It's no Oxford English, but this ain't Oxford. And although the English contained in this dictionary may baffle more erudite collectors of lexicons, the scholars who assembled Cal Poly Pomona's latest reference book maintain that their tome is "da bomb."
Fascinated by the link between language and cultural identity, Cal Poly Pomona professor Judi Sanders instructed students in her undergraduate intercultural communication class to cull all the gems of speech that they heard on campus for 10 weeks and compile the definitive guide to student-speak.
The result is the fifth edition of a campus slang dictionary, "Da Bomb! Dis Is Dope, Dude! Dig It!"--a funny reference book and an intriguing sociological look at college culture.
"College students make slang about things that are of consequence in their lives," Sanders said. "Money is of consequence, so there are a lot of terms about money. Sex and relationships are also part of college life . . . and there are a lot of terms about intoxicants."
Collections of colloquialisms are older than Moon Zappa's Valley Girl manual or any of the multitudinous politically correct how-to guides. But "Da Bomb!" has inspired a new wave of word madness on campus: It has been out for less than a month, and already 100 copies have been snatched up.
"They have 4:20 in there?" said biology senior Don Keidel, 21, flipping through a coveted copy in the student cafeteria. The term "4:20" is a popular marijuana reference. Then catching himself, he muttered, "I've, uh, heard other people say that."
Keidel's eyes widened as he read more slang terms that he's, uh, heard other people use.
"Lit," he laughed, reading a colloquialism for intoxication. "This is funny."
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As popular as it is with students, the dictionary will probably never make it into the likes of Oprah's book club. The compilation can only be purchased, at $2 a pop, through its publisher/distributor, the Cal Poly Communication Department.
Although some of the words are endemic to Cal Poly ("Bronco swapmeet," for instance, refers to vendors who sell their goods in the quad area of campus), many of the phrases found in the dictionary can be heard on college and high school campuses across the nation.
During a visitor-teaching stint at Iowa State in 1994, Sanders noticed that her Midwestern students included many of the same words in their slang dictionary that her California students used.
