Admittedly, Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon by Michael Adams initially presents itself as yet another publication geared solely towards obsessive fans of a genre television program. To my surprise, the author does not write scripts for the show, nor does he normally write literature about the show. In fact, Michael Adams is Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at Albright College and the editor of Dictionaries: The Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America. Before this book, he published many articles about American English and the history of lexicography. Slayer Slang delves deep into a normally dry subject, grammar, and makes it interesting by directly relating it in great detail to the television program's amusing lexicon.
How did a professor of English and Linguistics come to write about such a strange topic? It is simple: "he was channel surfing past the WB, and heard some random teenager say the line, Love makes you do the wacky.- Adams was immediately hooked and soon started cataloging the slang and jargon, excited by the "wealth of new words and old phrases used in new ways."" He does not "think any other television show has been as productive at bringing new words into the language as Buffy the Vampire Slayer It is a type of literature. Buffy is a text that people care about. The language used in the show is eloquent, it expresses things very precisely- (buffy.nu). So, Adams' attraction to the show is based more on his love of language than on a love for genre television.
One of the most distinctive features of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the novel way the show's writers manipulate language by creating new words, transforming normal ones, and showing complete disregard for usage. "The result has been a strikingly resonant lexicon that reflects the power of both youth culture and television in the evolution of American slang- (slayage.
