How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads by Daniel Cassidy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Personally, I think Cassidy goes to far and puts forward probably cognates as actual etymology, such as actually bothering to try and say we say "Mommy" and "Daddy" due to the Irish. But, the book is fun and convincing that he has actually cleared up a lot of "derivation unknown" slang, like "case the joint", "Dead Rabbit", "jazz", etc. Regardless of how valid the linguistics, the plethora of period quotes, newspaper excerpts, etc. and underworld details make this a fun read, even the dictionary portion.
A fun, whimsical assault on language history, this has the cartoonish appeal that could be make it a light, opening featurette to one of my fave books, John McWhorter's "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English".
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment