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Word: floaters (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
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Usage:

Everything, it seems at first, is in this book; such ghoulish, semi-slang tintypes as "God's image cut in ebony" (for Negro); such beautifully graphic trade terms as the miner's "snow" (for the sifting of earth presaging a cave-in), the ballplayer's "floater" (for a slow ball), the prostitute's "pivot" (for solicitation from a window). Practically all the unmailable words turn up, along with a tremendous set of their variants and embellishments. So does the surrealist language of drug addicts, the high-heeled dialect of perverts, the likable archaisms of lumberjacks (they...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Books: U. S. Slang | 3/2/1942 | See Source »

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