Description

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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.

About the Author

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Alan Axelrod is the author of nearly 150 books on leadership, management, history, career development, general business, and other nonfiction. As founder and president of the Ian Samuel Group creative services firm, he has also ghostwritten, collaborated on, edited and provided consulting services to some of the largest corporations in America. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.