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“An erudite bag of candy.” 

BENJAMIN DRYER — author of Dreyer’s English

 

“The world’s secret languages, decoded.” 

FINANCIAL TIMES

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“This truly remarkable book is quite unlike

any other work of etymology or entertainment.”

ANDREW ROBERTS — historian

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“Each chapter is a dinner party next to a delightfully peculiar guest.” 

ANNIE RAUWERDA — founder of Depths of Wikipedia

 

“Rabbit holes are rarely this satisfying.”

 ADAM MOSS — author of The Work of Art

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“I can’t remember when I’ve gotten so much pure pleasure from a book
— or learned so many amazing things from one.”

 JACOB WEISBERG — former Editor of Slate and co-founder of Pushkin Industries

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“One of the great wordsmiths of our time.”

 KATE KRADER — Bloomberg Pursuits

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“Like finding a key to a secret world.”

 TOWN & COUNTRY

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“Beyond extraordinary.”

 GYLES BRANDRETH — Writer, broadcaster, national treasure

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“This is not simply an assemblage of quirky information. It is also a kind of anthropology, the examination of the peculiar tribes into which our culture is sub-divided … Crack the code and you crack the value system.”

LONDON EVENING STANDARD

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“Schott’s great interest is taxonomy. How do we organise what we know, and how might we do it differently? How do specific social groups use language to bind themselves together and keep outsiders at arm’s length? His inspiration was a boyhood encounter with the work of Iona and Peter Opie, who in the 1950s minutely studied the lore and vocabulary of schoolchildren. Like them, he sees the virtue in taking seriously what’s usually treated as trivial, and perceives metaphorical verdure where others tend to see flimsy transience – in jeers, puns, epithets, quips, superstitions and slogans.

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… This is a book for dipping into, and therefore probably doomed to be described as ‘eminently giftable’. Yet it’s too rich and chewy and brain-tickling simply to be consigned to a shelf above the loo. There’s plenty here to titillate logophiles, collectors of trivia and setters of pub quizzes as well as amateur social anthropologists. Take the chapter on graffiti: having acknowledged that it is criminal vandalism, Schott goes on to give an informative account of a phenomenon he characterises as a ‘private conversation on which passers-by eavesdrop without understanding’. Tuning into its idiom – and the poetry, be it sour or sweet, of other subcultures – makes one see a corner of the world anew.”

HENRY HITCHINGS — The Spectator

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“A sprightly assortment of insider lingo and esoterica drawn from a host of subcultures … this hefty and colorful ersatz encyclopedia is filled with deep dives on communities from Swifties to reality-TV producers to crypto bros and more … Throughout, Schott cultivates a wry, bemused tone, with a finely tuned ear for terms that are thick in irony … The book is largely inspiring, suggesting the world is filled to bursting with communities with their own secret codes … An engrossing compendium for word nerds and armchair sociologists alike.”

 KIRKUS — Starred Review

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“Ben Schott … has strip-mined the secret languages of the world for the genius SCHOTT’S SIGNIFICA. An astonishing amount of research has gone into breaking open dozens of fields from competitive eating to espionage to Italian gesticulations to cartoons to dog walkers to journalese. It’s a beautifully designed hardback (also done by Schott) that should immediately be bought for the word nerds.”

 NEW ZEALAND LISTENER — Mark Broatch

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