Recent research...

I have a couple or three shows coming up and I am moving away from the literary quotations that have been subject matter for a while...I am looking for new subjects in the argot of various groups. The idea of dictionaries that guide readers through worlds that are intentionally closed off by language is interesting...

This could get messy...

This brochure, produced by a detective agency around 1880, contains a section of the slang of Philadelphia's petty thieves. We are told that "You rarely hear slang form thieves over 30 years of age. Although all crooks are familiar with the terms, its use is chiefly confined to pickpockets, sneak-thieves, and the younger class of criminals, who take delight in mastering the language of their elders and in familiarizing themselves with its use." (21) 

Bruce Rodgers' 1972 book is as personal and idiosyncratic as these kinds of books tend to be. "Slang flourishes in the ghetto," he writes in the introduction, "Those who leave the ghetto shake off its language first, then decry its message. Slang is secretive, a form of protest and an expression of social recognition [...] yet this secretiveness is not snobby; anyone interested can break the code [...] when the secrecy in slang becomes and object in and of itself [...] slang stops being primarily a means of communication." 

More to come. These were found at Temple University's Special Collections Research Center (thanks!).