"Who can Whitney Houston call, day or night, to tell her innermost thoughts or just shoot the breeze?" (Gospel singer CeCe Winans.)
This example is only one of many from the new (fourth) edition of A Dictionary of Anglo-American Slang published recently, since the first three editions were sold out. The author of the dictionary is Borivoj Gerzić (1959), a writer and translator, who has done transliterations for a decade (he published two collections of short stories and translated Beckett, Joyce, Pinter, Mamet, Shepard, Albie, and others). The Dictionary of Anglo-American Slang was a logical continuation of his English-Serbian Dictionary of Phrases and Idioms published in three editions.
The Dictionary of Anglo-American Slang has about 5000 contemporary jargon phrases illustrated with carefully picked examples demonstrating how and when these expressions are used. Gerzić translates cake-walk as "nešto veoma lako" and "mačji kašalj", adding that piece of cake, cinch and breeze are similar, and gives the following example: Our players thought this season was going to be a cake-walk. Have shit for brains he translates with serbian slang term "imati surutku u glavi", while A.C.-D.C., aside from meaning something was both electrical and battery powered, when used in jargon for bisexual. Shoot the breeze from the example given at the top of the text, is translated as "tračariti", while the terms ventilate or rub out for example, mean "to kill". They are caried by "doušnik", "cinkaroš" or "taster", and flatfoot is carried by "pandur". The dictionary has 272 pages bearing effective design covers. According to the author, it is first intended for translators both in literature and journalism, and also film, theatar play etc. It is also there for pupils, students and all those who wish to became familiar with the meaning of English, which picturesque expression is slang.
English has become flexible today, so without such a dictionary, it would not be as easy to understand contemporary literature or films, especially for literature, film and rock music have become all the more an authentic language in closed circles (subcultures), such as students, teenagers, the military and cockney culture (GB), narkomaniac formations and pop musician, the underworld and prison world, the black population (US), showbusiness, street talk, among immigrants, vagrants, the police, gambling man, athletes, etc. Usage of slang isn't only to show the purity of language, it is also advocates its afluence. The concern regards a mass and picturesque replacement of stale terms in use for a long time. Slang phrases have greater emotional crescendo than standard words that explain the tacit contempt, but in opposition they express sort of a courage towards moral and lingual authority.
For some Anglo-american slang terms there are reciprocal equivalents in Serbian, some however require new expression. For instant, the English say hit the bottle, and the Serbs have a similar term: "udariti po flaši" or "frizirati račune" (cook the books), while pushover, for example, does not have an equivalent in Serb, so it must be transcripted with "nešto vrlo lako".
Srdjan Vujica, anglicist and translator, said the need for this dictionary among us was great, and the benefits such a venture brought, were most certainly to be significant. "Gerzić's dictionary has a chain of positive aspects. This is first place pertains to choice of building material and clear explanations, which this presenter had no greater objections to, at least not by now. Therein, especially important - furtunately successful too - was that Gerzić when possible, cited in his explanations respective jargon terms in Serbian language. Regarding precision of the Dictionary, it probably has to do with well-selected secondary literature listed at the books end."
Journalist Simo Ćirković wrote that: "Lovers of this global language of the modern world might see it as a hard-to-imagine shading of both Serb and English. Not running from archaic expressions either, but respecting the elite characteristics of Belgrade style, this young lexicographer has compiled a piece even a team of experts should honour."
Critique Nikola Šuica believes that "for a Belgrade circle, the solo publishing venture of writer and interpretor Bora Gerzić, thoughtfully and inovatively covers an area under the authority and organizational focus of many publishers and philology institutions. It is customary in Belgrade circles that individual initiative and consistence, are showed to be important and worthy, in spite of what had ruled in past years, being a defeatist attitude of avoidance and neglect towards such autotomic occurance (...) In any circles, Gerzić's dictionary of this type and such impact should be greeted as publishing event."
Ksenija Janković