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Product Description
"Spectacular vernacular—delivered with fresh flavor."—Playboy
"Hang with this slang and reep these righteous words!" This entertaining, highly readable book pulses with the vernacular of young Americans, tracing slang terms and expressions from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. In addition to alphabetical listings for each decade, it features fascinating word histories and sidebars about language and culture—jazz cat jive, the argot of Beat poets, gritty inner-city street talk, and other captivating colloquialisms.
A master storyteller and wordsmith, Tom Dalzell is the author of The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English and The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang and Unconventional English. In Flappers 2 Rappers, he presents more than just lists of words. His introductions to each chronological chapter offer fascinating insights into the ways in which slang reflects the era's historical mood and significance. Great for browsing, this unique reference will delight students of history as well as word and language enthusiasts.
Amazon.com Review
Few things remain constant from generation to generation, but one propensity that's always in vogue is the youthful joy of inventing slang (or as Gustavo Arriolo's spider said to the dog in "Gordo," "Cool expressions change with each generation, dog, dig?"). It's always entertaining to read up on slang, but Tom Dalzell heightens the interest by organizing the youth talk chronologically. Starting with college slang in the 1850s, where "to gorm" was to eat voraciously, Dalzell proceeds to the slang of the 1920s flappers, then devotes a chapter to each succeeding decade, right up to the "circle of death" (bad pizza) of the 1990s. With scholarly derivations and social history, Dalzell has put together a totally cuspy lexicon that's slammin' cool beans.
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