Jonathon Green is a British lexicographer of slang and writer on the history of alternative cultures. Jonathon Green is often referred to as the English-speaking world’s leading lexicographer of slang

Slang

Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...

, and has even been described as 'The most-acclaimed British lexicographer since Johnson'.

Life and career

Green was educated at Bedford School

Bedford School

Bedford School is not to be confused with Bedford Modern School or Bedford High School or Old Bedford School in Bedford, TexasBedford School is an HMC independent school for boys located in the town of Bedford, England, United Kingdom...

 1961-1965 and Brasenose College, Oxford

Brasenose College, Oxford

Brasenose College, originally Brazen Nose College , is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. As of 2006, it has an estimated financial endowment of £98m...

 1966-1969.

Author, freelance journalist, broadcaster and lecturer, Green primarily works in the collection and analysis of slang. To this end, he has amassed a database, which – according to Green – holds around 125,000 slang words and phrases, underpinned by over 550,000 citations (examples of usage). It covers English-language slang since the 16th century and offers the vocabularies of the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Éire and the anglophone Caribbean. This database provides a resource for all his slang-related publications.

For Green, slang is as much a part of the greater English language as any other of its sub-sets such as dialect

Dialect

The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

 or technicalities. But unlike those, it opts for an actively oppositional role. With a conscious acknowledgement of the Counterculture of the 1960s

Counterculture of the 1960s

The counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...

 (in which he played a part and of which he has written, see below) he has termed slang the ‘counter-language’ and more recently ‘the language that says “no”'. Born at the margins it has remained there, even if the secrecy that lay at the heart of older slang cannot resist the information flow of the modern world.

Current work

Green’s latest work is Green's Dictionary of Slang: a multi-volume slang dictionary which traces, via examples and citations drawn from the last five centuries, the history of the slang vocabulary from the earliest use of every term. It includes slang from across the English-speaking world. It was published in the UK in late November 2010 and will appear in the US in January 2011. An e-book version has been released as part of the Oxford Digital Reference Shelf collection.

The single-volume Chambers Slang Dictionary (Chambers Harrap) was first published in 1998; a second edition appeared in October 2008. Getting Off at Gateshead: An A–Z of Filth (Quercus) was also published in October 2008.

He is currently working on a History of Slang, due to be published by Grove Atlantic in 2012.

He lives in London and Paris.

Publications

Language: Dictionaries and Related Publications

• Newspeak: A Dictionary of Jargon (1983)

• The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (1984, 1992, 1995)

• The Slang Thesaurus (1986, 1999)

• The A–Z of Nuclear Jargon (1986)

• The Dictionary of Jargon (1987 RKP)

• Neologisms: a dictionary of contemporary coinages (1991)

• Slang Down the Ages: the Historical Development of Slang (1993)

• Words Apart: the Language of Prejudice (1996)

• Chasing The Sun: Dictionary-Makers and the Dictionaries They Made (1996)

• Cassell Dictionary of Slang (1998, 2005)

• Big Book of Filth (1999)

• Big Book of Being Rude (2000)

• Big Book of Bodily Functions (2001)

• Talking Dirty: A Slang Phrasebook (2003)

Dictionaries of Quotations

• Famous Last Words (1979, 1997)

• Contemporary Dictionary of Quotations (1982)

• The Cynics’ Lexicon (1984)

• Cassell Dictionary of Insulting Quotations
  Dictionary of Insulting Quotations
  The Dictionary of Insulting Quotations is a book compiled by Jonathon Green first published in 1996 by Cassell ....
  
  (1996 Cassell, p/b 1997)

Oral Histories

• Days In The Life: Voices from the English Underground 1961-–71 (1988)

• Them: Voices from the Immigrant Community in Contemporary Britain (1990)

• It: Sex Since the Sixties (1993)

Miscellaneous Publications

• The Encyclopedia of Censorship (1990)

• All Dressed Up: The Sixties and the Counterculture (1998)

• Cutting it Fine: Inside the Restaurant Business, with Andrew Parkinson (2000)

• Cannabis: A History (2002)

Contributor

• The Language Report, ed. Susie Dent (2005, 2006)

• Elsevier Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition: contributor, 'Anglophone Slang Lexicography'

• Dictionary of National Biography, revised edition: contributor, 'Eric Partridge', 'Sapper [H.C. McNeile]'

• Bloomsbury Good Word Guide (1988, 1990, 1994), contributing editor: Slang and Jargon entries

Consultant

• Oxford English Dictionary
  Oxford English Dictionary
  The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
  
  

Interviews and Podcasts

• Jonathon Green on Meet the Author UK
• Interview in The Generalist
• If there are only thirteen dirty words, how come this book is so big? The Word podcast with Jonathon Green.

Reviews

• "Wimping it", The Times Literary Supplement
  The Times Literary Supplement
  The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
  
  , 30 June 2006
• Getting off at Gateshead, By Jonathon Green, The Independent
  The Independent
  The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
  
  , 21 November 2008
• Fact and fun with the stars of geek heaven, The Independent
  The Independent
  The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
  
  , 28 November 2008