The Penguin Dictionary Of Historical Slang

by Eric Partridge

An alternate cover edition of this ISBN can be found here.

Nearly 50,000 entries recall the living speech of a world now largely lost. Often wry and flippant, occasionally "blue", and sometimes uproariously comical, they recapture the rich idiom of English life through the ages, bringing back to mind the vigour of Elizabethan phrase, the ribald language of dockside and pub, the richer coinages of messdeck and barrack, the euphemisms and witticisms of the Victorian drawing-room, and the irrepressible wit of errand boys and costermongers. The dictionary of slang and unconventional English was first published in 1937. Revised and enlarged editions appeared in 1938, 1949, 1951 and 1961. From the last of these, published in two volumes, this book has been compiled.

Genres: Reference, Language, Nonfiction, Film, Dictionaries, History, Linguistics

1065 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Eric Honeywood Partridge

Reviews

[Mesembryanthemum]

My paperback copy is marked "Reprinted in 1977" on the copyright page. It has ISBN 014051046X on the back cover.

From page iii:
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
This book is an abridgement of the 1961 edition of Eric Partridge's A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, containing only those words and expressions which were already in use before the First World War, and which may therefore be considered as historical, rather than modern, slang. The process of abridgement has also entailed omitting solecisms, malapropisms and grammatical points recorded in the 1961 edition.

[Pedro Xaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only concerns Chapter 4 "The Urban Archipelago: Taiwan's New Wave and the East Asian Economic Boom" and Chapter 5 "Morning in the Megacity: Taiwan and the Globalization of the City Film".

Impressive by any means. Deep knowledge in both cinema and film theory nourished with a profound understanding of globalization, philosophy and economy. Seamlessly pivoting from one to the other with clarity and coherence that makes French authors blush.

[Noel Wellington · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is invaluable for me as for a writer.

[Bethany Griffin]

Partridge, Eric, Tom Dalzell, and Terry Victor. The concise new Partridge dictionary of slang and unconventional English. London: Routledge, 2008.

reference Type- Dictionary

Content/Scope- 2536 pages and over 60,000 entries. Includes slang from US as well as other countries.

Accuracy/Authority/Bias- author, Tom Dalzell has published multiple volumes about slang. This is the latest of multiple editions recognized for excellence.

Arrangement/Presentation- Large easy to read print (which is a good thing with 6k entries). Organized alphabetically followed by numeric slang.


Accessibility/Diversity- Easy to read, high interest for high school students. Includes slang from other cultures, show's language evolution.

Relation to other works- while the library owns many dictionaries, it does not own a slang dictionary.

Timeliness and Permanence- Booklist Top Reference Source in 2006 (this is the updated version for 2012). Hardcover. Will be useful for years to come because of historical analysis-first time each word was used in print.

Cost- $320 for 2 volumes, hardcover.

http://www.booksinprint.com.libsrv.wk...

[Leonard Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite -- or maybe because of -- its heavy reliance on British slang, I like this one a lot more than Chapman's American slang book. Very detailed and well laid out.

[Leonard Pierce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Partridge's is the go-to book for slang reference, and the fact that it now focuses on a lot of dated or vanished subcultures makes it all the more fascinating.

[Andrew Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll pretty much read anything and I now know where a myriad of slang terms and expressions come from thanks to this book which I think I nicked from my headmaster grandad

[Meter]

Notably much of the slang covered here had roots in the military. Also, given its date of publication nothing of the inernet is here.