The Queens’ Vernacular : A Gay Lexicon

Edition : First / San Francisco / Straight Arrow / 1972 / Softcover. / VG+
8vo, 272pp. Printed wraps as issued. Text in English.

Over 12,000 examples of coded gay slang from the 40s to the 70s compiled by Rodgers from an illustrious band of informants (some of whom I think were pulling Rodger’s leg) in bars, sanas, public toilets, street corners, bushes and night clubs. “If you accept cultural anthropologist Franz Boas’ dictum that “language is culture”, then you’ll agree that The Queens’ Vernacular is not only a first rate lexicography, but also an important contribution to the history of American culture.”