UCLA Occasional Papers in Linguistics Vol. 18:
U.C.L.A. Slang 3

A dictionary of over 1200 slang expressions in current use by UCLA undergraduate students

The dictionary was compiled by a team of twenty-four UCLA undergraduates under the direction of Prof. Pamela Munro. Work on the dictionary began in a lower-division honors linguistics seminar in Fall, 1996, with nine of the students continuing to edit and add to the dictionary in Winter 1997; final editorial work was completed in Spring 1997.

U.C.L.A. Slang 3 is the third in a quadrennial series of undergraduate slang dictionaries compiled by students working with Munro (U.C.L.A. Slang--later published commercially as Slang U.-- appeared in 1989, and U.C.L.A. Slang 2 in 1993). U.C.L.A. Slang 3 is not a revision, but a completely new undertaking, in which the student editors present current vocabulary specifically associated with UCLA.

U.C.L.A. Slang 3 includes definitions, example sentences, explanations of grammatical usage, notes relating the new words to slang expressions previously at UCLA and elsewhere, and a general range of terms, from words for people (such as Baldwin "handsome male", to tool "social misfit") to verbs expressing praise (such as be da bomb "to be the best") or condemnation (such as bite "to be unfortunate, bad") to adjectives (such as crispy "pretentious" or postal "crazy") and interjections (such as duh "obviously, you stupid idiot").

The student authors of U.C.L.A. Slang 3 included freshmen to seniors, representing a variety of majors. They were Jennifer Benedict, Michael A. Berman, Jessie Leah Blank, Katherine Close, Katie Elwell, Wendy Yasue Hayashi, Audrey Khuner, Julia P. Mitervski, Mayer Nazarian, Jaion Chung, Katrina A. Espinoza, Jura A. Hartley, Wayne Ho, Val Kisiel, Kevin B. Kleinrock, Sandy LeWinter, Ali Motamed, Caeser Nicholson, Jasmine Pachnanda, Chantal Barbara Pollicino R., Jacob Scott, Michael Sim, Kelly Bach Tuyet Tran, and Thuy Hang Thi Tran.