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...rhizome, and R. Rhaponticum, having edible leafstalks. (No, that's not it.) 2. the rhizome of any medicinal species of this plant, forming a combined cathartic and astringent. (That ain't it, either.) 3. the edible fleshy leafstalks of any of the garden species. (That's gross) 4. U.S. Slang. a quarrel or a squabble. (Bingo...
...livings. Since its completion in 1928, exactly 71 years after it was proposed at a meeting of the Philological Society in London, the OED has stood as the ultimate authority on the tongue of Shakespeare and the King James Bible, not to mention the language of tradespeople and the slang of the streets. Relatively few speakers of English consulted it, to be sure; but many were reassured by the knowledge that it, an Everest of scholarship, was there...
These last entries are likely to attract most of the preliminary attention. The OED2 co-editors, John Simpson and Edmund Weiner, note that the generating ferment in English has shifted from the literary world toward those of science, business, medicine and North American slang. In fact, a partial listing of what the language has been up to lately is enough to inspire depression: brain-dead, nose job, right-to-die, acid rain, crack, heat-seeker, asset stripping, greenmail, petro-currency, barf, drunk tank. There is not much here that would inspire Keats to write...
...character is on view long enough to be irksome, or for the reader to wonder unduly at arbitrary choices of personal traits and adventures assigned by the author. Burgess, as always, throws in bits of the many languages he knows, mostly untranslated. But where the invented Russian- English slang in Clockwork Orange had a brilliant sting to it (horrorshow from horosho, meaning good, and lewdies from lyudi, people), the phrases here in Russian and Latin appear, after a dash to the dictionary, to be quite ordinary, not the keys to unsuspected puzzles...
Today Jersey Whitey, Carolina Slim, Alex the Greek and other pungent monikers of old sharks are simply quaint and colorful, and Minnesota Fats is the name of the overstuffed sandwich served at the Billiard Club. Still, mainstream pool will not wash away its old legacy. Slang like "snookered," "behind the eight ball" and "bad break" still means misfortune or treachery. The sport's new respectability may sadden those who savor the raunchiness of the old dives. For it was there, in the ramshackle shelter of the pool hall, on the margins of society, that one could, with luck...