Glossaries of School and College Slang. Dictionaries of Race and Music. Oxford Scholarship Online

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1 Oxford Scholarship Online You are looking at of 213 items for: keywords : performism linlex Glossaries of School and College Slang acprof:oso/ British school glossaries of this period largely look back to the heyday of the public school. It is a largely moribund tradition. American college slang lexicography, however, becomes a productive area for research, exploring new methodologies and new theoretical approaches. These glossaries document changes in society taking place throughout the period. Dictionaries of Race and Music acprof:oso/ Glossaries of African-American English began to appear between the wars. This period saw them take on a political function in the fight for civil rights and a practical role in attempts to improve educational levels in inner-city schools. Musicians' slang was heavily influenced by African- American slang, and musicians carried this slang into more general usage. Page 1 of 5

2 Dictionaries of Youth acprof:oso/ Slang only becomes associated with young people in general during the period covered by this volume. The production of dictionaries of youth slang was fuelled by fears of juvenile delinquency and by the influence of black music on white teenagers. However, many glossaries of youth slang from this period were produced as tools in marketing and advertising campaigns. The Life of Bampfylde-Moore Carew acprof:oso/ This chapter discusses the word-lists of Bampfylde Moore Carew. The Carew word-lists are a mixture of plagiarism from various sources, compounded by careless copying, and original observation of changes in English slang. What they are not, however, is what they claim to be: glossaries of the language of English Gypsies. It was not until more than 120 years after their first appearance that any genuine Romany words were found in the Carew lists, ironically enough, in a list of the words used by Scottish Gypsies. Other Cant and Slang Lists acprof:oso/ This chapter discusses those cant and slang lists that are not wholly derived from the four main strands of the tradition: Harman, Head, B. E., and the Carew-lists. They are a varied selection, attached to works as Page 2 of 5

3 disparate as exposés of the vices of the capital, memoirs and confessions of real-life and fictional villains, miscellaneous anthologies, and plays. Although they all implicitly serve a practical purpose, their main result and main appeal, was probably always entertainment. Cant in Other Dictionaries acprof:oso/ This chapter discusses monolingual English dictionaries published in the 17th and 18th centuries. These include Elisha Coles's English Dictionary (1676), N. H.'s Ladies' Dictionary (1694), and Nathan Bailey's The Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1737). Coles's dictionary not only included some cant in his dictionary, and gave it prominence, but also influenced B. E.'s dictionary. Bailey not only provided a separate list of canting terms, but was also to be used by Grose in the compilation of his dictionary. Francis Grose s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue JULIE COLEMAN in A History of Cant and Slang Dictionaries: Volume II: acprof:oso/ This chapter looks at Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), a shrewd appeal to the concerns of its time. Grose appears to have compiled and edited his dictionary alphabetically, suggesting that he made notes from his sources and later arranged them in the order they were to appear in his word-list. His etymologies display little knowledge of languages other than English. This goodhumoured antiquary and philologist (as he was described in Gentleman's Magazine) was certainly the most sensitive and perceptive recorder of contemporary slang and colloquial language of his age. He dominated the whole character and trend of slang during the last three decades of the 18th century as well as the first two decades of the 19th century. Page 3 of 5

4 Dictionaries Based on Grose s JULIE COLEMAN in A History of Cant and Slang Dictionaries: Volume II: acprof:oso/ Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) established his reputation as the foremost authority on cant and slang, both antiquarian and contemporary. It should come as no surprise, then, that later lexicographers built upon his reputation: some by using his name, and others his work. Among the most notable dictionaries inspired by Grose's work were James Caulfield's Blackguardiana (1795), Lexicon Balatronicum (1811), The Bang-up Dictionary (1812), George Matsell's Vocabulum (1859), and Herbert Asbury's Gangs of New York (1927). These dictionaries range from the entirely pirated to the partially original. While the Lexicon Balatronicum is by far the most interesting, the others demonstrate the imaginative flexibility with which the same list could be remarketed in line with current fads. A History of Cant and Slang Dictionaries: Volume II: Item type: book acprof:oso/ This book is the second volume of the history of the recording and uses of slang and criminal cant and takes the story from 1785 to 1858, and explores their manifestations in the United States and Australia. During this period, glossaries of cant were thrown into the shade by dictionaries of slang, which now covered a broad spectrum of non-standard English, including the language of thieves. This book shows how Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue revolutionized the lexicography of the underworld. It explores the compilation and content of the earliest Australian and American slang glossaries, whose authors included the thrice-transported James Hardy Vaux and the legendary George Matsell, New York City's first chief of police, whose The Secret Language of Crime: The Rogue's Lexicon informed the script of Martin Scorcese's film Gangs of New York. Cant represented a tangible danger to life and property, but slang threatened to undermine good behaviour and social morality. This book shows how and why they were at once repellent and seductive. The Page 4 of 5

5 book's account casts new light on language and life in some of the darker regions of Great Britain and the English-speaking world. A History of Cant and Slang Dictionaries: Volume I: Item type: book acprof:oso/ This is the first volume in a complete history of the documentation of English cant and slang from 1567 to the present. It gives insights into the early history of slang, the people who used it, and how and why it was recorded. Well over a hundred glossaries of cant and slang were published between 1567 and The cant lists reveal the secret language allegedly used by thieves and beggars to conceal their illicit conspiracies: this book investigates where and how they were produced and the relationship between such lists and canting literature. The book considers why this period was so fascinated by crime and by criminals, and apparently so obsessed with the need to record their language. How far, it asks, are the lists genuine records of contemporary cant, and how far the products of literary invention? Who produced them, and how were they researched? Who bought them, and what did they hope to gain from them? It also provides unusual and unexpected insights into the underworlds of early modern England. Page 5 of 5