End of ADS-L Digest - 1 Sep 1997 to 2 Sep 1997 ********************************************** Subject: ADS-L Digest - 2 Sep 1997 to 3 Sep 1997 There are 6 messages totalling 249 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Apples & Oranges 2. m/mla panels of interst for ads members (2) 3. Safire's WATCHING MY LANGUAGE, HDAS H-O reviews; Hot Dog & the AP 4. Word origin, of course 5. ADS IN NEW YORK--PROGRAM ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 00:48:02 -0400 From: "Bethany K. Dumas" Subject: Apples & Oranges On Tue, 2 Sep 1997, Barry A. Popik wrote: > RANDOM HOUSE HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG, H-O > by Jonathan Lighter > > This is obviously an important and major work, the second volume to be > published. My complaints are more about what this is not than what it is. > David Shulman objects to the number of citations after what he considers > the first and most valuable ones. However, I'm not upset by TOO MANY > citations--better than too few! Another person on this list commented that > Lighter uses responses from students at the University of Tennessee (where > he's based); again, if there are many citations, I don't have a problem with > this. Time does not permit setting the record straight at length, but please note these points: 1. This IS a slang dictionary. It is not nor was it ever intended to be a book of Americanisms. 2. Much has been made of the fact that some citations come from students at the U. of Tennessee. in fact, most of the citations were collected as Jon read in the New York Public Library, misspending his youth as thoroughly as anyone I know. A high percentage of citations come from individuals on the Knoxville campus now because Jon has been in residence here since 1974. He and I arrived at the same time. His M.A. thesis was the Amerian Speech issue on WWI slang; his doctoral dissertation, which I had the pleasure of "directing," was the letter "A" of the dictionary. I hope that individuals who can add to the material included in the first ed. will share their information with Jon. Write him c/o the English Dept (address below). Jon himself has contributed a lot to the OED in that way. Thanks, Bethany Bethany K. Dumas, J.D., Ph.D. Applied Linguistics, Language & Law Department of English EMAIL: dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utk.edu 311/1117 McClung Tower (423) 974-6965, (423) 974-6926 (FAX) University of Tennessee Editor, Language in the Judicial Process: Knoxville, TN 37996-0430 USA [Sept-Dec '97, Dep't of Linguistics/470 ICC/Georgetown University/ Washington, D.C. 20057/202-687-6029]