The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang
and Unc onventional English
The Concise New Partridge presents, for the first time, all the slang terms from the New Partridge
Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English in a single volume.
With over 60,000 entries from around the English-speaking world, the Concise gives you the
language of beats, hipsters, Teddy Boys, m ods and rockers, hippies, pimps, druggies, whores,
punks, skinheads, ravers, surfers, Valley girls, dudes, pill-popping truck drivers, hackers, rappers
and more.
The Concise New Partridge is a spectacular resource infused with humour and learning – it’s
rude, it’s delightful, and it’s a prize for anyone with a love of language.

The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang
and Unc onventional English
Tom Dalzell (Senior Editor)
and
Terry Victor (Editor)
CONTENTS
List of contributors vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Observations on slang and unconventional English xv
Entries A to Z 1
Numeric slang 721

CONTRIBUTORS
Dr Richard Allsopp, a native of Guyana, is Director of the
Caribbean Lexicography Project and former Reader in
English Language and Linguistics, University of the West
Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. He edited the Dictionary of

Caribbean English Usage.
Dr Dianne Bardsley is Manager of the New Zealand
Dictionary Centre at Victoria University of Wellington. Her
PhD involved the compilation and analysis of a rural New
Zealand English lexicon from the years 1842–2002. She
was contributing editor for the New Zealand Oxford
Dictionary and is currently leading sever al New Zealand
lexicography research projects.
James Lambert has worked primarily in Australian English,
specialising in slang in general and Australian slang in par-
ticular. He was assistant editor of The Macquarie Dictionary
of New Words and general editor of The Macquarie Book of
Slang and The Macquarie Slang Dictionary.
John Loftus manages the online archive at www.hiberno
english.com. H e was a senior research assistant on A
Dictionary of Hiberno -English.
Lewis Poteet is a leading Canadian authority on slang and
dialect. He has written extensively about language in
Canada’s maritime provinces and edited Car & Motorcycle
Slang, Hockey Talk, Plane Talk, Car Talk and Cop T alk.
John Williams served as a consulting lexicographer on this
project. He has been contributing to general language
dictionaries, both monolingual and bilingual, for more than
20 years. He is the author of three children’s dictionaries, as
well as several articles on the practice of lexicography.

PREFACE
Eric Partridge made a deep and enduring contribution to
the study and understanding of s lang. In the eight editions
of The Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

published between 1937 and 1984, Partridge recorded and
defined the slang and unconventional English of Great
Britain, and to a lesser extent her dominions, from the
1600s to the 1970s. For the years up to 1890, Partridge
was by his own admission quite reliant on Farmer and
Henley’s Slang and its Analogues, which he used as an
‘expansible framework’. When it came to the slang for the
years 1890 to 1945, Partridge was original and brilliant,
especially in his treatment of underworld and military
slang. His attitude towar ds language was scholarly and
fun-loving, scientific and idiosyncratic. His body of work,
scholarship and dignity of approach led the way and set
the standard for every other English-language slang
lexicographer of the twentieth century.
Our respect for Partridge has not blinded us to the
features of his work that have drawn criticism over the
years. His protocol for alphabetising was quirky. His dating
was often problematic. His etymologies at times strayed
from the plausible to the fanciful. His classification by
register (slang, cant, jocular, vulgar, coarse, high, low, etc.)
was intensely subjective and not particularly useful.
Furthermore, his early decision to exclude American slang
created increasingly difficult problems f o r him as the years
passed and the influence of American slang grew. L astly,
Partridge grew to lose the ability to relate to the
vocabulary he was recording. In 1937, Partridge was a man
of his time, but the same could no longer be said in 1960.
There is a pr ofound relationship between language and
culture, and neither Partridge nor Paul Beale, editor of the
8th edition, seem to have assimilated the cultural changes

