![]() In three huge volumes - with tissue-thin paper and tiny print - there are oodles of terms that are dainty, obfuscating, batty, and concealing. That's pretty much the slang wheelhouse.Īnd yet, as Green has shown, the slang wheelhouse is larger than any of us could have imagined. When you refer to a pile of cash as a wad that would choke a wombat or a lunatic asylum as a giggle academy, you're solidly in the dysphemic realm. Calling cigarettes and electric chairs coffin sticks and sizzle seats are great examples. The dysphemism is the euphemism's drunk, embarrassing, honest twin. Jonathon Green's slangapalooza is an extraordinary source for fulfilling this column's mission: finding under-the-radar euphemisms.Įuphemisms, you say? Isn't slang more dysphemic? Well, sure. ![]() The current love of my life is Green's Dictionary of Slang: an enormous, meticulous, ridiculously wonderful historical dictionary that's the biggest slang collection ever made (uncurated Wiki-crapola like Urban Dictionary doesn't count).
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