American Language Supplement 2 (139 page)

Also hanging about the outskirts of the professional criminals are the drug addicts, the prostitutes, and the disorderly children (not a few of them with well-to-do and even rich parents) who
train for entrance into one or another of the three groups. There is nothing inherently criminal about taking drugs, and in many cases it is not even anti-social, but the laws against it have made those who do so partners of the racketeers who supply them, just as Prohibition made even the most moderate boozer a partner of Al Capone. Moreover, small-time criminals themselves often become addicts, and all drug-sellers are criminals, so the relation between crime and addiction is close. The language of the vice and trade has been reported by David W. Maurer,
¹
James A. Donovan, Jr.,
²
Victor Folke Nelson,
³
Milton Mezzrow
⁴
and Meyer Berger:
⁵
it varies according to the drug used, but has many general terms, some of them borrowed from the vocabulary of criminals. Maurer says that “it changes rapidly, for as soon as a word is generally known outside the fraternity it dies and another is coined to take its place.” At the time of writing a wholesaler is a
big man
, a retailer is a
pedlar
or
connection
(not infrequently he is also an
ice-tong doctor
,
i.e
., an abortionist), a beginning addict is a
joy-popper
or
student
, a finished addict is a
gowster
or
junker
, and is said to have a
monkey on his back
, non-addicts are
square Johns
or
do-right people
, an addict well supplied is
on the mojo
and is said to be
in high
, a standard dose is a
ration, check, deck, bindle, block, card, cube, cap
or
piece
, a half size is a
bird’s eye
, to adulterate is
to shave
and an adulterated piece is a
short piece
, a dose injected hypodermically is a
shot, pop, O, bang, jolt, fix-up
or
geezer
, a needle is a
spike, gun, joint, nail, luer
, or
artillery
, and a Federal narcotics agent is
whiskers, gazer, uncle
, or a
headache-man
. Opium is
tar, mud, black stuff, gum
or
hop
, morphine is
white stuff, Racehorse Charlie, sugar, white nurse
or
sweet stuff
, cocaine is
snow, happy dust, C, Heaven dust
or
coke
,
⁶
and marihuana is
muggles, Mary Warner, mezz, Indian
hay, loco weed, Mary Jane, mooter, love weed, bambaiacha, mohasky, fu, mu, moocah, grass, tea
or
blue sage
.
¹

Opium smoking, says Maurer, is going out, largely because the drug is bulky and smoking it calls for prepared quarters and a somewhat elaborate apparatus. Many of the terms used by smokers are of Chinese origin,
e.g., yen
, the craving;
yen-pok
or
fun
(pronounced
foon
), the prepared pill;
yen-shee-kwoi
, an unsophisticated smoker;
toy
, the box in which opium is kept;
yen-shee
or
gee-yen
, unburned gum;
suey-pow
, a sponge for cleaning the pipe,
yen-shee-gow
, a scraper for the same purpose, and
hop
with its derivative,
hophead
. In English the pipe is a
stem, saxophone, gong, gonger, dream-stick, joy-stick
or
bamboo
. An addict smoking is said to be
hitting
(or
beating
)
the gong, kicking the gonger, kicking the gong around
, or
laying the hip
, the preparation of the opium is called
cooking
(or
rolling
)
a pill
, an addict is a
cookie
, and one who cooks it for others is a
chef
. A marihuana smoker is a
viper
,
tea-man
or
reefing-man
, a cigarette is a
reefer
,
²
stick, killer, goof-but, giggle-smoke, gyve
or
twist
, smoking is
viping
or
sending
, a place devoted to
sending
is a
pad
and a peddler is a
pusher
. “A smoker is
high
when contentment creeps over him”
³
and
down
on the morning after. The stump of a cigarette is a
roach
, whiskey is
shake-up
, and the juke-box or phonograph usually present in a
pad
is a
piccolo
. In the days when cocaine was a popular tipple a devotee was a
cokie, snowbird snifter
or
Charlie Coke
, to inhale the drug, often called
Bernice
, was
to go on a sleighride
or
to go coasting
, and a mixture of cocaine and morphine was a
whizz-bang
or
speed-ball
. The vocabulary
of addicts differs somewhat from place to place. Maurer records that in Chicago (1938) they called themselves
ads, junk-hogs, jabbers, knockers
and
smeckers
, terms apparently not in use elsewhere, and Sanders tells me that prisoners in the Virginia State Prison (1942) had a long list of local names for various mild narcotics and sedatives,
e.g., cement
, codeine;
ping pong
, pantopon;
yellow jacket
, nembutal;
green hornet
, sodium pentobarbital, and
blue devil
, sodium amytal. Most of these were suggested by the colors of the capsules. Elsewhere a sodium pentobarbital capsule is a
goof-pill
.
¹

