Customer Reviews

Dictionary of the American West

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is invaluable to me as I work in a Museum that specializes in western exploration and life. There have been very few inquiries from visitors from all over the world that cannot be found in this book. Information from the early 1800's to the present time abound in this book in very digestible terms. Excellent reference book.

OK, this book is a lot of fun to plain sit down and read the whole way through. His recent addition of Alaska as "The West" is a bit weird, and my only other complaint would be that once in awhile he'll add something that seems arbitrary, like some surfing term. There are maybe only 5 surfing terms in the whole book--why not all 100 of them, as they *are* arguably "Westernisms"? I guess when I think "The West" I think "The Old West," as in, prior to 1900. Also for research purposes he usu. doesn't mention the year a word was coined, and he does rely a lot on novelists, so if you plan to use this book for actual historical research, you'll need to double-source every term you might want to use.

Other than that, it's plain old fun to read...He tells a lot of stories in the definitions and is obviously having a lot of fun.

If you love reading about the Old West, if you value the language of settlers, pioneers, cowboys and cowgirls, then you will find this little gem hard to put down. You can open it anywhere and be instantly transported to cattle drives, saloons, cabins, and the wide open prairies. Wonderful slang, near-forgotten names for plants and people and the work they did - it's all here. There is pure Americana here and a real feel for our past with all its color, exaggeration, bravado and poetry. A rip snorter of a read and an invaluable asset for anyone aspiring to add a tone of authenticity to their Western writing.

This is a wonderful dictionary. Western language takes work and violence and humor and a canny sexuality and uses them to enrich the terse conversation of cowboys, Indians, loggers, and other wild folk with history, culture, tradition, puns and irreverence. It's a language that comes from Spanish and French and Dutch and Indian and cussedness.
This dictionary pauses in its definition of mayordomo to discuss New Mexican acequias in a liesurely way. The definition of dogie, and speculation on its origins, is a satisfying essay on its own.
It's a book for reading, not a reference tool--it's too hard to get out of to be resorted to on a purely practical basis. Makes you glad to be a speaking creature.

* A murder. A body in the streets at dawn. Said to have been commonplace in the early days of Los Angeles and in Denver.