"The characters of Buffy The Vampire Slayer twist, bend, fold, and mutilate their language - and it's that creativity that draws fans to the show, fans who go on to use those same new twists on words and phrases in their own language. The result has been a strikingly resonant lexicon that reflects the power of both youth culture and television in the evolution of American slang. Using the show to illustrate how new slang is formed, transformed, and transmitted, Slayer Slang is one of those rare books that combines a serious explanation of a pop culture phenomenon with an engrossing read for Buffy fans, language mavens, and pop-culture critics. Noted linguist Michael Adams begins his book with a synopsis of the program's history, an essay on the nature and evolution of the show's language, and a defense of ephemeral language. He then moves to the main body of the work: a detailed glossary of slayer slang, annotated with actual dialogue and recorded in the accepted style of the American Dialect Society. Each chapter closes with a bibliography, and the book is rounded off with a detailed index."--Jacket.