He Studies Slanguage

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 57, 26 July 1940, Page 9

He Studies Slanguage

NZ W talks series On an Old and interesting subject will begin from 2YA at 3 p.m. on Sunday next, July 28. Sidney Baker (right) is to discuss "So You Speak English: A Survey of New Zealand and Australian Slang." He is a New Zealander by birth; and was educated at Wellington College and Victoria University. After ten years of journalism in this country, he went to Australia and England. He was feature writer with Sydney "Sunday Sun" for a year; and later acting-editor of the Bathurst "Advocate," N.S.W. When-he migrated to London he was for two years in Fleet Street; most of the time as editor of an English weekly. He has been studying the slanguage of New Zealand and Australia for nearly five

years, and is now completing a dictionary of it. Correspondents from all over the world-all old-timers in’ these two countries-haye given yeoman assistance in tracing the evolution of our slang and colloquialisms. To date, Mr. Baker has listed some 4,500 expressions. It has not been enough to record the slang used in New Zealand and Australia; it is necessary, he has found, to have an intimate knowledge of English and American slang expressions so that our own indigenous. term$ may be sorted out. He has combed through the literature and records of the Dominions from the earliest days, has read hundreds of novels, pamphlets, and other publications to trace the earliest dates when various expressions were used,