Editions of dictionaries are fascinating snapshots into the times in which they are written and produced. Baker compiled the first edition of his dictionary in 1941; he spent that year as a Commonwealth Literary Fellow researching and collecting Australian and New Zealand slang. The 1943 edition is a significant revision and extension of the 1941 work. Produced during World War II, it contains many new words that are annotated as ‘War slang’, ‘Digger slang’, ‘RAAF slang’, or ‘RAN slang’, such as bludgasite (a variant of bludger), to do a Penang (to run away), and squeak (a sergeant).

Baker was a tireless researcher and many of the terms in his collection had not been previously recorded. As his Australian Dictionary of Biography biographer, Bill Ramson (the first director of the Australian National Dictionary Centre, which I now head) writes, ‘[Baker] fossicked unremittingly’ and ‘his fascination with the vitality and life of Australian English [was] endless’. To that extent, while it can sometimes be difficult to find any supporting evidence for a lot of Baker’s entries (and some have turned out not to be Australian), it is likely he heard them from someone, somewhere – even if they were never widely used.

In the pages of A Popular Dictionary, Baker captures some marvellous expressions (as H.L. Mencken writes in his jacket blurb, ‘extremely pungent and original’), even if some are more fanciful than likely to be used in everyday speech. Some that caught my eye include: to be as free from sense as a frog from feathers, to have seen one’s last gumtree (to be near death), that’s one up against your duckhouse (a description of a setback to a person’s plans), to be as happy as a boxing kangaroo in fogtime, and to be able to kick the arse off an emu (to be in good health).

Slang dictionaries reveal the prejudices of their times, however, and Baker’s is no exception. It can be tempting to simply dismiss slang terms that are best characterised as slurs and epithets as lexical relics, but they attest to the racism and sexism of Australian society at a certain point in time. The lexicographer himself was not immune: not only does Baker include these terms – something that could be argued for in terms of being comprehensive and recording the full breadth of the slang lexicon – but he also has an occasional tendency to let his own prejudices colour his definitions. Baker includes, for example, a number of slang synonyms for sex workers (prostitution is a popular domain for slang lexicographers). These include endless belt, ferry, half-squarie, mallee root, and turtle. These are all recorded in a matter-of-fact way, with a simple definition of ‘a prostitute’. But there are also a number of terms that he defines as ‘a harlot’. These include bush scrubber (‘a country harlot’), chippy, and poncess (‘a harlot who keeps a man’).

A Popular Dictionary of Australian Slang was a preliminary foray into documenting Australian slang, and Baker followed it up with his magnum opus, The Australian Language (1945). He also intended to compile a comprehensive dictionary of Australian and New Zealand English, but it never eventuated. His work remains significant not just for his recording of slang, but also because of its impact as a contribution to the building of a cultural myth.

Baker believed his dictionary would contribute to the making of a cultural nationalism and maturity. As he wrote in his preface:

I nurse a seemingly unpopular, and hence somewhat lonely belief that one day Australians will write about themselves in terms of their own environment more enthusiastically than they do today. If they are to write about that environment they will have to know something of the language of Australians. … I offer the native product – terse, apt and often colourful – and if it does not serve to rid Australians of the noxious belief that all our worthwhile slang is imported from abroad I shall be disappointed.