that began at the end of World War 2. This left them
without the cultural knowledge needed to understand the
language that they were recording. Their lack of cultural
understanding accelerated with time, and this is sadly
reflected in the later entries. Beatniks and drug addicts,
and their slang, baffled Partridge and Beale, who lacked
either the personal experience or historical perspective
needed to understand underlying countercultur es.
Partridge himself observed, ‘More than almost any
other kind of book, a dictionary constantly needs to be
revised; especially, of course, if it deals with the current
form of a language and therefore has to be kept up to
date’. With The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and
Unconventional English we tried to do just that. We pick e d
up where Partridge left off, recording the slang and
unconventional English of the Englis h-speaking world since
World War 2 with the same scholarship and joy in
language that characterised Partridge’s work. We are not,
and cannot be, Partridge: but we can strive to be pr oud
heirs of Partridge and to speak with a voic e that Partridge
would recognise as an echo o f his own. We have worked
hard to continue the Partridge tradition, observing high
standards of lexicography while producing an accessible
work informed by, and infused with, the humour, mischief
and energy that are endemic to slang. This Concise
version of the New Partridge contains every entry in New
Partridge as well as several hundred new words that have
come into the slang lexicon since 2005. The Concise is
presented without the hundreds of thousands of citations
in the New Partridge, creating an affordable alternative to

our update of Partridge. Lastly, we improved dating infor-
mation given on hundreds of headwords.
Criteria for inclusion
We use three criteria for including a term or phr ase in this
dictionary. We include (1) slang and unconventional
English, (2) used anywhere in the English-speaking world
and (3) after 1945.
Rather than focus too intently on a precise definition
of slang or on whether a given entry is slang, jargon or
colloquial English, we take full advantage of the wide net
cast by Partridge when he chose to recor d ‘slang and
unconventional English’ instead of just slang, which is,
after all, without any settled test of purity. We have con-
sidered for inclusion all unconventional English that has
been used with the purpose or effect of either lowering
the formality of communication and reducing solemnity
and/or identifying status or group and putting oneself in
tune with one’s company. A term recorded her e might be
slang, slangy jargon, a colloquialism, an acronym, an
initialism, a vulgarism or a catchphrase. In all instances,
an entry imparts a message beyond the text and literal
meaning. This approach is especially useful when dealing
with world slang and unconventional English. A broader
range has permitted inclusion of many Caribbean entries,
for instance, which merit inclusion but might not meet a
stringent pure-slang-only test. Our only real deviation from
Partridge’s inclusion criteria is a much diminished body of
nicknames. The regiment nicknames that populate
Partridge’s work no longer fulfil the language function that
they did in the United Kingdom of Partridge’s day.

If there was a question as to whether a potential
entry fell within the target register, we erred on the side of
inclusion. We generally chose to include poorly attested
words, presenting the entry and our evidence of usage to
the reader who is free to determine if a candidate passes
probation.
Partridge limited his dictionary to Great Britain and
her dominions. We elected the broader universe of the
English-speaking world. Globalisation has affected many
face ts of lif e , not the least of which is our language. Ther e
are words that are uniquely Australian, American or
British, but it is impossible to ignore or deny the extent of
cross-pollination that exists between cultures as re gards
slang. We were aided in our global gathering by
indigenous contributors from Australia, Canada, the
Caribbean, Ireland and New Zealand. We also include
pidgin, Creolised English and borrowed foreign terms used
by English-speakers in primarily English-language
conversation. We inc lude slang and unconventional English
heard and used at any time after 1945. We chose the end
of the war in 1945 as our starting point primarily because
it marked the beginning of a series of profound cultural
changes that produced the lexic on of modern and
contemporary slang. The cultural transformations since
1945 are mind-boggling. Television, computers, drugs,
music, unpopular wars, youth movements, changing racial
sensitivities and attitudes towards sex and sexuality are all
substantial factors that have shaped culture and language.
No term is excluded on the grounds that it might be
considered offensive as a racial, ethnic, religious, sexual or

