Dictionaries - The Lower Registers

Crucial to any discussion of the dictionary is the concept of register, namely the diction appropriate to a particular literary context or social situation. For, in addition to the common words of the language, there are numerous lexical varieties, including the literary, the foreign, the dialectal, the scientific, the technical, as well as those that are the focus of this work, the “lower” registers, namely the colloquial, the slang, the profane, and the obscene. Historically dictionaries have tended to adopt different policies with regard to usage, namely prescriptive (emphasizing correct usage), proscriptive (condemning the incorrect), or descriptive (reflecting actual usage). The chosen policy will obviously affect the inclusion or exclusion of swearing and foul language.

The history of the English dictionary reflects in a fundamental fashion the familiar division in usage between decent or proper usage and the less acceptable varieties of slang, profanity, and obscenity—that between the language of decorous public discourse and the language of the street. The problem with this distinction is that the “common” words include, to a great extent, the lower registers or rude words, making it difficult for a lexicographer to know “where to draw the line.” Notions about what is appropriate to appear in print obviously carry weight, as do assumptions that simply by printing an offensive term a dictionary is in some way endorsing it or validating the attitudes it expresses. These may not be valid assumptions, but they are difficult to dismiss. The simple statement that a particular word is or is not “in the dictionary” is often advanced as an argument for acceptability in itself. Until the eighteenth century, dictionaries tended to focus on “hard” or difficult words, and did not claim to be comprehensive, so that words could be omitted at will and without comment. In Victorian times there were legal restraints on the publication of obscene language, so that these issues weighed more heavily with editors and were not simply matters of policy. Today dictionaries generally include all varieties, although the accommodation of swearwords, “four-letter” words, and racist insults is problematic and often incomplete.

Inclusiveness is a fairly recent development. For centuries there have been two lexicographical traditions, the decent and the impolite. The “proper” tradition can be traced from Robert Cawdrey’s rudimentary Table Alphabeticall (1604), through Nathaniel Bailey’s extensive Dictionarium Britannicum (1730) and the magisterial Dictionary of Samuel Johnson (1755), to the monumental Oxford English Dictionary (1884–1928). Johnson initiated, and the OED virtually perfected, the “historical method,” covering the whole span of the English language, separating the word senses, listing them chronologically, and illustrating them with quotations. However, there also is a slang or underworld tradition that is actually older and very extensive. This starts in Elizabethan times with works by Thomas Harman ( A Caveat for Common Cursetors 1566), Robert Greene ( A Notable Discovery of Coosnage 1591), several others, is continued by Francis Grose ( A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue 1785), Farmer and Henley ( Slang and Its Analogues 1890–1904), and Eric Partridge ( Slang 1933), continuing in recent times with works appearing virtually on an annual basis.

There is a similar split in the American tradition, with the founder of American lexicography, Noah Webster, producing his seminal works in the “decent” tradition, namely A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806) and An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), which were the roots of numerous editions carrying his name, notably the Second Edition (1934) and the Third (1961). Despite the vigorous growth of American slang, James Maitland’s An American Slang Dictionary (1891) was not highly regarded, thus making the first substantial achievement the Dictionary of American Slang by Harold Wentworth and Stuart Berg Flexner (1960), revised, enlarged, and reissued as The New Dictionary of American Slang , by Robert L. Chapman (1986). These have been followed by the superbly comprehensive Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (ed. Jonathan Lighter 1994 onward, currently in production).

This split in the lexicographical tradition is significant, forming a pair of parameters, implicit or explicit, within which the dictionary should focus. Generally speaking, dictionaries have become more inclusive, less prescriptive, and more descriptive. Dr. Johnson, essentially prescriptive and proscriptive, was very judgmental about what he considered inappropriate for a written standard. Being concerned about the instability of the language, he thus condemned slang as “a fugitive cant [in-group language] … unworthy of preservation” (1963, 23). No modern dictionary would adopt his attitudes or use his kind of vocabulary. However, he included fart, arse, piss , and other four-letter words without regarding them as taboo, defining them directly, without resorting to odd scientific register, such as “an emission of intestinal gas from the anus” as does the Collins English Dictionary (2000).

