DawgSpeak!: The Slanguage Dictionary of the University of Georgia

This report addresses salient issues in a lexicography class developed by the author at the University of Georgia. Our class project is a dictionary of slang terms used on the UGA campus, titled "Dawgspeak." This dictionary, now in its sixth edition, has over 1750 entries in it. The question of how to carve up meaning is made concrete by the dictionary editor's decisions on how to treat the meanings of lexical items. When the treatment involves slang terms, their non-standardized and ephemeral nature may lead students to perceive the probable meanings differently depending on their own usage patterns, which can lead to profitable discussions in the lexicography class. The report concludes with sample pages from the "B" section and the "Slang Grammar Help Page."