any kind of slur. This dictionary contains many entries and
citations that will, and should, offend. To exclude a term
or citation because it is offensive is to deny the fact that
it is used: we are not prescriptivists and this is simply not
our job. At the same time, we try to avoid definitions or
editorial comment that might offend.
We were tempted, but finally chose not to include an
appendix of gestures, although many serve the same
function as slang. Examples include the impudent middle
finger, Ralph Cramden’s Raccoon greeting and handshake,
the elaborate mimes that signal ‘jerk-off’ or ‘dickhead’,
Johnny Carson’s golf swing, Vic Reeves’ lascivious thigh
rubbing and Ars enio Hall’s finger-tip-touch greeting.
Neither did we include an appendix of computer language
such as emoticons or leet speak, although we have
included thr oughout several of the more prominent
examples of Internet and text messaging shorthand that
have become known outside the small circle of initial
users.
We tried but in the end decided not to include the
word/word phenomenon (‘Is she your friend friend or
friend friend?’) or the word/word/word construction (‘The
most important three things in real estate are location,
location, location’). We co uld not include the obvious
pregnant silence that suggests ‘fuck’ (‘What the **** do
you think you’re doing?’). We shied away from the
lexicalised animal noises that often work their way into
informal conversation, such as a cat noise when someone
is behaving nastily. We similarly did not include musical
phrases that have become part of our spoken vocabulary,

such as the four-note theme of The Twilight Zone which is
used to imply an uncanny weirdness in any coincidence, or
melodramatic hummed violin music that serves as vocal
commentary on any piteous tale.
Using The Concise New Partridge
We hope that our presentation is self -evident and that it
requires little explanation. We use only a few abbreviations
and none of the stylistic conceits near and dear to the
hearts of lexicographers.
Headwords
We use indigenous spelling for headwords. This is
especially relevant in the case of the UK arse and US ass.
For Yiddish words, we use Leo Rosten’s spelling, which
favours ‘sh-’ over ‘sch-’. An initialism is shown in upper
case without full stops (for example, BLT), except that
acronyms (pronounce d like individual lexical items) are
lower case (for example, snafu).
Including every variant spelling of a headword
seemed neither practical nor helpful to the r eader. For the
spelling of headwords, we chose the f orm found in
standard dictionaries or the most common f o rms, ignoring
uncommon variants as well as common hyphenation
variants of compounds and words ending in ‘ie’ or ‘y’. For
this reason, citations may show variant spellings not found
in the headword.
Placement of phrases
As a general rule, phrases are placed under their first sig-
nificant word. However, some invariant phrases are listed
as headwords; for example, a stock greeting, stock reply or
catchphrase. Terms that involve a single concept are

grouped together as phrases under the common
headword; for example, burn rubber, lay rubber and peel
rubber are all listed as phrases under the headwor d
rubber.
Definition
In dealing with slang from all seven continents, we
encountered more than a few culture-specific terms. For
such terms, we identify the domain or geographic location
of the term’s usage. We use conventional English in the
definitions, turning to slang only when it is both
substantially more economical than the use of convention-
al English and is readily understood by the average reader.
Gloss
The voice and tone of The New Partridge Dictionary of
Slang and Unconventional English is most obvious in the
gloss: the brief explanations that Partridge used for ‘edi-
torial comment’ or ‘further elucidation’. Partridge warned
against using the gloss to show what clever and learned
fellows we are – a warning that we heed to the very
limited extent it could apply to us. We chose to
discontinue Partridge’s classification by register.
Country of origin
As is the case with dating, further research will
undoubtedly produce a shift in the country of origin for a
number of entries. We resolutely avoided guesswork and
informed opinion.
Dating
Even Beale, who as editor of the 8th edition was the dir ect
inheritor of Partridge’s trust, noted that Partridge’s dating
‘must be treated with caution’. We recognise that the

