Strange Vernaculars

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This brilliant book is a wise analysis of a range of vernacular words - slang, thieves' jargon, sailors' dialect - found in an admirably broad survey of reference works and canonical and noncanonical eighteenth-century literature. I enjoyed the detailed literary and cultural contexts and was incredibly impressed by the breadth of primary linguistic sources and secondary scholarship. Providing rich, interconnected perspectives on language, literature, and cultural history, Sorensen's argument is persuasively sophisticated. - Carol Percy, University of Toronto