc.)
was intensely subjective and not particularly useful.
Furthermore, his early decision to exclude American slang
created increasingly difficult pr oblems for him as the years
passed and the influence of American slang grew. Lastly,
Partridge grew to lose the ability to relate to the
vocabulary he was recording. In 1937, Partridge was a man

of his time, but the same c ould no longer be said in 1960.
There is a pr ofound relationship between language and
culture, and neither Partridge nor Paul Beale, editor of the
8th edition, seem to have assimilated the cultural changes
that began at the end of World War 2. This left them
without the cultural knowledge needed to understand the
language that they were recording. Their lack of cultural
understanding accelerated with time, and this is sadly
reflected in the later entries. Beatniks and drug addicts,
and their slang, baffled Partridge and Beale, who lacked
either the personal experience or historical perspective
needed to understand underlying countercultures.
Partridge himself observed, ‘More than almost any
other kind of book, a dictionary constantly needs to be
revised; especially, of course, if it deals with the current
form of a language and therefore has to be kept up to
date’. With The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and
Unconventional English we tried to do just that. We picked
up where Partridge left off, recording the slang and
unconventional English of the English-speaking world since
World War 2 with the same scholarship and joy in
language that characterised Partridge’s work. We are not,
and cannot be, Partridge: but we can strive to be proud
heirs of Partridge and to speak with a voice that P artridge
would recognise as an echo of his own. We have worked
hard to continue the Partridge tr adition, observing high
standards of lexicogr aphy while producing an accessible
work informed by, and infused with, the humour, mischief
and energy that are endemic to slang. This Concise
version of the New Partridge contains every entry in New

Partridge as well as several hundred new words that have
come into the slang lexicon since 2005. The Concise is
presented without the hundreds of thousands of citations
in the New Partridge, cr e ating an affordable alternative to
our update of Partridge. Lastly, we improved dating infor-
mation given on hundreds o f headwords.
Criteria for inclusion
We use three criteria for including a term or phrase in this
dictionary. We include (1) s lang and unconventional
English, (2) used anywhere in the English-speaking world
and (3) after 1945.
Rather than f ocus too intently on a precise definition
of slang or on whether a given entry is slang, jargon or
colloquial English, we take full advantage of the wide net
cast by Partridge when he chose to rec ord ‘slang and
unconventional English’ instead of just slang, which is,
after all, without any settled test of purity. We have con-
sidered for inclusion all unconventional English that has
been used with the purpose or effect of either lowering
the formality of communication and reducing solemnity
and/or identifying status or group and putting oneself in
tune with one’s company. A term recorded here might be
slang, slangy jargon, a colloquialism, an acronym, an
initialism, a vulgarism or a catchphrase. In all instances,
an entry imparts a message beyond the text and literal
meaning. This approach is especially useful when dealing
with world slang and unconventional English. A broader
range has permitted inclusion of many Caribbean entries,
for instance, which merit inclusion but might not meet a
stringent pure-slang-only test. Our only real deviation fr om

Partridge’s inclusion criteria is a much diminished body of
nicknames. The regiment nicknames that populate
Partridge’s work no longer fulfil the language function that
they did in the United Kingdom of Partridge’s day.
If there was a question as to whether a potential
entry fell within the target register, we erred on the side of
inclusion. We generally chose to include poorly attested
words, presenting the entry and our evidence of usage to
the reader who is free to determine if a candidate passes
probation.
Partridge limited his dictionary to Great Britain and
her dominions. We elected the broader universe of the
English-speaking world. Globalisation has affe cted many
face ts of life, not the least of which is our language. There
are words that are uniquely Australian, American or
British, but it is impossible to ignore or deny the extent of
cross-pollination that exists between cultures as regards
slang. We were aided in our global gathering by
indigenous contributors from Australia, Canada, the
Caribbean, Ireland and New Zealand. We also include
pidgin, Creolised English and borrowed foreign terms used
by English-speak ers i n primarily English-language
conversation. We include slang and unconventional English
heard and used at any time after 1945. We chose the end
of the war in 1945 as our starting point primarily because
it marked the beginning of a series of profound cultural
changes that produced the lexic on of modern and
contemporary slang. The cultural transformations since
1945 are mind-boggling. Television, computers, drugs,
music, unpopular wars, youth movements, changing racial

sensitivities and attitudes towar ds sex and sexuality are all
substantial factors that have shaped culture and language.
No term is excluded on the grounds that it might be
considered offe nsive as a racial, ethnic, religious, sexual or
any kind of slur. This dictionary contains many entries and
citations that will, and should, offend. To exclude a term
or citation because it is offensive is to deny the fact that
it is used: we are not prescriptivists and this is simply not
our job. At the same time, we try to avoid definitions or
editorial comment that might offend.
We were tempted, but finally chose not to include an
appendix of gestures, although many serve the same
function as slang. Examples include the impudent middle
finger, Ralph Cramden’s Raccoon greeting and handshake,
the elaborate mimes that signal ‘jerk-off’ or ‘dickhead’,
Johnny Carson’s golf swing, Vic Reeves’ lascivious thigh
rubbing and Ars enio Hall’s finger-tip-touch greeting.
Neither did we include an appendix of computer language
such as emoticons or leet speak, although we have
included thr oughout several o f the more prominent
examples of Internet and text messaging shorthand that
have become known outside the small circle of initial
users.
We tried but in the end decided not to include the
word/word phenomenon (‘Is she your friend friend or
friend friend?’) or the word/word/word construction (‘The
most important three things in real estate are location,
location, location’). We co uld not include the obvious
pregnant silence that suggests ‘fuck’ (‘What the **** do
you think you’re doing?’). We shied away from the

