Most Popular Books by Jonathon Green

This sometimes funny, frequently poignant compilation offers a glimpse at the death-bed departures of kings, courtiers, poets, painters, saints, villains, murderers, and martyrs through the ages. Among the notable parting sentiments are Bing Crosby’s breezy sign-off: “That was a great game of golf, fellers,” Lawrence Oates’ farewell to Captain Scott on his mythically ill-fated expedition to the South Pole: “I’m just going out. I may be some time…,” and Civil War commander General Sedgewick’s final miscalculation: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist—.” It is a fascinating record of our final thoughts at the brink of the unimaginable. Jonathan Green is a noted lexicographer and the author of many books, includingSlang Down the Ages.

Articles examine the history and evolution of censorship, presented in A to Z format.

The language of crime has a long and venerable history - in fact, the first collection of words specifically used by criminals, Hye-Way to the Spittel House, dates from as early as 1531. Jonathon Green is our national expert on slang, and in Crooked Talk he looks at five hundred years of crooks and conmen - from the hedge-creepers and counterfeit cranks of the sixteenth century to the blaggers and burners of the twenty-first - as well as the swag, the hideouts, the getaway vehicles and the ''tools of the trade''. Not to mention a substantial detour into the world of prisons that faced those unlucky enough to be caught by the boys in blue. If you have ever wondered when the police were first referred to as pigs, why prison guards became known as redraws, or what precisely the subtle art of dipology involves, then this book has all the answers.

With its unparalleled coverage of English slang of all types (from 18th-century cant to contemporary gay slang), and its uncluttered editorial apparatus, Cassell''s Dictionary of Slang was warmly received when its first edition appeared in 1998. ''Brilliant.'' said Mark Lawson on BBC2''s The Late Review; ''This is a terrific piece of work - learned, entertaining, funny, stimulating'' said Jonathan Meades in The Evening Standard.But now the world''s best single-volume dictionary of English slang is about to get even better. Jonathon Green has spent the last seven years on a vast project: to research in depth the English slang vocabulary and to hunt down and record written instances of the use of as many slang words as possible. This has entailed trawling through more than 4000 books - plus song lyrics, TV and movie scripts, and many newspapers and magazines - for relevant material. The research has thrown up some fascinating results

The three volumes of Green''s Dictionary of Slang demonstrate the sheer scope of a lifetime of research by Jonathon Green, the leading slang lexicographer of our time. A remarkable collection of this often reviled but endlessly fascinating area of the English language, it covers slang from the past five centuries right up to the present day, from all the different English-speaking countries and regions. Totaling 10.3 million words and over 53,000 entries, the collection provides the definitions of 100,000 words and over 413,000 citations. Every word and phrase is authenticated by genuine and fully-referenced citations of its use, giving the work a level of authority and scholarship unmatched by any other publication in this field. Winner of the Dartmouth Medal RUSA/ALA Outstanding Reference Source 2011 Booklist Editors'' Choice Library Journal Best Reference 2011

George Orwell coined the term ‘Newspeak’ for his novel 1984, the purpose of which was designed to shrink vocabularies and eliminate subtlety and nuance. For this dictionary, first published to herald the year 1984, Jonathon Green compiled nearly 8, 000 entries – selected from the slangs and specific vocabularies of trades, professions and interests – covering such areas as the world of entertainment, the media, the military economics, and finance. This dictionary provides an accurate and useful linguistic guide for students of lexicography and an interesting compendium for the general inquisitive reader.

A riveting history and impassioned defense of slang

A collection of this often reviled but endlessly fascinating area of the English language, these volumes cover slang from the past five centuries right up to the present day, from all the different English-speaking countries and regions.

A collection of this often reviled but endlessly fascinating area of the English language, these volumes cover slang from the past five centuries right up to the present day, from all the different English-speaking countries and regions.

First published in 1987, the Dictionary of Jargon expands on its predecessor Newspeak (Routledge Revivals, 2014) as an authoritative reference guide to specialist occupational slang, or jargon. Containing around 21, 000 entries, the dictionary encompasses a truly eclectic range of fields and includes extensive coverage of both British and U.S. jargon. Areas dealt with range from marketing to medicine, from advertising to artificial intelligence and from skiing to sociology. This is a fascinating resource for students of lexicography and professional lexicographers, as well as the general inquisitive reader.

''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 www.greensdictofslang.com) 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.'' http://jonathongreen.co.uk

Green''s history of the 60''s underground Days in the Life, has been until now the most complete account of the decade. In All Dressed Up he expands on that book to provide an overview of the cultural and political events of the decade.

First published in 1986, the purpose of this dictionary is to clarify the technology behind nuclear jargon. The entries deal with all areas of nuclear warfare: its strategies and tactics, personnel and weapons systems, arms control and disarmament talks. The terminology of the nuclear age expands and changes as fast as the weapons and strategies it describes; the dictionary therefore covers a span ranging from the first tentative post-Hiroshima ideas and systems through to the near-fictions of the ‘Star Wars’ initiative. This fascinating reissue will be of particular value to those in need of a comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of nuclear warfare, as well as students of linguistics with a particular interest in slang and jargon.

A scholarly reference to slang expressions from all parts of the English-speaking world includes coverage of twenty-first-century terms and lists explanations of word origins.

With more than 15,000 definitions from aardvark to ''zup?, this is a guide to the use of slang today. It deals with drugs, sport and contemporary society, as well as favourite slang topics such as sex and bodily functions.