accurate dating of slang is far more difficult than dating
conventional language. Virtually every word in our lexicon
is spoken before it is written, and this is especially true of
unconventional terms. The recent proliferation of elec-
tronic databases and powerful search engines will
undoubtedly permit the antedating of many of the entries.
Individualised dating research, such as Allen Walker’s hunt
for the origin of ‘OK’ or Barry Popik’s exhaustive work on
terms such as ‘hot dog’, produces dramatic antedatings:
we could not undertake this level of detailed research f o r
every entry.
Conclusion
In the preface to his 1755 Dictionary of the English
Language, Samuel Johnson noted that ‘A large work is
difficult because it is large,’ and that ‘Every writer of a
long work commits errors’. In addition to improvements in
our dating of terms and identification of the country of
origin, it is inevitable that some of our definitions ar e
Prefac e x
incorrect or misleading, especially where the sense is
subtle and fleeting, defying paraphrasing, or where kindred
senses ar e interwoven. It is also inevitable that some
quotations are included in a mistaken sense. For these
errors, we apologise in advance.
We carry the flame for words that are usually judged
only by the ill-regarded company they keep. Just as
Partridge did for the sixteenth century beggars and rakes,
for whores of the eighteenth century, and for the armed
services of the two world wars, we try to do for the slang
users of the last 60 years. We embrace the language of

beats, hipsters, Teddy Boys, mods and rockers, hippies,
pimps, druggies, whores, punks, skinheads, ravers, surfers,
Valley Girls, dudes, pill-popping truck drivers, hackers,
rappers and more. We have tried to do what Partridge saw
as necessary, which was simply to keep up to date.
Tom Dalzell, Berkeley, California
Terry Victor, Caerwent, South Wales
Spring 2005
Re-edited for the Concise edition in the spring of 2007
xi Prefac e

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Our debt to Sophie Oliver defies description. With good
humour and a saintly tolerance for our so-called wit and
attempts to corrupt, she herded this project through from
a glimmer in the eye to print on the page.
We bow to and thank the following who helped along
the way: Mary Ann Kernan, who was charged with putting
this project together in 1999 and 2000; John Williams,
who must be credited f o r all that is right about our
lexicography and excused for anything that is not; Robert
Hay and Mike Tarry of Alden for their unending work on
the database and cheerful handling of every problem we
could throw at them; Claire L’Enfant; James Folan for
rescuing us in the content edit phase; Louise Hake for her
cheerful determination in the editing and production
phases; our fine copy editors Sandra Anderson, Howard
Sargeant and Laura Wedgeworth; and Aine Duffy for her
enthusiastically scurrilous vision of the whole project as it
developed.

Finally, we thank Oxford University Press for
providing us with access to the ‘Oxford English Dictionary
Online’, a brilliant online presentation of the Oxfor d
English Dictionary, one of the leading sources for dating.
Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor
This dictionary would never have seen the light of day
without the time and support given to me by my family –
Cathy most notably, also Jake, Julia, Rosalie and Charlotte.
I thank and owe you big-time, major league and
humongously. Who knew it would take so much? In their
own ways, and from a distance, my parents guided.
Audrey, Emily and Reggae started the project with me but
did not stay for the end.
I also thank: my slang mentors Paul Dickson and
Madeline Kripke (and better mentors you could not hope
for); Archie Green, who saved Peter Tamony’s work for
posterity and encouraged me throughout this project;
Jesse Sheidlower, Jonathon Green and Susan Ford, slang
lexicographers, friends and comrades in words; Dr Lisa
Winer for her voluminous and fine work on the slang of
Trinidad and To bago; Jan Tent for his excellent collection
of Fijian slang; Dr Jerry Zientara, the learned and helpful
librarian at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human
Sexuality in San Francisco, which kindly opened its
incomparable library to me; Tom Miller, Bill Stolz, John
Konzal and Patricia Walker, archivists at the Western
Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri at
Columbia, for their help and insights during my work with
the Peter Tamony ar chives; the Hon. Sir Colville Yo ung for
leading me to Richard Allsopp; Jim Holliday for his help on