lexicalised animal noises that often work their way into
informal conversation, such as a cat noise when someone
is behaving nastily. We similarly did not include musical
phrases that have become part of our spoken vocabulary,
such as the four-note theme of The Twilight Zone which is
used to imply an uncanny weirdness in any coincidence, or
melodramatic hummed violin music that serves as vocal
commentary on any piteous tale.
Using The Concise New Partridge
We hope that our presentation is self-evident and that it
requires little explanation. We use only a few abbreviations
and none of the stylistic conceits near and dear to the
hearts of lexicographers.
Headwords
We use indigenous spelling for headwords. This is
especially relevant in the case of the UK arse and US ass.
For Yiddish wor ds, we use Leo R osten’s spelling, which
favours ‘sh-’ over ‘sch-’. An initialism is shown in upper
case without full stops (for example, BLT), except that
acronyms (pronounce d like individual lexical items) are
lower case (for example, snafu).
Including every variant spelling of a headword
seemed neither pr actical nor helpful to the reader. For the
spelling of headwords, we chose the form found in
standard dictionaries or the most common forms, ignoring
uncommon variants as well as common hyphenation
variants of compounds and words ending in ‘ie’ or ‘y’. For
this reason, citations may show variant spellings not found
in the headword.
Placement of phrases

As a general rule, phrases are placed under their first sig-
nificant word. However, some invariant phrases are listed
as headwords; for example, a stock greeting, stock reply or
catchphrase. Terms that involve a single conc e pt are
grouped together as phrases under the common
headword; for example, burn rubber, lay rubber and peel
rubber are all listed as phrases under the headwor d
rubber.
Definition
In dealing with slang from all seven continents, we
encountered more than a few culture-specific terms. For
such terms, we identify the domain or geographic location
of the term’s usage. We use conventional English in the
definitions, turning to slang only when it is both
substantially more economical than the use of convention-
al English and is readily understood by the average reader.
Gloss
The voice and tone of The New Partridge Dictionary of
Slang and Unconventional English is most obvious in the
gloss: the brief explanations that Partridge used for ‘edi-
torial comment’ or ‘further elucidation’. Partridge warned
against using the gloss to show what clever and learned
fellows we are – a warning that we heed to the very
limited extent it could apply to us. We chose to
discontinue Partridge’s classification by register.
Country of origin
As is the case with dating, further re search will
undoubtedly produce a shift in the country of origin for a
number of entries. We resolutely avoided guesswork and
informed opinion.

Dating
Even Beale, who as editor of the 8th edition was the direct
inheritor of Partridge’s trust, noted that Partridge’s dating
‘must be treated with caution’. We recognise that the
accurate dating of slang is far more difficult than dating
conventional language. Virtually every word in our lexicon
is spoken before it is written, and this is especially true of
unconventional terms. The rec e nt proliferation of elec-
tronic databases and powerful search engines will
undoubtedly permit the antedating of many of the entries.
Individualised dating research, such as Allen Walker’s hunt
for the origin of ‘OK’ or Barry Popik’s exhaustive work on
terms such as ‘hot dog’, produces dr amatic antedatings:
we could not undertake this level of detailed research for
every entry.
Conclusion
In the preface to his 1755 Dictionary of the English
Language, Samuel Johnson noted that ‘A large work is
difficult because it is large,’ and that ‘Every writer of a
long work commits errors’. In addition to improvements in
our dating of terms and identification of the country of
origin, it is inevitable that some of our definitions are
Prefac e x
incorrect or misleading, especially where the sense is
subtle and fleeting, defying paraphrasing, or wher e kindr ed
senses ar e interwoven. It is also inevitable that some
quotations are included in a mistaken sense. For these
errors, we apologise in advance.
We carry the flame for words that are usually judged
only by the ill-regarded company they keep. Just as

Partridge did for the sixteenth century beggars and rakes,
for whores of the eighteenth century, and for the armed
services of the two world wars, we try to do for the slang
users of the last 60 years. We embrace the language of
beats, hipsters, Teddy Boys, mods and rockers, hippies,
pimps, druggies, whores, punks, skinheads, ravers, surfers,
Valley Girls, dudes, pill-popping truck drivers, hackers,
rappers and more. We have tried to do what Partridge saw
as necessary, which was simply to keep up to date.
Tom Dalzell, Berkeley, California
Terry Victor, Caerwent, South Wales
Spring 2005
Re-edited for the Concise edition in the spring of 2007
xi Prefac e

