"America’s greater tolerance for the genius inherent in
grassroots language may well explain why its literature, from Mark Twain
to Philip Roth, is better connected to the “workingman” as a speaking
subject rather than as an object of anxiety. In the 21st-century world,
where informal oral media (TV, film, YouTube) shape global discourse, it
is American slang that has “gone the distance.”
Green offers us 18 broadly chronological chapters on the
history of slang. Some of these chapters focus on particular forms where
slang is to be found (e.g., “The Stage and the Song”), others on
particular speech communities (Australia, America, African Americans),
others on recurrent themes (sex, sports, war). There is much here of
interest, yet it must be confessed that the material is sometimes drier
than such a lubricious subject would lead one to anticipate. Green has
elsewhere written explicitly for the popular market: He is responsible
for such tomes as The Big Book of Filth (1999), The Big Book of Bodily Functions (2001), and the Dictionary of Insulting Quotations (1997).
Here, however, he is writing as a lexicographer for an academic press,
and some of these chapters make dense reading for anyone who does not
have a scholarly interest in the development of vernacular language.
Green’s method is to cite sources (authors, books) rich in recorded
slang and to discuss their place in the development of the glossary of
what we know (or assume) to have been slang patter across the years.
These sources can involve fascinating micro-narratives, as when we are
introduced to characters such as John Taylor (1578-1653), the
“Water-Poet,” a writer who had made his living as a boatman and traded
on this to make a literary splash. Long before the days of Amazon, he
became a successful pioneer of self-publishing, largely through
publicity stunts designed to attract readers’ interest. He would plan a
journey—to Prague, or on foot from London to Edinburgh with no money—and
then seek sponsorship to undertake the trip and write about it. He
produced at least 150 works, liberally larded with loose language."
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