the slang of pornography; Jennifer Goldstein for her help
on the slang of se x dancers; Richard Perlman for his
patient and Zen-like technological help; Angela Jacobson,
Elizabeth McInnis and Caitlan Perlman, who helped as
readers; Mr Baldwin, Mr Muir, Mr Lee, Dr Robert Regan
and Dr Gordon Kelly for the English and popular culture
they taught me.
I thank my fellow language writers and
lexicographers who were generous in their encouragement,
advice and assistance: Reinhold Aman, a brave and
brilliant pioneer, the late Robert Chapman, Gerald Cohen,
Trevor Cralle, Jim Crotty, Connie Eble, Jonathan Lighter,
Edward MacNeal, Geoffrey Nunberg, Judi Sanders, Leslie
Savan and Oliver Trager.
Our Australian contributor, James Lambert, was given
rec o urse to the various databases of the Macquarie Library
Pty Ltd, who publish synchronic dictionaries f or the
Australian and Asian markets, and for these vast resour ces
we are grateful.
Lastly, I acknowledge Terry Victor. The demands of
this project have only strengthened our friendship.
Tom Dalzell
My wife, Liz, deserves a dictionary entry of her own as a
definition of tolerance, patience and encouragement way
beyond conventional expectations. In the wider world, my
sister and family added to both my library and vocabulary;
and my other family, now in Spain, even went so far as to
put a christening on hold until a deadline had been met,
as well as allowing me access to the playground language
of our time. I must also thank Gerri Smith f o r her tolerant

understanding that I could not be in two places at once.
Serendipity brought me to Tom Dalzell and through
him I have had the advantage and benefit of all of the
influences and providers of expertise that he names
above, especially Jonathon Green. In addition to those
named I am grateful for the knowledgeable
encouragement of Michael Quinion and Dav id Crystal;
and, in matters polari, Paul Baker.
For particular contributions I would like to thank:
Flight Lieutenant Andrew Resoli; Lisa and Tim Hale; David
Morrison; some of the inmates at HMP High Down in the
summer of 2002; Antonio Lillo for his work on rhyming
slang; various magazine editors and journalists who
addressed so many of my queries of modern usage; and,
for a splendid collection of cocaine-related slang, a certain
group of musicians (whose management would pr efer
that they remain anonymous). I also enjoyed the advan-
tage of the correspondence that the Partridge and Beale
8th edition still attracts: I am grateful to all who wrote
in, and I look f orward to seeing more contributions at
www.partridge-slang.com.
Above all, I must make mention of two people: Eric
Partridge, who is my hero, and Tom Dalzell, who is my
friend.
Terry Victor

OBSERVATIONS ON SLANG AND
UNCONVENTIONAL ENGLISH
Some notes on the challenges of lexicography, drawn entirely from the writings
of Eric Partridge (1894–1979)

Partridge wrote widely on matters concerning the English
language. He did not, by any means, restrict his interest to
matters slang and unconventional; however, it is his work
in this area that had, and continues to have, the greatest
impact, and on which his reputation is most celebrated.
He wrote more than forty books in his lifetime,
considering such diverse topics as abbreviations, American
tramp and underworld slang, British and American English
since 1900, comic alphabets, English and American
Christian names, Shakespeare’s bawdy, usage and abusage,
and he contributed to many, many more. It is so
substantial a body of work that any list short of a full bib-
liography will inevitably do his great achievement a
disservice. He was a philologist, etymologist, lexicographer,
essayist and dictionary-maker; he is a legend and an inspi-
ration.
The flavour, and wisdom, of Partridge’s work is
gathered in the quotations that follow, loosely grouped by
subject, and presented under sub-headings that make new
use of a selection of his book and article titles .
Slang Today and Yesterday
From about 1850, slang has been the accepted term
for ‘illegitimate’ colloquial speech: but since then,
especially among the lower classes, ‘lingo’ has been
a synonym, and so also, chiefly among the cultured
and the pretentious, has ‘argot’. Now ‘argot’, being
merely the Fr ench for ‘slang’, has no business to be
used thus – it can rightly be applied only to French
slang of French cant: and ‘lingo’ properly means a
simplified language that, like Beach-la-Mar and

