--- description: THE AMERICAN THESAURUS OF SLANG (1,231 pp.)—Lesfer V. Berrey and Melvin Van den Bark—Crowell ($6.50).American slang breeds faster than editors can edit or printers can print. The original... title: Books: Mahaha image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Books: Mahaha by [TIME](/author/time/) Mar 3, 1947 5:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Mar 3, 1947 5:00 AM CUT THE AMERICAN THESAURUS OF SLANG (1,231 pp.)—Lesfer V. Berrey and Melvin Van den Bark—Crowell ($6.50). American slang breeds faster than editors can edit or printers can print. The original edition of the mammoth American Thesaurus of Slang (TIME, March 2, 1942) had more than 100,000 words & phrases in it. By the time it hit the bookstores, it was already slightly arky. Now Lester V. Berrey and Melvin Van den Bark have provided 5,000-6,000 more terms, partly teen-age talk, partly military slang, for a new, enlarged edition. A good many of the contributions sound like a disc jockey’s idea of how a real, live jazz fan talks. Samples: satisfactory: creamy, darby, glassy unsatisfactory: creepy, drooly, gleepy unpopular person: drizzle, drone, fumb, glom, herkle, hinkle, square, toad confused: miced up silly talk: mahaha character labels: Austin from Boston, fluke from Dubuque, groan from Bayonne, keeno from Reno, leery from Erie, mute from Butte, noisy from Boise, pester from Chester, skunk from Podunk, trixie from Dixie. Books: Mahaha ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6792183/books-mahaha/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6792183/books-mahaha/"},"headline":"Books: Mahaha","datePublished":"1947-03-03T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T19:03:25.451Z","description":"THE AMERICAN THESAURUS OF SLANG (1,231 pp.)—Lesfer V. Berrey and Melvin Van den Bark—Crowell ($6.50).American slang breeds faster than editors can edit or printers can print. The original...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6792183/books-mahaha/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6792183/books-mahaha/","name":"Books: Mahaha"}}]}] ```