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Jonathan Green |
Green’s search for slanging match
The Chambers Slang Dictionary.
By Jonathan Green. Chambers £30.EVERY jibe, saw, scuttlebutt and utterance of slang in the modern English language begins life as code for the secret or the nefarious, or both.
They will end up – if they are lucky – in the Chambers Slang Dictionary, a mighty tome dedicated to language’s seedier denizens that has been compiled and revised over the years by Tufnell Park lexicographer Jonathan Green.
Green has spent the past 25 years trawling through thousands of texts and songs, from Shakespeare to Dizzee Rascal.
The subjects of his search have changed little down the ages: sex, money, intoxicants, racism, “a huge amount of general nastiness about physical features”, and nationalism.
“Slang has a very narrow waterfront but it’s incredibly deep,” says Green. “I like to see myself as a Philip Marlowe figure patrolling this waterfront.”
Green is a tireless watchman. He has 1,365 penises, 4,000 drugs, 2,400 words for idiots, and more than 5,000 synonyms for crime; a total of 85,000 words and 125,000 meanings.
“Slang is very cruel,” he says. “It leaves the charity to someone else. It’s a no to all ‘isms’. It’s much more keen on concrete.
“Slang is much harder to track down its origin – it spends more time in the mouth before it hits the printed page than standard English.”
The Holy Grail, he says, is to find the first use of a word or phrase.
At 60, Green is aware the gap is growing between the chronicler and the creators of slang, who are usually between 10 and 30. Yet as long as slang is evolving he intends to be on its frontline – until he goes for a burton and starts pushing up the daisies.
SIMON WROE
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