Pidgin-English, represents a distortion of (say)
English by coloured peoples speaking English indeed
but adapting it to their own phonetics and gr ammar.
‘Jargon’ – originally as in Chaucer, used of the
warbling of birds – has long been employed loosely
and synonymously for s lang, but it should be
reserved for the technicalities of science, the pro-
fessions and the trades: though, for such technical-
ities, ‘shop’ is an equally good word.
1
[S]lang is much rather a spoken than a literary
language. It originates, nearly always, in speech.
1
Slang is easy enough to use, but very hard to write
about with the facile convincingness that a subject
apparently so simple would, at first sight, seem to
demand. But the simplest things are the hardest to
define, certainly the hardest to discuss, for it is
usually at first sight only that their simplicity is what
strikes one the most forcibly. And slang, after all, is a
peculiar kind of vagabond language, always hanging
on the outskirts of legitimate speech, but continually
straying or forcing its way into the most re spectable
company .
2
Language in general and every kind of language
belongs to everyone who wishes to use it.
3
Slang, being the quintessence of colloquial speech,
must always be related to convenience rather than

scientific laws, grammatical rules and philosophical
ideals. As it originates, so it flourishes best, in
colloquial speech.
1
Slang may and often does fill a gap in accepted
language.
1
Words, Words, Words!
Every group or association, from a pair of lovers to a
secret society however large, feels, at some time or
other, the need to defend itself against outsiders,
and therefore creates a slang designed to conceal its
thoughts: and the greater the need for secrecy, the
more extensive and complete is the s lang[.]
1
The specialization that char acterizes every vocation
leads naturally to a specialized vocabulary, to the
invention of new wor ds or the re-charging of old
words. Such special words and phrases become slang
only when they are used outside their vocational
group and then only if they change their meaning or
are applied in other ways […] But, whatever the
source, personality and one’s surroundings (social or
occupational) are the two co-efficients, the two chief
factors, the determining caus es of the nature of slang,
as they are of language in general and of style.
1
One kind of eyewash, the army’s innumerable ‘states’
and ‘returns’ was known as bumf, short for bum-
fodder: the abbreviation was common in English

public schools from before 1900; the full term for
toilet-paper dates back to the seventeenth century,
when it was coined by Urquhart, the translator
of Rabelais; Urquhart is one of the most prolific
originators of the obscenities and vulgarities of our
language, and with him rank Shak espeare and
Burns.
4
In English, the ideas most fertile in synonyms are
those of drinking, drunkenness, money, and the sex-
ual or gans and act.
1
Many slang words, indeed, are drawn from
pleasurable activities (games, sports,
entertainments), from the joy of life, from a gay
abandon: f o r this reason it has been wittily called
‘language on a picnic’.
1
Common to – indeed, very common in – the
jazzman’s and the Beatnik’s vocabulary is the noun
pad, whence the entirely Beatnik pad me, a cat’s
invitation to a chick to share his room and bed. […]
The Beatniks got it from the jazzmen who got it
from the American underworld who got it from the
British underworld (pad, a bed) who got it from
Standard English of the sixteenth–eighteenth
centuries (pad, a bundle of straw to lie on).
5
The metaphors and allusions [in slang] are gener ally
connected with some temporary phase, some

ephemeral vogue, some unimportant incident; if the
origin is not nailed down at the time, it is rarely
recoverable.
1
[B]orr owings from foreign languages produce slang;
and every language borrows. Borrowings, indeed,
have a way of seeming slangy or of being welcomed
by slang before standard speech takes them into its
sanctum.
1
War always produces a rich crop of slang.
6
[W]ar (much as we may hate to admit the fact),
because, in all wars, both soldiers and sailors and,
since 1914, airmen and civilians as well, have
imported or adopted or invented hundreds of words,
terms, phrases, this linguistic aspect ranking as, if we
except the unexceptable ‘climate of courage,’ the
only good result of war.
7
Human characteristics, such as a love of mystery and
a confidential air (a lazy freemasonry), vanity, the
imp of perversity that lurks in every heart, the
impulse to rebellion, and that irrepressible spirit of
adventure which, when deprived of its proper
outlook in action, perfor ce contents itself with verbal
audacity (the adventure of speech): these and others
are at the root of slang[.]
1
Here, There and Everywhere