Maurer says that prostitutes are so stupid and so little group-conscious that they have never developed “the technical vocabulary which characterizes all other criminal groups.”
²
Nevertheless, there are trade terms that prevail widely among them, and some are of considerable antiquity,
e.g., landlady
or
madame
, the keeper of a brothel;
boarder
, an inmate;
hustler
, a street-walker;
friend
, a pimp;
hooker
, an old prostitute;
dark meat
, a colored prostitute;
stable
, a group of women under control of one padrone;
cathouse, crib
or
sporting-house
, a brothel;
call-house
, one with no internes, which sends for girls on demand;
to sit for company
, to be on the staff of a brothel;
to be busy
, to be engaged professionally, and
professor
, a house musician.
³
A
creep-joint
or
panel-house
is one in which patrons are robbed, a
roller
or
mush-worker
is a girl who robs them, and a
lush-worker
is one who specializes in drunks, but these last terms belong to the general vocabulary of criminals and are not peculiar to prostitutes. During World War II many patriotic young girls, some of them in their early teens, devoted themselves to entertaining soldiers and sailors on leave. They were usually called
V-girls
. Women who frequent taverns or night-clubs, getting a percentage on the drinks they induce male patrons to buy, are
taxi-drinkers, mixers, percentage-girls
or
sitters
.
⁴
Crib
, a very low form of brothel;
cat-wagon
, a conveyance used by touring prostitutes,
and
gun-boat
, a boat used for the same purpose,
¹
seem to be obsolete, or nearly so.

The line separating the criminal argots from ordinary slang is hard to draw, and in certain areas the two are mixed. Consider, for example, the language of showfolks. At the top it is highly respectable, and some of it is of considerable antiquity, but on the level of traveling carnivals and low city theatres it coalesces with that of hoboes, Gipsies and thieves. Similarly, the transient slang of jitterbugs and other incandescent youngsters is connected through that of jazz musicians with that of drug-addicts. All show-folks who work under canvas say they are
on the show
, not
in
it, just as pickpockets say they are
on the cannon
and yeggs that they are
on the heavy
, and there are many circus and carnival terms that are identical with criminal terms,
e.g., grift
, an illicit or half-illicit means of getting money;
benny
, an overcoat;
shill
, one hired to entice customers;
cheaters
, spectacles;
mouthpiece
, a lawyer;
to lam
, to depart hastily;
hoosier
, a yokel;
home-guard
, those who do not travel;
leather
, a pocketbook;
moniker
, a person’s name or nickname;
office
, a signal, and the various names for money, ranging from
ace
for a $1 bill to
grand
for $1,000.
²
This lingo has been studied by David W. Maurer,
³
George Milburn,
⁴
Percy W. White,
⁵
E. P. Conkle,
⁶
A. J. Liebling,
⁷
Marcus H. Boulware,
⁸
Joe Laurie, Jr.,
⁹
and Charles Wolverton.
¹⁰
It is divided into halves, the first of which is that of showfolks proper, who are inclined to be an austere and even somewhat prissy lot, and the second that of their hangers-on, some of whom, as we have just seen, are hardly to be
distinguished from malefactors. But each moiety knows and uses the argot of the other.

