KISKEEDEE? LOOK IT UP!

By Jesse Birnbaum

The human capacity for insult, denigration and blasphemy seems utterly boundless. University of Tennessee research associate professor Jonathan E. Lighter demonstrated this in 1994 with the first volume of his Historical Dictionary of American Slang (A through G). Volume II (Random House; 736 pages; $65)--beginning with H, a euphemism for hell, and ending 10,000 definitions later at the letter O with Ozzie, an Australian--once again reflects Americans' ingenious talent for verbal invention as well as Lighter's indefatigable scholarship.

As in the first volume, Lighter shows that most slang terms describe sexual activity or genitalia, or derive from the private lingo of a few groups: the underworld, students, the military, drug users and African Americans. Some terms are merely colorfully descriptive: a No-Tell Motel (1974) is a cheap trysting place; an Oklahoma credit card (1966) is a siphon tube used for stealing gasoline; a kiskeedee (1857) is a French-speaking person who is unable to understand English and keeps asking, "Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?" (What is he saying?).

What is most sobering, not to say appalling, is to find no fewer than seven pages of entries devoted to the wretched N word. Its earliest recorded use, in 1574, was spelled niger, early modern English meaning "black in color." There was a time--hard to believe--that the term was considered inoffensive. Over the years, it evolved a huge number of variations, all pejorative, but not, apparently, until the 20th century did it become so execrable a term of opprobrium, especially among whites. Ironically, as Lighter says, many blacks use the N word as an "affectionate, ironic, jocular, or occasional complimentary epithet."

Other epithets, many not so complimentary, play on proper names. To Hoover is to inhale or consume greedily; Ike is an uncouth fellow; LBJ, the military's Long Binh jail in Vietnam; Jerusalem Slim, the radical syndicalists' derisive name for Jesus; Oscar, an unpleasant or foolish man. Joe gets more than three pages of entries, among them Joe Lunchpail, an ordinary working man, and Joe Sad, black English for a friendless or unpopular man. John Wayne wins nine citations. To John-Wayne is to attack with great force; a John Wayne cookie is a military field-ration biscuit.

Easily more nourishing than a barrel of biscuits is this fine, most definitive of lexicons. Logophiles can munch happily on it till the year 2000, when the third and final volume is expected to arrive.

--By Jesse Birnbaum