When we come to slang and familiar speech gener-
ally, we come to that department of the vocabulary
in which British and American differences are
naturally greater than anywhere else, jus t as they are
greater in the colloquial language generally than in
the literary.
8
American slang is more volatile than English and it
tends, also, to have more synonyms, but a g reater
number of those synonyms are butterflies of a day;
English synonyms are used more for variety than
from weariness or a desire to startle. American slang
is apt to b e more brutal than English[.]
1
Canada also has an extensive and picturesque
objective slang, but that slang is 80 per cent
American, with the remainder rather more English
than native-Canadian[…] it is linguistically unfair to
condemn it for being so much indebted to its near
and ‘pushing’ neighbour[.]
1
Australian speech and writing have, from the outset,
tended to be unconventional […] The
unconventionality is linguistic.
9
The truth is that South African slang, as distinct
from indispensable Africanderisms, is not intrinsically
so vivid, humorous, witty, or divinely earthy as
Canadian and Australian slang, nor is it nearly so
extensive, nor has it, except during the Boer War,

succeeded in imposing itself upon English slang,
much less upon Standard English[.]
1
New Zealand is like South Africa in that its popu-
lation is too small to have much influenced the
language of the mother country whether in Standard
or in unconventional English.
1
Usage and Abusage
Some of the upstart qualities [of slang] and part of
the aesthetic (as opposed to the moral) impropriety
spring from the four features present in all slang,
whatever the period and whatever the country: the
search for novelty; volatility and light-headedness as
well as light-heartedness; ephemerality; the sway of
fashion. In the standard speech and still more in
slang we note that the motive behind figurative
expressions and all neologisms is the desire to
escape from the old accepted phrase: the desire for
novelty operates more freely, audaciously, and rapidly
in slang – that is the only difference. […O]f the
numerous slang words taken up by the masses and
the classes, most have only a short life, and that
when they die, unhonoured and unsung, they are
almost immediately replaced by novelties equally
transitory: the word is dead, long live the word!
[…S]lang, as to the greater part of its vocabulary and
especially as to its cuckoo-calling phrases and it’s
parrot-sayings, is evanescent; it is the residuum that,
racy and expressive, makes the study of slang revel-

atory of the pulsing life of the language.
1
[S]lang is indicative not only of man’s earthiness but
of his indomitable spirit: it sets him in his proper
place: relates a man to his fellows, to his world and
the world, and to the universe.
10
And slang is employed for one (or two or more) of
thirteen reasons:
1 In sheer high spirits; ‘just f o r the fun of the
thing’.
2 As an exercise in wit or humour.
3 To be ‘different’ – to be novel.
4 To be picturesque.
5 To be startling; to startle.
6 To escape from cliché’s and long-windedness.
7 To enrich the language.
8 To give solidity and concreteness to the
abstract and the idealistic, and nearness t o the
Observations on slang and unconventional English xvi
distant scene or object.
9 To reduce solemnity, pain, tragedy.
10 To put oneself i n tune with one’s co mpany.
11 To induce friendlines s or intimacy.
12 To show that one belongs to a certain school,
trade or profession, intellectual set or social
class. In short to be in the fashion – or to
prove that someone else isn’t.
13 To be secret – not understood by those around
one.

11
But no real stylist, no-one capable of good speaking
or good writing, is likely to be harmed by the
occasional employment of slang; provided that he is
conscious of the fact, he can employ it both
frequently and freely without stultifying his mind,
impoverishing his vocabulary, or vitiating the taste
and the skill that he brings to the using of that
vocabulary. Except in formal and dignified writing and
in professional speaking, a vivid and extensive slang is
perhaps preferable to a jejune and meagre vocabulary
of standard English; on the other hand, it will hardly
be denied that, whether in writing or speech, a sound
though restricted vocabulary of standard English is
preferable to an equally small vocabulary of slang,
however vivid may be that slang.
1
The Gentle Art of Lexicography
I began early in life: and it is the course of my life
which, allied to a natural propensity to original sin,
has made a lexicographer out of me.
12
For most of us, a dictionary is hardly a book to read;
a good dictionary, however, is a book to browse in.
Some dictionaries are so well written that one just
goes on and on. To write such a dictionary has
always been my ambition.
12
Slang [etymology/lexicography] demands a mind
constantly on the qui vive; an ear constantly keyed to

