Dictionaries of Unconventional English

Abstract

The practice of recording slang in Anglo-American dictionaries goes back to the 1780s. Francis Grose published A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, the first known lexicon of slang. In the nineteenth century through the early twentieth century, several dictionaries of slang were produced, but it was not until 1937 that Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English was published. It was enlarged and reprinted several times through the 1980s and remains one of the best resources available. Since then, numerous dictionaries of slang have appeared, especially on the Internet. (Introduction)