That of the showfolks proper is picturesque and often amusing. “Few occupations,” says Maurer, “have so colorful a technical vocabulary.” A clown is a
paleface
, a
whiteface
or
Joey
, a tattooed man is a
picture-gallery
, a bareback rider is a
rosinback
, a contortionist is a
frog, bender
or
Limber Jim
, a freak or snake-charmer is a
geek
, and all performers are
kinkers
. The owner of the show is the
governor
or
gaffer
, the head electrician is
shanty
,
¹
a musician is a
windjammer
, a palmist is a
mitt-reader
, a phrenologist is a
bump-reader
, the stake-drivers are the
hammer gang
, those who load and unload the show are
razorbacks
, elephant handlers are
bull men
or
bull hookers
, the barker outside a sideshow is the
spieler
, his talk is the
opening
or
ballyhoo
,
²
a bouncer is a
pretty boy
, a newcomer to the show is a
first-of-May
or
Johnny-come-lately
, and the august master of ceremonies is the
equestrian director
.
³

Any elephant, male or female, is a
bull
, a zebra is a
convict
, a hippopotamus is a
hip
, a leopard is a
spot
and a tiger is a
stripe
, but any feline is a
cat
. All tents save the
cook-house
and the
clown-alley
are
tops
, and all concessions are
joints
– the
juice-joint
(refreshment-stand),
mug-joint
(photograph-gallery),
grab-joint
(eating-stand),
mitt-joint
(fortune-teller’s tent),
sinker-joint
(doughnut-stand),
grease-joint
(hamburger-stand), and so on. All animal cages are
dens
, the show ground is the
lot
, a side-show is an
annex
or
kid-show
, the programme is the
Bible
, the dressing tent is the
pad-room
, the clowns’ quarters are
clown-alley
, the latrine is a
donniker
, the space behind the big top is the
backyard
, the cheap goods sold by concessionaires are
slum
, the powder used to make lemonade is
flookum
, the diner or club-car on the train is the
privilege-car
, a Ferris wheel is a
hoister
, a merry-go-round is a
jenny
, the last performance of the season is the
blow-off
, the trip to Winter quarters is the
home-run
, the South is
down yonder
, and the show itself is the
opery
. The traveling showmen have borrowed many terms from the stage,
e.g., props, stand, paper
(posters),
dark
(closed),
B. O
. (box office), and
at liberty
(out of work), and others, as I have noted, from the argot of criminals. An outsider is a
clem
or
gilly
, and Milburn says that the old cry of “Hey-rube!,” raised when local rowdies attacked a show, is now supplanted by “Clem!”
¹

The larger traveling shows are followed by all sorts of minor enterprisers – operators of gambling devices, sellers of quack medicines, street peddlers, and so on. Some of these are tolerated and others simply exercise their inalienable right to flock along. The street peddlers, who call themselves
pitchmen
, frequently undertake independent tours, and not a few of them have covered the whole country. Their trade journal is the
Billboard
(Cincinnati), which also caters to all other outdoor showmen, and every week they contribute to it what they call
pipes, i.e
., news reports from the field, describing business conditions and telling of the movements of pitchmen. There are
high
pitchmen and
low
, the former addressing their customers from automobiles or platforms, and the latter operating from the ground level, with their goods displayed on or in a suitcase (
keister
) set upon a tripod (
tripe
). The contents of the
keister
are the
flash
, the audience is the
tip
, to sell is
to turn
, listeners who fade away without buying are
mooches
and are said
to blow
, those who buy are
monkeys, chumps
or
naturals
, when business is bad it is
larry
, to hand out merchandise is
to duke
, and confederates, if they are used, are
boosters, lumpers, sticks
or
skills
. Money is
gelt, take, kale, scratch
or
geedus. To cut up pipes
or
jackpots
is to gossip or boast. An indoor stand is a
jam-pitch
.