Calling all Dapper Dans and Oomph Girls - take a ride through the American lexicon at its most inventive. Word lovers, screenwriters, and movie buffs will find a bonanza of timeless language and lost words and phrases.
The Cheaper the Crook, the Gaudier the Patter: Forgotten Hipster Lines, Tough Guy Talk, and Jive Gems
explores the rich vocabulary of gangsters, hipsters, jazz musicians, and military personnel of the 1930s and ’40s. Entries include definitions, etymology, and examples of usage. Chapters include:
Gumshoes, Gunsels, Mugs, and Molls
Daddies, Dishes, Dreamboats, and Drugstore Cowboys
Hipsters, Hepsters, Daddy-O’s, and Zoot-Suiters
Swabbies, Sad Sacks, Broke Dicks, and Jodies
Wood Pushers, White -Shoes, Kibitzers, and Knuckle Busters
Four-Flushers, Two-Times, Bad Eggs, and Egg Suckers
This delightful compendium celebrates the linguistic gems cut and polished during the Great Depression, World War I, and the postwar fifties—now forgotten or in danger of being forgotten.