the nuanc es of everyday speech, whether among
scholars or professional men or craftsmen or
labourers; a very wide reading of all kinds of books.
13
I have read much that is hopelessly inferior,
hopelessly mediocre; and much that, although
interesting, is yet devoid of literary value. But ever
since my taste acquired a standard, I have been able
to extract some profit from even the most trashy
book.
14
There is far more imagination and enthusiasm in the
making of a good dictionary than in the average
novel.
15
Words at War: Words at Peace
For over a century, there have been protests against
the use of slang and controversies on the relation of
slang to the literary language or, as it is now usually
called, Standard English. Purists have risen in their
wrath and conservatives in their dignity to defend
the Bastille of linguistic purity against the
revolutionary rabble. The very vehemence of the
attack and the very stur dinessof the defence have
ensured that only the fittest survive to gain entrance
to the citadel, there establish themselves, and then
become conservatives and puris ts in their turn.
16
Any term that prevents us from thinking, any term
that we employ to spare us from searching for the

right word, is a verbal narcotic. As though there
weren’t too many narcotics already…
17
Words are very important things; at the lowest
estimate, they are indispensable counters of
communication.
18
Notes/bibliography
1 Slang Today and Yesterday, 1933: George Routledge &
Sons, London
2 Slang Today and Yesterday, 1933, quoting Greenough
and Kittredge, Words and their Ways in English
Speech, 1902: George Routledge & Sons, London
3 ‘The Lexicography of Cant’, American Speech,Volume
26, Issue 2, May 1951: The American Dialect Society,
Durham, North Carolina
4 ‘Byways of Soldier Slang’ in A Martial Medley, 1931:
Scholartis Press, London
5 ‘A Square Digs Beatnik’, August 1959. Originally
published fo r private circulation Chris tmas 1959/New
Year 1960. Collected in ACharmofWords, 1960:
Hamish Hamilton, London
6 ‘Words Get Their Wings’, originally published in
Chamber’s Journal, July-August 1945. Collected in
Words at War: Words at Peace, 1948: Frederick Muller,
London
7 ‘Introduction’ in Dictionary of New Words, Mary
Reif er, 1957: Peter Owen, London
8 British and American English Since 1900,co-authored
with John W. Clark, 1951: Andrew Dakers, London

9 ‘Australian English’ in ACharmofWords, 1960:
Hamish Hamilton, London
10 Usage & Abusage, 1947: Hamish Hamilton, London
[originally published in the US in 1942]
11 The World of Words, 2nd edition, 1939: Hamish
Hamilton, London [reduced by Eric Partridge fr om a
fuller consideration in Slang Today and Yesterday,
1933, and based on the work of M. Alfredo Niceforo,
Le Génie de l’Argot, 1912]
12 The Gentle Art of Lexicography, 1963: André Deutsch,
London
13 Adventuring Among Words, 1961: André Deutsch,
London
14 Journey to the Edge of Morning, ©1946, reprinted
1969: Books for Libraries Press, New York
15 As Corrie Denison, a pseudonymous epigraph to A
Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Captain
Francis Grose (3rd edition, 1796), edited by Eric
Partridge, 1931: Scholartis Press, London
16 Here, There and Everywhere, 1950: Hamish Hamilton,
London
17 ‘Verbal Narco tics’, originally published in Good
Housekeeping magazine, June 1949. Collected in
From Sanskrit to Brazil, 1952: Hamish Hamilton,
London
18 ‘Words in Vogue: Words of Power’, 1942: collected in
Words at War: Words at Peace, 1948: Frederick Muller,
London
xvii Observations on slang and unconventional English