The ''Dictionary of American Slang'' was edited by

Stuart Flexner Stuart Berg Flexner (1928–1990) was a lexicographer, editor and author, noted for his books on the origins of American words and expressions, including ''I Hear America Talking'' and ''Listening to America''; as co-editor of the ''Dictionary of Am ...

and Harold Wentworth and first published in 1960 by

Thomas Crowell Company Thomas Y. Crowell Co. was a publisher, publishing company founded by Thomas Y. Crowell. The company began as a bookbindery founded by Benjamin Bradley in 1834. Crowell operated the business after Bradley's death in 1862 and eventually purchased ...

. The first three editions (1960, 1967, 1975) were edited by Flexner and Wentworth, while the fourth (1995) and fifth editions (2010) were largely reworked and edited by

Barbara Ann Kipfer Barbara Ann Kipfer (born 1954) is a lexicographer, linguist, ontologist, and part-time archaeologist. She has written more than 80 books and calendars, including '' 14,000 Things to be Happy About'' ( Workman), which has more than 1.25 million c ...

and

Robert L. Chapman Robert Lundquist Chapman (December 28, 1920 – January 27, 2002) was an American professor of English literature who edited several dictionaries and thesauri. Chapman was born in Huntington, West Virginia to Curtis W. Chapman, a typewriter ...

English professor Albert H. Marckwardt called the first edition a "highly useful work". He critiqued it for inconsistencies on what constitutes slang, but compared it favorably to

Eric Partridge Eric Honeywood Partridge (6 February 1894 – 1 June 1979) was a New Zealand–British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the Army Education Corps and ...

's ''Smaller Slang Dictionary'' because of the latter's lack of offensive terms. Linguistics professor

Madeleine Mathiot Madeleine Mathiot (June 11, 1927 – December 4, 2020) was a Professor emerita of Linguistics at the University at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York. Mathiot received her Ph.D. in 1966 from the Catholic University of America with a dissertation entit ...

criticized the exclusion of "fad" terms, which were omitted because the authors required two usages of a term separated by at least five years for it to be included. The dictionary was banned from some schools in California in 1963 as part of larger concern with its potential obscenity, including concern from Los Angeles City Councilman

John C. Holland John C. Holland (July 6, 1893 – March 10, 1970) was one of the longest-serving Los Angeles City Council members, for 24 years from 1943 to 1967, and was known for his losing fight against bringing the Los Angeles Dodgers to Chavez Ravine and for ...

. It was banned from certain schools in Colorado in 1981.

References

{{reflist Slang dictionaries English dictionaries