'No previous work of lexicography has ever stood as such a monument to mankind's baseness and wilful disinclination to self-improve'
'Multi-faceted and unflinching'
'Green's astonishing, peerless collage ... is the entire anglophone world unmediated'
'[Green] belongs to a rare pantheon'
(Jonathan Meades, The Evening Standard 20101118)
'the reference work of the vulgar tongue to which all others must now be referred [...] he has now exhibited English slang in more detail than any lexicographer before him'
(Jeremy Noel-Tod, The Telegraph 20101025)
'... It's not hyperbolic to suggest that it's the OED of slang'
(Michael Quinion, World Wide Words.com 20101127)
'After more than a decade's labour, Jonathon Green, lexicographer of the subversive, has produced as fine a three-volume dictionary of slang as you would desire to piss upon (1700: phrase meaning "excellent, first-rate").'
(Steven Poole, The Guardian 20101218)
' ... any language lover will find this as compelling a read as a thriller ... The dictionary is a stupendous achievement, in range, meticulous scholarship, and not least enterainment value'
(Christopher Hart, The Sunday Times 20101219)
'this is the sort of book that, even when examined for a specific purpose, invites sustained perusal'
(Henry Hitchings, Financial Times 20101230)
'A magnificent work of scholarship'
(Colin MacCabe, The New Statesman 20110103)
'The range of sources is breathtaking'
(James Sharpe, Times Literary Supplement 20110202)
'a wonderfully politically incorrect source of education and entertainment'
(Prof. Chris Williams, walesonline.co.uk 20110529)
'This is the most significant dictionary of slang that has ever been produced ... Get it.'
(Australian Book Review 20110701)
'With the historical context and sample sentences, Green's shows the depth and breadth of slang as we've never seen it. It is now the number one authority on slang--for etymology, appropriateness, and social context. If words are your trade, you just don't have a full toolbox without Green's'
(www.copyediting.com 20110816)
**** WINNER OF THE 2012 DARTMOUTH MEDAL, RECOGNISING THE MOST OUTSTANDING REFERENCE WORK OF THE YEAR ****
(American Library Association 20110124)
"Jonathan Green's is a dictionary for the ages, as special a catalogue of word-biographies as James Murray himself might have created, and likely to endure as long as the OED...To praise another way: Green's dictionary is, in short, the dog's bollocks."
(New York Review of Books 20120308)
'Quite simply the best historical dictionary of English slang there is, ever has been ... or is ever likely to be'
(Julie Coleman, Journal of English Language and Linguistics 20120301)
'A treasure trove of a dictionary. Green's preface hits the nail on the head when he says that it is a work for anyone who is curious enough to open it. Dipping in and out of these three volumes has been a treat and through this process I have definitely increased my vocabulary.'
(The Linguist 20120821)
