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Rating: 
Summary: The World of Words
Review: If you, like me, live in a non english speaking country and love and teach the english language for a living, you definitely should have a copy of this book alongside a good regular dictionary. And even if english is your mother tongue you should get this book too. Of course all those swearing words are there but there is a lot more than that, there are plenty of cultural references in here that will help you to understand the origins of many terms so used on our daily lives and to discover how language adapts with time and space.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent language-lover's resource
Review: Reaching back into English for some centuries and reaching through English as it's written & spoken today in many nations, this dictionary offers what seems a unique guide to the use of words and more particularly, phrases, that I can't find defined in any other work. Indispensable for those who really want to understand exactly what they're reading. While I respect the Californian reader's suggestion that potential buyers also consider two other slang dictionaries, I point out that Green's work goes far beyond only American usages. There's plenty here about English, New Zealand, Canadian, Australian, and other variants of English. Nice touch: the editor's introduction comes complete with an e-mail address. Any reader who finds a usage that Jonathon Green doesn't know about, is free to send it in for future editions. But I personally find few usages that Jonathon Green doesn't know about. Excellent work but, because of attention paid to "rude words", probably not a good gift for children.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Reaching back into English for some centuries and reaching through English as it's written & spoken today in many nations, this dictionary offers what seems a unique guide to the use of words and more particularly, phrases, that I can't find defined in any other work. Indispensable for those who really want to understand exactly what they're reading. While I respect the Californian reader's suggestion that potential buyers also consider two other slang dictionaries, I point out that Green's work goes far beyond only American usages. There's plenty here about English, New Zealand, Canadian, Australian, and other variants of English. Nice touch: the editor's introduction comes complete with an e-mail address. Any reader who finds a usage that Jonathon Green doesn't know about, is free to send it in for future editions. But I personally find few usages that Jonathon Green doesn't know about. Excellent work but, because of attention paid to "rude words", probably not a good gift for children.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Very comprehensive, and as a amatuer linguist, this is one of my favorite word books (I have dozens). You will find entries here that you won't even find in the 20-volume Oxford-English Dictionary. Unquestionably the best book on slang out there. Some of the definitions tend to be short, but obviously this had to be done to allow for more entries. Some of the words though is does go into some depth and history, for instance the word 'sockdolager', it mentions it was one of last words Abe Lincoln heard, which used as adjective form as 'sockdolagizing' spoken by character Asa Trenchard in Tom Taylor play "Our American Cousin". This book is a great buy for book lovers, but as one reviewer stated, avoid giving to young kids due to some of the explicit nature of many of the words.
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