Although Webster championed American independence, his dictionaries were still bound by the constraints of tradition. He was a considerable bowdlerizer, omitting the bulk of the common sexual and excretory vocabulary. Similarly, he did not copy a single one of Johnson’s bawdy quotations, complaining of the inclusion of “ribaldry” in his dictionary. A certain puritanism is apparent in comments appended to definitions, notably under the word swear , which Johnson had defined simply as “To obtest [call to witness] some superiour power; to utter an oath.” Webster added the moral comment: “For men to swear is sinful, disreputable and odious; but for females or ladies to swear appears more abominable and scandalous.” In his Preface to the Dictionary for Schools (1807) he complained with more validity that “Some [dictionaries] contain certain obscene and vulgar terms, improper to be repeated before children.”

Inclusiveness has been a continuing problem, canvassed in the section on omission of taboo terms, discussed below. The growth of political correctness in recent decades has of necessity affected dictionaries. Semantic areas of race and disability, previously commented upon without difficulty, have become something of a minefield. Terms like spastic and cripple are increasingly labeled as “taboo” even though they continue to be in general demotic use. Consequently, unnatural and euphemistic substitutions, such as “physically challenged” or “differently abled” are brought into play. Likewise, the older slighting vocabulary commonly used of “primitive” people is rightly avoided. An instance from the original OED is this embarrassing quotation of canoe: “used generally of any rude craft in which uncivilized people go upon the water … savages generally use paddles instead of oars.”

Today “the dictionary” has become something of a genre, with specialist works dealing with the whole gamut of registers mentioned at the outset, as well as many other fields. The “general” dictionary has become more comprehensive and is certainly more inclusive and less judgmental than in the past.

The Lower Registers

The recording of slang, profanity, and obscenity has a surprisingly long and continuous history, actually preceding that of the “proper” dictionary. The practice starts in Elizabethan times with a rich vein of works explicating underground slang or cant to an ignorant public, and has continued to the present in related works presented under the general term “slang,” with increasing emphasis on obscenity or taboo terms. The earliest works are not dictionaries in format, but are guides to the urban underworld milieu and population, interspersed with glossaries or sections explaining the key terms of the argot known variously as Pedlar’s French, Thieves’ Latin, and St. Giles’s Greek. Cant and slang are originally code languages developing among particular urban groups, although over time some terms radiate outward into the wider speech community. The original canting works claimed to fulfill a public function by alerting the public to unfamiliar terms used by cheats and confidence-tricksters. The function of the later works is paradoxical: those who do not know vulgar terms or oaths are unlikely to purchase a dictionary to discover their meanings. Those who know the terms do not need such a dictionary.

The first in the field, anonymous and dated 1552, carries the dramatic title A manifest detection of the moste vyle and detestable use of Diceplay , describing the cheating practiced in various dens and explaining the unfamiliar terms for false dice. This was followed by a number of works such as John Awdeley’s The Fraternitie of Vagabonds (1561) and Thomas Harman’s A Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors [Tramps] vulgarly called Vagabones (1566). Being a magistrate in Kent, Harman was certainly knowledgeable about this underclass and their mores, described by Gamini Salgado as “the unscrupulous activities of this vast army of wandering parasites” (1972, 10). Harman condemned them in some astonishing displays of alliteration:

Here I set before the good reader the leud [disgusting] lousey language of these lewtering [loitering] lusks [idlers] and lasy lorrels [blackguards] where with they bye and sell [trick] the common people as they pas through the country. Which language they terme Peddelars Frenche, a vnknowen toung onely, but to these bold, bawdy, beastly beggers and vaine vacabondes. (in Salgado, ed., 1972, 146)

Harman introduced a range of minor criminal types, about two dozen, using their under-world jargon, such as a prigger of prancers , a horse thief, Abraham men “those who feign themselves to be mad,” and the ironically termed upright man for the highest in the echelons of crime.

In 1591, Robert Greene produced the sensationalist title A notable Discovery of Coosnage [Trickery]. Now daily practised by sundry lewd persons called Connie-catchers [card-sharpers] and Crosse-biters [Swindlers or Whores]. Greene explains the ironic use of the term “law” in this set, amongst whom Sacking Law is “lechery,” Crossbiting Law is “cosenage by whores,” and Cony-catching Law is “cozenage by cards.” Other specialist uses are commodity for a whore, trugging-place for a whorehouse, and some oaths, such as “Gerry gan the Ruffian cly thee” interpreted as “A torde in thy mouthe, the deuill take thee.”

