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Monday, 12 March 2012

raw and harsh

Here's one I hadn't heard before: raw with the meaning "tough, hard; cruel, unfair". Harsh is widely used in more or less the same way. Neither of these uses is listed in the OED, but Green's Dictionary of Slang has a first citation for harsh from 1987, in US college slang, and of raw from 1908.  Has raw spread to the US? Are raw or harsh used in Australian slang? New Zealand? Canadian?

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