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Our debt to Sophie Oliver defies description. With good
humour and a saintly tolerance for our so-called wit and
attempts to corrupt, she herded this project through from
a glimmer in the eye to print on the page.
We bow to and thank the following who helped along
the way: Mary Ann Kernan, who was charged with putting
this project together in 1999 and 2000; John Williams,
who must be credited for all that is right about our
lexicography and excused for anything that is not; Robert
Hay and Mike Tarry of Alden for their unending work on
the database and cheerful handling of every problem we
could throw at them; Claire L’Enfant; James Folan f o r
rescuing us in the content edit phase; Louise Hake for her
cheerful determination in the editing and production

phases; our fine copy editors Sandra Anderson, Howard
Sargeant and Laura Wedgeworth; and Aine Duffy for her
enthusiastically scurrilous vision of the whole project as it
developed.
Finally, we thank Oxford University Press for
providing us with access to the ‘Oxford English Dictionary
Online’, a brilliant online presentation of the Oxfor d
English Dictionary, one of the leading sources for dating.
Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor
This dictionary would never have seen the light of day
without the time and support given to me by my family –
Cathy most notably, also Jake, Julia, Rosalie and Charlotte.
I thank and owe you big-time, major league and
humongously. Who knew it would take so much? In their
own ways, and from a distance, my parents guided.
Audrey, Emily and Reggae started the project with me but
did not stay for the end.
I also thank: my slang mentors Paul Dickson and
Madeline Kripke (and better mentors you could not hope
for); Archie Green, who saved Peter Tamony’s work for
posterity and encouraged me throughout this project;
Jesse Sheidlower, Jonathon Green and Susan For d, slang
lexicographers, friends and comrades in words; Dr Lisa
Winer for her voluminous and fine work on the slang of
Trinidad and Tobago; Jan Tent for his exc ellent collection
of Fijian slang; Dr Jerry Zientara, the learned and helpful
librarian at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human
Sexuality in San Francisco, which kindly opened its
incomparable library to me; Tom Miller, Bill Stolz, John
Konzal and Patricia Walker, archivists at the Western

Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri at
Columbia, for their help and insights during my work with
the Peter Tamony archives; the Hon. Sir Colville Young for
leading me to Richard Allsopp; Jim Holliday for his help on
the slang of pornography; Jennifer Goldstein for her help
on the slang of se x dancers; Richard Perlman for his
patient and Zen-like technological help; Angela Jacobson,
Elizabeth McInnis and Caitlan Perlman, who helped as
readers; Mr Baldwin, Mr Muir, Mr Lee, Dr Robert Regan
and Dr Gordon Kelly for the English and popular culture
they taught me.
I thank my fellow language writers and
lexicographers who were generous in their encour agement,
advice and assistance: Reinhold Aman, a brave and
brilliant pioneer, the late Robert Chapman, Gerald Cohen,
Trevor Cralle, Jim Crotty, Connie Eble, Jonathan Lighter,
Edward MacNeal, Geoffrey Nunberg, Judi Sanders, Leslie
Savan and Oliver Trager.
Our Australian contributor, James Lambert, was given
rec o urse to the various databases of the Macquarie Library
Pty Ltd, who publish synchronic dictionaries for the
Australian and Asian markets, and for these vast resources
we are grateful.
Lastly, I acknowledge Terry Victor. The demands of
this project have only strengthened our friendship.
Tom Dalzell
My wife, Liz, deserves a dictionary entry of her own as a
definition of tolerance, patience and encouragement way
beyond conventional expectations. In the wider world, my
sister and family added to both my library and vocabulary;

and my other family, now in Spain, even went so far as to
put a christening on hold until a deadline had been met,
as well as allowing me access to the playground language
of our time. I must also thank Gerri Smith for her tolerant
understanding that I could not be in two places at once.
Serendipity brought me to Tom Dalzell and through
him I have had the advantage and benefit of all of the
influences and providers of expertise that he names
above, especially Jonathon Green. In addition to those
named I am grateful for the knowledgeable
encouragement of Michael Quinion and David Crystal;
and, in matters polari, Paul Baker.
For particular contributions I would like to thank:
Flight Lieutenant Andrew Resoli; Lisa and Tim Hale; David
Morrison; some of the inmates at HMP High Down in the
summer of 2002; Antonio Lillo for his work on rhyming
slang; various magazine editors and journalists who
addressed so many of my queries of modern usage; and,
for a splendid collection of cocaine-related slang, a certain
group of musicians (whose management would pr efer
that they remain anonymous). I also enjoyed the advan-
tage of the correspondence that the Partridge and Beale
8th edition still attracts: I am grateful to all who wrote
in, and I look f orward to seeing more contributions at
www.partridge-slang.com.
Above all, I must make mention of two people: Eric
Partridge, who is my hero, and Tom Dalzell, who is my
friend.
Terry Victor