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Jesse Sheidlower

@jessesword.com

5K followers 470 following 2.2K posts

Lexicographer. The F-Word (new edition Nov. ’24!), sfdictionary.com, ex-OED, coder (mainly Perl and Python), Threesome Tollbooth #cocktail bar manager, adjunct @ Columbia.

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · Oct 22

News: the 4th edition of The F-Word is coming out in two weeks from Oxford UP! Everything you could want to know about the word _fuck_.

This is a major revision: 500 pages with 150 new entries, 150 antedatings, & 2,500 new quotations. See link below for more info!

jessesword.com/fword.html

Cover picture:
The F-Word
edited by Jesse Sheidlower
IV Edition

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Reposted by Jesse Sheidlower

Jon Danziger @danziger.bsky.social · 1d

“It *is* an acronym”

Marjorie James Keenan @unenthusiast.com · 1d

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

rm -rf ~/

hammancheez @hammancheez.bsky.social · 1d

"The chancellor approved it"

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Reposted by Jesse Sheidlower

Stefan Fatsis @stefanfatsis.bsky.social · 2d

My new book, UNABRIDGED, published by @groveatlantic.bsky.social, is out! It took a long time to report and write and I'm proud of it and would be grateful if you bought it and would love to see people when I'm traveling to promote it. Consider this an official book thread

Jacket cover of Stefan Fatsis's new book, Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 2d

Do you have an allergy to LaTeX? Try groff instead!

(Shamelessly copied from @[email protected] on Mastodon.)

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 3d

The Ho

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 3d

By complete coincidence, I was at one of my favorite bars in Brooklyn, Tooker Alley, tonight, and they had the Diamondback on the menu! Of course it was great.

Photo of a bar menu including a barely visible description of the Diamondback cocktail, illuminated by candlelight, with a Diamondback-cocktail-containing Nick and Nora glass in the shot.

Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 3d

Here for @modaviau.bsky.social's NYC launch of her great new novel Epic and Lovely, at Lofty Pigeon Books in Kensington.

Also bought @davidwondrich.bsky.social's new Comic History while here. Support local bookstores!

Picture of Mo Daviau with Roohi Choudhry at Lofty Pigeon Books

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 3d

No, we had to close at the start of the pandemic, and haven't yet figured out what to do next. We have elaborate private events of various kinds, but nothing public.

Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 3d

www.newyorker.com/culture/anna...

The Top-Secret New York Bar That’s Only Big Enough for Two Customers

The Threesome Tollbooth is neither a theatrical experience nor an erotic one—it is, simply, a bar.

www.newyorker.com

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 3d

...wearing his professional bartender hat in this case...

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 3d

punchdrink.com/recipes/diam...

Diamondback Rye Whiskey Cocktail Recipe | PUNCH

The Diamondback is a classic rye whiskey, yellow Chartreuse and applejack cocktail recipe from the Lord Baltimore Hotel.

punchdrink.com

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 3d

New entries for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: the "retro-futurism" terms, to support upcoming entries. Mostly based on the OED entries (though "-futurist" is an antedating). 1980s–.

sfdictionary.com/view/3045/re...
sfdictionary.com/view/3052/re...
sfdictionary.com/view/3044/re...

Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction: retro-futurism

Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction

sfdictionary.com

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 3d

Very Wodehousian!

Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 3d

I was just able to log in and use OED without issue.

Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 5d

Great movie but one viewing was enough for a lifetime, for me.

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 5d

There's a 2012 example in A. M. Bakalar's _Madame Mephisto_, but this is in a Polish context, if not explicitly stated to be Polish. Mhairi McFarlane's 2013 _Here's Looking At You_ uses it in a non-Polish context. Both of these are British.

That's the earliest I can find offhand.

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Reposted by Jesse Sheidlower

Mister Slang @misterslang.bsky.social · 6d

If it's October it must be GDoS Update time. And so it is: #36. A few notes (and a pic of an invaluable supporter) here:
jonathongreen.substack.com/p/gdos-updat...

GDoS Update #36

New material 1 July - 1 October 2025

jonathongreen.substack.com

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 6d

Some pretty impressive harvest supermoon action going on in NYC right now.

(I'm not a photographer, I'm not even gonna try.)

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 6d

Current reading: Sloane Crosley on the writer's drinking life:

yalereview.org/article/cros...

Sloane Crosley: “How Sober Should a Writer Be?”

Sloane Crosley on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s On Booze and the state of American drinking culture.

yalereview.org

Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 6d

I hope you also added OED's 1988 example!

Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 6d

More on Jilly Cooper: Just wanted to point out that the term _bonkbuster_, appearing frequently in coverage of her death, is in fact really used in the UK, not just a one-off joke. And yes, it's in the OED! Here's the entry, which has the deets:

Screenshot of the OED entry for _bonkbuster_, labelled "Chiefly British (colloquial and humorous), defined as "A type of popular novel characterized by frequent explicit descriptions of sexual encounters between the characters. Also: a film or television programme of this nature.", with the note "Popularized by the British writer Sue Limb (b. 1946), writing under the pseudonym ‘Dulcie Domum’, in her humorous newspaper column ‘Bad Housekeeping’ (1988–2001)", and quotations from 1988 onwards.

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 6d

Attn whisky fans in NYC: Astor is having a big sale on Lagavulin 16, probably my favorite non-"special" single-malt bottling, at the fantastic price of $80/bottle:

www.astorwines.com/item/37788

Lagavulin 16yr Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky | Astor Wines & Spirits

Welcome to New York City's largest wine & spirits store online. Come see why The Wall Street Journal says Astorwines.com is one of the best websites for buying wine online. Check out our daily deals a...

www.astorwines.com

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 6d

RIP Jilly Cooper. I skeeted this last year as part of a discussion on the meaning of "middle-class" in BrE vs. AmE:

Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · Aug 23

OMG I found it! It's in Jilly Cooper's 1981 _Class_. (I was trying to understand the British class system, which, as you observe, is very different from the American one.)

When I went on Yorkshire Television with Jean Rook of the Daily Express a few years ago, the interviewer began most embarrassingly by saying: “Now here you are, two columnists from Yorkshire, but from very different backgrounds. You’re working-class, aren’t you, Jean, and, Jilly, you’re upper-class.”

We both shrieked with horror.

"I'm middle, not upper," I muttered, going scarlet.

"I'm upper middle," said Miss Rook witheringly. "I know lots of duchesses."

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 6d

DM'ing!

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 7d

Yes, OED has this (in related forms) from 1968, 1970, and onwards.

Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 7d

Yes, it's Yiddish from Middle High German. Mostly British. In English, from the 1950s onwards.