SPectator, May 13, 1972 Oil taSite °ti tanlind Ch ristopher Hudson La nderground
Dictionary, Eugene E. ridY (MacGibbon and Kee, £1.50) alba first thing, when you've pumped up n,tanaged not to hit a roller, is to shoot biniunk. Then you wait to feel a flash ore -re lYing down and stroking the lizard so,,MaYbe strapping on with your main Leastways you hope not to ralph, Cf.ve the stumbles or tune out before vel`.ting the moon. I could continue in this You'll pardon the expression, but it help mean next to nothing without the c0, ryd Dr Landy's Los Angeles-based le-rcerground Dictionary, a modest work of 14le°rtrid graPhy that would have Eric T,..e turning in his grave. atai;'e Underground, according to the wa—nr, is composed of dropouts from the takte-earoing world, particularly drug drop-outs, and his Dictionary is not buetr",'Y a glossary of the terms thay use verh'°Mprises, together with a few simple veri;s, and nouns, their entire range of %Ca' Communication. Dr Landy's range is Intr Inuch oductiongreater. He writes in his , "Not all forms of comvoice Ication are words. Tones, inflections of and even non-verbal gestures are an Thral Part of the sub-culture language." son.,-" slow-moving pomposity extends to ek,: of his definitions. You know is "An iolesstoo commonly used in conversation, fr:rinittent with what one is saying. Used ealentlY by drug addicts." Such an -est tempt to communicate with b Yeuth lash; learning its language parrot inn 'nil, like an anthropologist noting the to ecti°bs of the primitive tribe, isn't likely . narrow the generation gap one h`11 Dr Landy is probably .etre. the tinting-stock of everyone in Los Angeles icir the age of twenty-five. cate e character of the Dictionary is by the eight categories which aserti,t abbreviation in the text: blacks, drug rned'is' hornosexuals, motorcycle groups, m acal personnel, musicians, prisoners the il3nlice, and prostitutes. In explaining rg011, much incidental information to eri.61 ea. 'flow know that quinine is used bittel.'nteheroin because it has the same 81,41011a.li that schmekel is Yiddish for a „..schMuck, if that's how it is with dritp,'"'...at gravy is a solution of blood and tflusTtilat has clogged in the syringe and is that :e heated before it can be re-injected `v,erY council poster reading Support Travel Agent advertises the tha `" drug pusher (or "tambourine isa in Bob Dylan's song); that spooning NoeCe're intimate operation than it was in stirRir, °A.vard's day; that super pot is tiga—al spirit boiled and injected into a fre-rtte; that a wrinkle room is a bar rod by ageing homosexuals; that a IN. PnIk is an Ses testvIthial who is totally engrossed in the pro„e't group interaction. Many have no k;""ciat contacts, but merely attend differNti""P's every night, le group therapy, ener gr°1-tYps, T groups, sensitivity groups; that you can get high by spraying aerosol into a plastic bag and inhaling, or, for that matter, by chewing, smoking, sniffing and drinking banana peel, catnip, five-day deodorant pads, ethyl chloride, glue, gum, lettuce, millet seeds, morning-glory seeds, mucara, nutmeg, periwinkle leaves and tea.
All the same, the Dictionary makes depressing reading. Phonetically the jargon is sharp, ugly, spiky, short (owing to the natural reluctance of druggies to embark on polysyllables), jerky, often onomatopoeic, with numerous lendings from Yiddish, Spanish and medical dictionaries. Most of it seems to be intentionally ugly, as if anything lyrically appealing is so much movie-talk, the kind of slush that conned their parents into thinking that everything in the garden was beautiful, whereas in fact it is brutal, hard-edged and probably very nasty. Anything smelling of moderation is hypocritical: and hypocrisy iro the exponents of this dictionary is what cowardice used to be, and dishonour to an earlier age still. But the effect of this is to arrive at a language that is elitist, in that, like any set of shibboleths, it is fashioned to exclude the majority and brand them as outsiders; and also corrupt, in the eyes of anyone who believes that precision instruments have created what is most beautiful and long-lasting in any society, and that blunt instruments like this are most commonly associated with arbitrariness and destruction.
The arbitrariness is plain to see. Most adjectives end up meaning ” good " or " bad " and usually both, since it is the spirit rather than the letter of conversations which is important. Nouns too are multivalent, skin can be a handshake, an intrcmuscular injection, the cigarette paper used to roll reefers, or a prphylactic. The longest lists of synonyms are given under marijuana, heroin and lsd; and love is only present under make love whose definition is "have sexual intercourse. See under Copulate." Emotional involvement going beyond the act of intercourse is a "head thing" — and if this appears unduly scornful, you are entering upon a world where PTA means "Pussy, tits and ass' not the Parent-Teacher Association. The most denigratory terms are reserved for women (scag, crack, garbage can, etc) and for homosexuals (punk, auntie etc).
As usual in these things, the United States is one step ahead of us, but there is no cause for alarmism. Dr Landy's pioneering scholarship is not going to replace the work of CT Onions and the OED. It is easy to argue that to accept the language of the Overground is to be straitjacketed by all the connotations and attributes that accompany it. But no matter what desperate attempts are made to skirt this problem — from the comic-strip vocabulary of childhood, zap, zonk, wow, to the runic simplicities of Tolkein — the inexorable truth is that when the revolution comes, as Time Out week after week in its diary columns assures us it will, it will have to be conducted in an adequately complex language which demands that definitions be maintained and ambiguities left to poets and dreamers of the next nirvana. So don't waste time on Underground Dictionary. Zonk out with a good book.
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