Some Usage Resources

in the Ylvisaker Library

AMERICAN ENGLISH AND STANDARD USAGE

Copperud, Roy. American Usage and Style: The Consensus. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1980. [PE1460 .C648]

Dillard, J.L. All-American English. New York: Random House, 1975. [PE2809 .D54 1976]

Marckwardt, Albert Henry. American English. Rev. J.L. Dillard. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1980. [PE2808 .M3 1980]

Mencken, H.L. The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States. New York: Knopf, 1936. [General Collection PE2808.M4]

The New Oxford American Dictionary. Ed. Elizabeth J. Jewell and Frank Abate. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. [REF PE1628.N49 2001]

The Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide. New York : Oxford University Press, 1999. [Ref PE2835.O9 1999]

Wilson, Kenneth G. The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. [REF PE2835.W55]

DIALECTS

Bartlett, John. Dictionary of Americanisms. New York: Wiley, 2003. [REF PE2835.B37 2003]

Carver, Craig. American Regional Dialects: A Word Geography. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1989. [General Collection PE2841.C37 1989]

Kacirk, Jeffrey. Altered English: Surprising Meanings of Familiar Words. San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2002. [REF PE1667.K33 2002]

Metcalf, Allan A. How We Talk: American Regional English Today. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. [REF PE2808.8.M48 2000]

Wakelin, Martyn Francis. English Dialects: An Introduction. London: Athlone Press, 1977. . [General Collection PE1711.W35 1977]

Wolfram, Walt, and Ralph Fasold. The Study of Social Dialects in American English. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1974. [PE2808 .W6]

SLANG & IDIOM

Adams, Ramon Frederick. Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1956. [PE3727 .C6 A4]

Ayto, John. The Oxford Dictionary of Slang. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. [REF PE3721.O94 2003]

---. Twentieth Century Words. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. [REF PE1630.A98 1999

Berrey, Lester, and Melvin Van den Bark. The American Thesaurus of Slang: A Complete Reference Book of Colloquial Speech. 2nd ed. New York: Crowell, 1960. [REF PE3729.A5H4]

Branwyn, Gareth. Jargon Watch: A Pocket Dictionary for the Jitterati. San Francisco: HardWired, 1997. [REF PN6231.E4B73 1997]

Chapman, Robert L. Thesaurus of American Slang. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. [PE2846.C4]

Clark, Gregory. Words of the Vietnam War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1990. [PE3727.S7 C5]

Dickson, Paul. War Slang: Fighting Words and Phrases of Americans from the Civil War to the Gulf War. New York: Pocket Books, 1994. [PE3727.S7 D53 1994]

Fab 5 Freddy. Fresh Fly Flavor: Words and Phrases of the Hip-hop Generation. Stamford, CT: Longmeadow Press, 1992. [PE3727.N4 F3]

Flesch, Rudolf. Lite English: Popular Words That Are OK to Use No Matter What William Saffire, John Simon, Edwin Newman, and the Other Purists Say! New York: Crown, 1983. [PE1460 .F57 1983]

Holder, R. W. A Dictionary of Euphemisms. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. [REF PE1449.H65 1995]

Lerner, Sid. Trash Cash, Fizzbos, and Flatliners: A Dictionary of Today's Words. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. [REF PE130 .L44]

Lewin, Esther. The Thesaurus of Slang. New York: Facts on File, 1997. [REF PE3721 .L49 1997]

Major, Clarence, ed. Juba to Jive: The Dictionary of African-American Slang. New York: Penguin Books, 1994. [REF PE3727 .N4 M34]

Ostler, Rosemarie. Dewdroppers, Waldos, and Slackers: A Decade-by-decade Guide to the Vanishing Vocabulary of the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. [General Collection PE2838.O88 2003]

Partridge, Eric. A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, American and British, from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Day. Rev. Paul Beale. New York: Stein and Day, 1986. [PE1689 .P297 1986]

---. Slang Today and Yesterday, with a Short Historical Sketch and Vocabularies of English, American, and Australian Slang. 4th ed. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1970. [PE3711 .P3]

Rawson, Hugh. A Dictionary of Euphemisms & Other Doubletalk: Being a Compilation of Linguistic Fig Leaves and Verbal Flourishes for Artful Users of the English Language. New York: Crown, 1981. [PE1449 .R34 1981]

---. Wicked Words: A Treasury of Curses, Insults, Put-downs, and Other Formerly Unprintable Terms from Anglo-Saxon Times to the Present. New York: Crown, 1989. [REF PE3721 .R3]

Sorden, Leland. Lumberjack Lingo. Spring Green: Wisconsin House, 1969. [PE3727 .L8 S67]

Spears, Richard. NTC's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions. Lincolnwood, IL: NTC, 2000. [REF PE2839 .S64 2000]

Thorne, Tony. Bloomsbury Dictionary of Contemporary Slang : With More 5,000 Racy and Raffish Colloquial Expressions from America, Great Britain, Australia, the Caribbean, and Other English-speaking Places. London: Bloomsbury, 1990. [REF PE3721 .T5]

Watts, Peter Christopher. A Dictionary of the Old West, 1850-1900. New York: Knopf, 1977. [General Collection PE2970.W4W3 1977]

Wilmeth, Don B. The Language of American Popular Entertainment: A Glossary of Argot, Slang, and Terminology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981. [PN1579 .W55 1981]

ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH

Baugh, John. Black Street Speech: Its History, Structure, and Survival. Austin: U of Texas P, 1983. [PE3102.N42 B38 1983]

Claerbaut, David. Black Jargon in White America. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972. [PE3727.N4 C5 1972]

Fifty Years among the New Words: A Dictionary of Neologisms. Cambridge, 1993. [PE1630.F5 1993]

Frank, Francine Harriet Wattman, and Frank Anshen, eds. Language and the Sexes. Albany: SUNY Press, 1983. [PE2808 .F73]

Howard, Philip. The State of the Language: English Observed. New York: Oxford UP, 1984. [PE1072 .H69 1984]

Labov, William. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia, U of Penn P, 1972. [PE3102 .N4 L3]

McFedries, Paul. Word Spy: The Word Lover's Guide to Modern Culture. New York: Broadway Books, 2004. [General Collection PE1583.M34 2004]

Metcalf, Allan A. Predicting New Words: The Secrets of Their Success. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. [SERENDIPITY PE1583.M48 2002]

Ricks, Christopher, and Leonard Michaels, eds. The State of the Language. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

Safire, William. I Stand Corrected: More on Language. New York: Times Books, 1984. [PE1421 .S22 1984]

---. You Could Look It Up: More on Language from William Safire. New York: Times Books, 1988. [PE1421 .S234]

Simon, John. Paradigms Lost: Reflections on Literacy and Its Decline. New York: Penguin, 1981. [PE1072 .S57 1981]

Smitherman, Geneva. Talkin' and Testifyin': The Language of Black America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977. [PE3102.N42 S5]

Smitherman-Donaldson, Geneva. Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994. [REF PE3102.N4 S65 1994]