Books: U. S. Slang

THE AMERICAN THESAURUS OF SLANG-Lester V. Berrey and Melvin Van den Bark-Crowell ($5).

Lester V. Berrey has been at work on this absorbing, 1,174-page thesaurus since 1931. He got special checking help from such experts as Bing Crosby (on music), Variety's Jack Edward (entertainment slang), John A. Leslie of Ohio State Prison on the language of tramps and the underworld. His collaborator, Nebraskan Philologist Melvin Van den Bark, worked out the main outlines of classification and groupings of words. In general these follow Roget but they culminate in 430 highly readable pages on...

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