These Elizabethan canting dictionaries are an important sociolinguistic phenomenon, being the first record of a clearly developed underworld code language or argot. Many of the key terms in these sources are cited as first instances in the OED . Foul language also emerges in unexpected places, for instance in the first comprehensive Italian/English dictionary, produced by John Florio under the title of A Worlde of Wordes (1598). Among the 46,000 headwords, Florio defined Italian fottere with Renaissance exuberance as “to iape, to sard, to fucke, to swive, to occupy.” (Interestingly, only one of these is still current in the relevant sense.) Florio added some spicy insults, such as “goodman turd” and “shitten fellow,” as well as euphemistic uses such as “Mount Faucon” for the vagina and “gear” for the genitals (both male and female). Likewise, Randle Cotgrave’s Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (1611) has an entry on a fish with the unflattering name of cul de cheval [horse’s arse]: “A small, and ouglie fish, or excrescence of the sea, resembling a mans bung-hole, and called, the red Nettle.”

Certainly the most appealing and readable work in the underground tradition is Francis Grose ‘s wonderfully exuberant A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785). The title is arresting in the contradiction of the key terms classical and vulgar , the first implying formality and order, the second denoting the more disreputable elements of the language. His work represents a significant shift away from the specialist “canting” guide in the direction of the general slang dictionary. Though full of interesting material, Grose’s work did not aim to be comprehensive. That claim could be made for the enormous collaboration of J.S. Farmer and W.E. Henley, Slang and Its Analogues (issued in seven volumes from 1890 to1904). Also deserving of his own entry is the major authority on the lower registers in the twentieth century, namely Eric Partridge, the first authority to deal with the most notorious of the “four-letter” words in a complete, direct philological fashion.

Curiously the “improper” tradition of lexicography, which Farmer had called “the dark continent,” took much longer to establish itself in the United States. This is perhaps because of the lingering influence of Puritanism and also the more immediate authority of Noah Webster. The first extensive work, James Maitland’s 308-page study, An American Slang Dictionary (1891), was severely criticized, not for its immorality, but because, in the view of an anonymous reviewer, most of the words were not American and not slang. The first major achievement in the field came many decades later, in the Dictionary of American Slang by Harold Wentworth and Stuart Berg Flexner (1960). With some 700 pages, it was fairly comprehensive in its word list and gave citations, but did not list the different meanings or date the quotations. It was revised and reissued as The New Dictionary of American Slang by Robert L. Chapman in 1986. A significant volume in the slang tradition, over 400 pages in length, was A Dictionary of Invective by Hugh Rawson (1989), which is predominantly American in focus, but includes a considerable amount of British material. The limitations of the previous works are being made good in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang , edited by Jonathan Lighter (1994– currently in production). This work is genuinely comprehensive, follows the historical method thoroughly and has the volume of citation expected by readers of the Oxford English Dictionary .

During the last three decades of the twentieth century, slang dictionaries started to appear virtually on an annual basis on both sides of the Atlantic. Although some focused on British and some on American English, an increasing number accommodated both varieties. These were generally small, derivative volumes such as The Underground Dictionary by Eugene Landy (1972), The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang by Jonathon Green (1984), The Slang Thesaurus by Jonathon Green (1986), The Erotic Tongue by Lawrence Paros (1988), A Dictionary of Obscenity, Taboo and Euphemism by James McDonald (1988), Lowspeak by James Morton (1989), and Forbidden American English by Richard A. Spears (1991).

Given the dispersal of English, it is natural that slang and foul language should have spread to the four corners of the globe. However, it is surprising to find a glossary of underworld slang appearing under the title of A New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language , published as far back as 1819, in Australia. The author was a convict, James Hardy Vaugh, who had been transported three times and escaped twice. “Flash” was a criminal argot used in the underworld in England, defined by Francis Grose as “the canting or slang language.” Many of these “flash” terms, such as grub (“food”), mate (“friend”), and kid (“to deceive”) have become established in general Australian parlance. Most are general slang terms rather than obscenities, although bloody , the staple Australian expletive from the earliest times, was regarded as an obscenity a century ago. Subsequent studies within the Australian provenance are The Australian Slanguage by Bill Hornage (1980) and A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms by G.A. Wilkes (1985).

Generally speaking, other global varieties of English have not attracted such works. This may be because several of them, such as the Canadian, New Zealand, and Indian varieties, do not have thriving underground or obscene vocabularies showing the same efflorescence as the British or American varieties. The main exception in this regard has been the English of South Africa, with a wealth of coarse language, much of it borrowed from Afrikaans. Most of the terms were accommodated lexicographically in the various editions of A Dictionary of South African English (ed. J. Branford) issued from 1978 onward. However, the major Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles (ed. P. Silva et al. 1996) did not include some of the most egregious. Dictionaries of pidgin English have perforce to deal with curious survivals of foul language that have now become destigmatized and established as the common register.