![]() ![]() ![]() "It's really the editing which is the most difficult part of it." "When you're doing something like this there is always the problem of what to leave out as much as what you put in. "A lot of slang starts on the edge with young people, with drugs and in prisons interesting enough, but a lot of that doesn't survive because it's very localised and very specialised," he says. Kelly, now a fulltime writer, says the dictionary was based on Sidney Baker's, New Zealand slang: A Dictionary of Colloquialisms which was published in the 1940s.īut his modern work also focuses on contemporary terms and includes slang he has seen used in New Zealand, regardless of its origin.ĭeciding whether an entry has true Kiwi heritage is often impossible, Kelly says. "I haven't got a lot of knowledge so I created lists and then gave them to friends and acquaintances that have better knowledge." ![]() "Like all dictionaries and including slang you go back to other sources," he says. The former bookshop owner says he spent a lot of time researching the meanings of different expressions. "But the list-making took over and the novel went into the bottom drawer and the next five years was spent doing this." "I was looking at developing the character through the language so I started putting together a list of Kiwi expressions which were different to the English ones," he says. Kelly, who spent 15 years working in England, began collecting slang while he was attempting to write a novel. ![]()
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