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Books

What other job lets you swear in front of your parents?

A review of Jonathon Green's Odd Job Man. This memoir of a slang lexicographer is well nang

15 March 2014

9:00 AM

15 March 2014

9:00 AM

Odd Job Man Jonathon Green

Cape, pp.336, £17.99, ISBN: 9780224097581

There aren’t many jobs that allow a nice middle-class Jewish boy to say ‘fuck’ in front of his parents. But Jonathon Green found one: compiling slang dictionaries. This memoir of a life spent exploring the grubby margins of the English language reveals plenty about both that language and Green himself.

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