Editing Allen Walker Read (section)

=== ''Classic American Graffiti'' ===
Read's first extended work, ''Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America: A Glossarial Study of the Low Element in the English Vocabulary'', describes and collates examples of [[Latrinalia|bathroom graffiti]] observed by Reade on a road trip throughout the Western United States in 1928''.'' The book was privately published at his own expense in Paris in 1935, since its extensive inclusion of vulgarity was considered too obscene by American publishers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Major |first=Clarence |date=1979 |title=Classic American Graffiti: Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America, A Glossarial Study of the Low Element in the English Vocabulary (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/456054 |journal=Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=148–150 |doi=10.1353/dic.1979.0016 |s2cid=162293035 |issn=2160-5076 |access-date=2022-02-27 |archive-date=2018-06-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180601194829/http://muse.jhu.edu/article/456054 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Read |first=Allen Walker |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3523105 |title=Classic American graffiti : lexical evidence from folk epigraphy in western North America : a glossarial study of the low element in the English vocabulary |publisher=Maledicta |year=1977 |isbn=0-916500-06-3 |location=Waukesha, Wis. |pages=28 |chapter=Bibliographical Note |oclc=3523105 |access-date=2022-02-27 |archive-date=2022-02-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220227223007/https://www.worldcat.org/title/classic-american-graffiti-lexical-evidence-from-folk-epigraphy-in-western-north-america-a-glossarial-study-of-the-low-element-in-the-english-vocabulary/oclc/3523105 |url-status=live }}</ref> Even then, the printing was limited to 75 copies and contained a disclaimer that it should be "restricted to students of linguistics, folk-lore... and allied branches of social science."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kulick |first=Don |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53366822 |title=The handbook of language and gender |date=2003 |isbn=1-4051-2320-6 |editor-last=Holmes |editor-first=Janet |location=Malden, MA |pages=120 |chapter=Language and Desire |oclc=53366822 |editor-last2=Meyerhoff |editor-first2=Miriam |access-date=2022-02-27 |archive-date=2022-02-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220227223007/https://www.worldcat.org/title/handbook-of-language-and-gender/oclc/53366822 |url-status=live }}</ref> Read wrote in a foreword:<ref name=":4" /><blockquote>Judged merely as reading matter, the following work (apart from the Introduction) is abominably, incredibly obscene, and the compiler begs that any one will lay this book down who is not prepared to look at all social phenomenon with the dispassionate eye of the anthropologist and the student of abnormal psychology.</blockquote>It was eventually published in the United States in 1977, under the title ''Classic American Graffiti'', {{ISBN|0-916500-06-3}}, by [[Reinhold Aman|Reinhold Aman's]] Maledicta Press.<ref>{{Citation |last=Allan |first=Keith |title=The Semantics and Pragmatics of Three Potential Slurring Terms |date=2020 |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2_9 |work=Studies in Ethnopragmatics, Cultural Semantics, and Intercultural Communication |pages=163–183 |editor-last=Mullan |editor-first=Kerry |place=Singapore |publisher=Springer Singapore |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2_9 |isbn=978-981-329-982-5 |s2cid=210439517 |access-date=2022-02-27 |editor2-last=Peeters |editor2-first=Bert |editor3-last=Sadow |editor3-first=Lauren |archive-date=2022-02-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220227223009/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2_9 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The work was described as a prototypical "model study" of [[latrinalia]] that "deserves the attention of any serious student of American language" in a 1979 review, which noted that even then it remained hard to access and "excessively rare."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brunvand |first=Jan Harold |date=1979 |title=Classic American Graffiti by Allen Walker Read (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/459038 |journal=Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=217 |issn=1948-2833}}</ref> It contains some of the earliest documentation in English of words used by the homosexual community, although Read never recorded the word "gay", implying that the term was not used to mean homosexual during this time period.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kulick |first=Don |date=2000-10-21 |title=Gay and Lesbian Language |url=https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.243 |journal=Annual Review of Anthropology |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=243–285 |doi=10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.243 |issn=0084-6570 |access-date=2022-02-27 |archive-date=2021-07-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210715013416/https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.243 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/20490067 |title=Displacing homophobia : gay male perspectives in literature and culture |date=1989 |others=Ronald R. Butters, John M. Clum, Michael Moon |isbn=0-8223-0970-X |location=Durham, N.C. |oclc=20490067 |access-date=2022-02-27 |archive-date=2022-02-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220227223010/https://www.worldcat.org/title/displacing-homophobia-gay-male-perspectives-in-literature-and-culture/oclc/20490067 |url-status=live }}</ref> The work also contained Read's concept of the ''inverted taboo'', in which some people delight in vulgarity because of its illicit nature.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dynel |first=Marta |date=2012-05-29 |title=Swearing methodologically : the (im)politeness of expletives in anonymous commentaries on Youtube |url=https://publicaciones.unirioja.es/ojs/index.php/jes/article/view/179 |journal=Journal of English Studies |language=en |volume=10 |pages=25–50 |doi=10.18172/jes.179 |issn=1695-4300 |access-date=2022-02-27 |archive-date=2022-02-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220223163610/https://publicaciones.unirioja.es/ojs/index.php/jes/article/view/179 |url-status=live |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hurlbut |first=Marilyn |date=1976 |title=Verbal Taboo in Shampoo |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20687332 |journal=Journal of the University Film Association |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=35–38 |jstor=20687332 |issn=0041-9311  |access-date=2022-02-27 |archive-date=2022-02-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220227223011/https://www.jstor.org/stable/20687332 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Andrews |first=Edna |date=1996 |title=Cultural Sensitivity and Political Correctness: The Linguistic Problem of Naming |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/455713 |journal=American Speech |volume=71 |issue=4 |pages=389–404 |doi=10.2307/455713 |jstor=455713 |issn=0003-1283 |access-date=2022-02-27 |archive-date=2022-02-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220211124849/https://www.jstor.org/stable/455713 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref>