Customer Reviews

Juba to Jive: A Dictionary of African-American Slang (Penguin Reference Books)

5 star:		(3)
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This book is by far the funniest book I've ever peered into. It gives comprehensive definitions, origins, time-periods, and in-context sentences of 99% of African American derived slang.

Educational. Entertaining.

It is explicit language but it is not at all gratuitous. 5 HUGE stars.

This book by Clarence Major is a must have for all cultural groups who want to stay up to date with Afro-Am Slanguage.

Why is that important? Because as our economy expands knowing how to understand and use the slanguage makes you a social threat to those who are ignorant of it. With the ability comes the freedom to go from the Hood to the White House without missing a beat.

And with the awareness of young white children expanding because of the growing epidemic of Hip-Hop suburban parents need to get up on top of it in order to know what in the world their children are saying.

As a matter of fact due to the impact of Hip-Hop language the slanguage has expanded. Now what you don't know keeps you locked out to the point where you're an outsider. But if you want to stay in step tune into this book.

This dictionary is well put together with a great deal of history behind every word. Clarence Major's input in the introduction further preps you for the expansive nature of the African-American culture. Whether you're into expanding your knowledge of language, slanguage, idioms or language development you need to acquire this book and expand your understanding of the history behind Black Slang words. So Juba, what you goin' do? Have me tell you what everyword means? or are you going to step out and take your own life by the horns.

Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE

This is one of the best books ever on African American language. And yes, it is a language. The French experiemntal writer Raymond Federman challenged me to write a piece that would be densely and mentally impregnable to anyone but African Americans as American and English Colonies can be to other races. It succeeded on many levels. One, it was a fantastic story and two, it got me to use this book as source for finding new words/terms and as a reference to checking what I already knew.
Thsi book is invaluable to the scholar of language. I spent the last 2 years patiently hunting for this book as it is out of publication. I actually bought it at twice the cover price because it is that good. There is no higher that I can recommend this book. As the tapestry of language is art, this would be one of Picasso's treasured brushes.