PAGES : This Slang Stuff Needs a Dictionary

Kids! They say the darnedest things.

Like barney , the description not of a large purple dinosaur, but of a “very nice looking guy.” (Sample sentence: “That guy has such a good body--what a barney!”)

Of course in another context, barney also translates to a “stupid or inadequate male, a loser.” (“That guy is a real barney.”)

Then again, there’s barney the verb, meaning “to mess up.” (“I barneyed on my math midterm yesterday.”)

Or barney , the beginning surfer. (“Randy got a summer job teaching barneys how to surf.”)

For clarification--and possible help in communicating with anyone between 18 and 22--readers are advised to turn to “UCLA Slang 2,” a dictionary produced by the Department of Linguistics at that prestigious Westwood campus.

Pamela Munro, the editor, describes this newest volume as “a contribution to the literature on American slang, continuing a tradition of recording and analyzing slang at UCLA.”