The Stories of Slang

'If you're up for an adventure through the back alleys of English, The Stories of Slang will not disappoint.' Kory Stamper, Times Literary Supplement

'Few lexicographers are lucky enough to have both endlessly pleasurable work and the talent to write amusingly about [slang]. Jonathon Green is one . . . Lovers of language should be grateful to those who create slang, and to those few like Mr Green who make it their work to open this window into the psyche for the benefit of all.' - The Economist

'By turns bawdy, sweary and irreverent, this book . . . is a fascinating look at how centuries of slang came to inform all aspects of social life, how it was used, and how much of it still lingers.' History Revealed

Like the flesh-and-blood humans whose uncensored emotions it represents, slang's obsessions are sex, the body and its functions, and intoxication: drink and drugs. Slang does not do kind. It's about hatreds - both intimate and and national - about the insults that follow on, the sneers and the put-downs. Caring, sharing and compassion? Not at this address. There are over 10,000 terms focusing on sex, but love? Not one.

Jonathon Green, aka 'Mr Slang', has drawn on the 600,000-plus citations that make up his magisterial Green's Dictionary of Slang (published 2010, now online at to tell some of slang's most entertaining stories. Categories range from The Body to Pulp Diction, via multi-cultural London English and pun-tastic gems.

Mostly gazing up from the gutter, slang, perhaps surprisingly, also embraces the stars. These stories may look at drunken sailors, dubious doctors, and a shelf of dangerously potent cocktails, but slang does class acts as well. None more so than Shakespeare. Devotee of the double entendre, master of the pun, first to put nearly 300 slang terms in print.

'Shakespeare, uses, at my count, just over five hundred "slang" terms, of which 277 are currently the first recorded use of a given term. Among these are the beast with two backs, every mother's son, fat-headed, heifer (for woman), pickers and stealers (hands), small beer (insignificant matters), what the dickens, and many more.'

“Few lexicographers are lucky enough to have both endlessly pleasurable work and the talent to write amusingly about [slang]. Jonathon Green is one . . . Glorious . . . Lovers of language should be grateful to those who create slang, and to those few like Mr Green who make it their work to open this window into the psyche for the benefit of all.”

By turns bawdy, sweary and irreverent, this book . . . is a fascinating look at how centuries of slang came to inform all aspects of social life, how it was used, and how much of it still lingers. History Revealed
The Economist
A smorgasbord of some of slang's choicer, tangier delights, given in such abundance that it overspills the table . . . if you're up for an adventure through the back alleys of English, The Stories of Slang will not disappoint -- Kory Stamper Times Literary Supplement

JONATHON GREEN, known as 'Mr Slang', is the world's leading lexicographer of dictionaries of anglophone slang. His first dictionary appeared in 1984 and since then he has written and broadcast widely on the subject. The Cassell Dictionary of Slang appeared in 1998, the Chambers Dictionary of Slang in 2008 and the three-volume Green's Dictionary of Slang in 2010. The material, which deals with the slang of every English-speaking country, dates from approximately 1400 and continues as far as possible to the present day. As of 2016, this has been available online and is expanded and revised in quarterly updates. At present it offers approximately 140,000 slang words and phrases, underpinned by around 635,000 citations or illustrative examples.

Green has also written a history of lexicography (Chasing the Sun: Dictionary-Makers and the Dictionary They Made, 1996), a history of slang (Language! 500 Years of the Vulgar Tongue, 2014) and a 'lexico-biography' (Odd Job Man, 2014). Other slang-related titles include The Slang Thesaurus (1988), Slang Down the Ages (1993), Getting Off at Gateshead (2008), Crooked Talk (2016) and The Stories of Slang (2016). His ongoing collection of The Timelines of Slang (the chronological ordering of the slang vocabularies of the counter-language's favourite topics) is available online.

Online links:

Green's Dictionary of Slang:

The Timelines of Slang: the timelines of slang.tumblr.com

Website: jonathongreen.co.uk

Twitter: @misterslang

'If you're up for an adventure through the back alleys of English, The Stories of Slang will not disappoint.' Kory Stamper, Times Literary Supplement 'Few lexicographers are lucky enough to have both endlessly pleasurable work and the talent to write amusingly about [slang]. Jonathon Green is one . . . Lovers of language should be grateful to those who create slang, and to those few like Mr Green who make it their work to open this window into the psyche for the benefit of all.' - The Economist 'By turns bawdy, sweary and irreverent, this book . . . is a fascinating look at how centuries of slang came to inform all aspects of social life, how it was used, and how much of it still lingers.' History Revealed Like the flesh-and-blood humans whose uncensored emotions it represents, slang's obsessions are sex, the body and its functions, and intoxication: drink and drugs. Slang does not do kind. It's about hatreds - both intimate and and national - about the insults that follow on, the sneers and the put-downs. Caring, sharing and compassion? Not at this address. There are over 10,000 terms focusing on sex, but love? Not one.Jonathon Green, aka 'Mr Slang', has drawn on the 600,000-plus citations that make up his magisterial Green's Dictionary of Slang (published 2010, now online at to tell some of slang's most entertaining stories. Categories range from The Body to Pulp Diction, via multi-cultural London English and pun-tastic gems.Mostly gazing up from the gutter, slang, perhaps surprisingly, also embraces the stars. These stories may look at drunken sailors, dubious doctors, and a shelf of dangerously potent cocktails, but slang does class acts as well. None more so than Shakespeare. Devotee of the double entendre, master of the pun, first to put nearly 300 slang terms in print. 'Shakespeare, uses, at my count, just over five hundred "slang" terms, of which 277 are currently the first recorded use of a given term. Among these are the beast with two backs , every mother's son , fat-headed , heifer (for woman), pickers and stealers (hands), small beer (insignificant matters), what the dickens , and many more.'

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