American Language Supplement 2 (148 page)
Read American Language Supplement 2 Online
Authors: H.L. Mencken
4
Angel-bed. A bedstead without posts.
Ark. A chest.
Barber’s chair. An Eighteenth Century corner armchair, with head-rest.
Chiseler. A carver.
Cockroach shop. A small furniture shop.
Flatting. Veneering.
Flunky. An apprentice upholsterer.
Horse. A fast, expert carver or upholsterer.
Jabber. A chair-maker.
Lawyer. The lavatory.
Murderer. A poor workman.
Nails. A set of carving tools.
Nova Scotian mahogany. Furniture made of stained pine; a cheap job.
Russian Renaissance. A rush job of carving.
Sausage machine. A machine not equipped with safety devices.
Scratcher. An apprentice carver.
Stuffer. An upholsterer.
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Banjo. A deep shovel.
Big Bubble. A foreman.
Fruit salad. Garbage.
Juggler. The man who hands cans from the sidewalk to men on a garbage truck.
Morgue-wagon. A truck used to haul dead animals.
Mungo. One who retrieves valuable objects from garbage and trash.
Push-a-push. A broom with stiff bristles.
Road-apples. Horse manure.
Shaker-down. The man who empties the cans handed to him by
jugglers
.
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Automobile. A fast operator.
Balmechule. A slow and inferior worker.
3
Barker. A foreman.
Brooklyn Bridge. A garment difficult to press.
Checkout. A dress that sells well.
Chicky. A garment smart and youthful in design.
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Clothing. Men’s clothing only.
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Coal mine. Shipping or stock room.
Dog. A dress that does not sell well.
Fireman. A presser.
Ford. A copy of an expensive dress selling at a low price.
Honey. The wax used in ironing.
Horses. Boys who push racks of garments through the streets.
Klupper. An incompetent worker.
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Mama-house. A firm dealing in dresses for large women.
Pinochle season. The slack season.
Professor. A good cutter.
Schneider. Anyone connected with the garment trade.
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Schmoosing. Idling around and talking shop.
1
Shoeshiner. An inefficient presser who puts a shine on the garments pressed.
Shroud. A cheap dress.
Tents. Coats and dresses, size thirty-eight and up.
2
Bull gang. Laborers.
Cinder-head. A glassblower.
Cullet, or slocker. Spoiled and refuse glass.
Dog. Scum or melted glass.
Dope. Coloring matter for glass.
Get-up. A day’s work.
Glory hole. A small furnace for reheating articles blown, Heavy. Hot.
Horn-knocker. An inexpert glassblower.
Lehr (pro.
leer
). An annealing oven.
Maggie’s room. Place where mixed ingredients are stored.
Necktie, or yink-yank. A wrinkled bottle.
Seeds. Minute bubbles in the glass.
Teaser. A workman who tends the fire and charges the pot.
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Board, or plank. Very heavy plate glass.
Butchered. Badly cut by glass.
Chinee, or hot knife. A hard worker.
Flounder foot. A clumsy worker.
Gooey, slime, or smear. Putty.
Jigger. Small truck to carry glass on edge.
Light. Plate or sheet of glass.
Politician, or sky man. A worker who steadies the top of plate glass being moved, the lightest type of work.
Puttyhead. A glazier.
Slaughterhouse. A shop where many accidents occur.
5
Bat. One over par.
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Birdie. One under par.
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Buzzard. Two over par.
Creep. A slow round.
Divot. A piece of turf cut from the course by a stroke.
Dodo. A hole in one.
Double eagle. Three under par.
Eagle. Two under par.
1
Loop. An eighteen-hole course.
Nineteenth hole. The club bar.
Par. The standard number of strokes for each hole.
Pill, or aspirin. A golf-ball.
Prairie. A badly kept course.
Scotchman. A professional.
Stance. The attitude assumed in hitting the ball.
Stymie. Defined by the New Practical Standard Dictionary as “a condition obtaining when an opponent’s ball lies in the line of the player’s putt on the green, the balls being more than six inches apart.”
Wood-butcher. A poor player.
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ABD. An abdominal dressing.
BM. Bowel movement.
BP. A bed-pan.
Cerebral accident. A stroke of apoplexy.
Chase doll, or Mrs. Chase. A dummy used by nurses in training.
Coxey’s army. The entourage of interns, nurses and medical students which follows a chief of staff on his round.
Dirty. Used of an operating-room nurse who handles unsterilized articles.
Duck, banjo, or submarine. A urinal.
Float. A relief nurse.
Foundry. A maternity hospital.
GI. Gastro-intestinal.
GU. Genito-urinary.
Gyney. A gynecological patient.
Inkie. An incubator baby.
Kick-off room. A room to which ward patients are taken when dying.
OB. An obstetrical case.
OR. Operating-room.
PA. A patient.
Pesthouse. A hospital for infectious diseases.
Pipe. An enema.
Post, or PM. An autopsy.
Premie. A prematurely born baby.
Primip. A mother having her first child.
1
Probe. A probationer.
Schizy. A patient with mental symptoms.
2
Scut, or pup. A junior intern.
Stilts. Crutches.
T and A. Tonsils and adenoids.
TB. Tuberculosis.
3
TPR. Temperature, pulse, respiration.
4
Ace man, or rag. A guest who tips $1.
Admiral. A doorman.
Anvil-, or tombstone-salesman. A guest with a heavy bag.
Aviator, or jockey. An elevator operator.
Beat, flathead, Joe McGee, Joe Baggs, or cold turkey. A guest who fails to tip.
Bird. A towel.
Broom. A lobby-cleaner.
Cave, kennel, box, or stall. A guest-room.
Crock, or jake. A drunken guest.
Drum. A hotel.
Flea-bag. A cheap hotel.
Gun. An elevator.
Oil can. The manager.
Penwiper. A desk clerk.
Quarry. A luxury hotel.
Screw. A room-key.
Scrub. A maid.
Scuttle of clinkers. A pitcher of ice-water.
Simon. A bell-captain.
5
Wolf. A porter or bellboy who carries too many bags, thus depriving others of tips.
Zoo. The place where the help eat.
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Animal. Enamel.
Broom. A large brush used on walls.
Catface. A spot missed by a painter.
Grass. Green paint.
Sash tool. A small brush used to paint window sash.
Soup. Paint.
Take the ground,
v
. To be killed in a fall; to fall.
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Broom clean,
v
. To demolish a building in such a fashion that all the wreckage can be carried away.
Dirt. Everything that falls during a wrecking job —brick, mortar, etc.
Trap. A building dangerous to demolish.
2
Bekakee, buttons, or spiff. A premium paid to a salesman for selling specified merchandise.
3
Borax. Inferior goods, especially furniture.
4
Macher. A boaster.
5
Number. Double the cost.
6
Pull, or jerk,
v
. To recover merchandise from the home of a customer who is in default on his payments.
Schlepp,
v
. To move furniture about on the sales floor.
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Schmeer,
v
. To flatter a customer.
8
Schmiss, or schmeiss,
v
. To break off a sale.
9
Schneid,
v
. To reduce a price.
10
Schnuck (le). A customer easily persuaded, a sucker.
11
Schrei,
v
. To talk loudly, to complain.
12
Showful. Bad; used of business, and also of a person.
Switch,
v
. To divert a customer from a low-priced article to one of higher price, offering a better profit.
T. O. T. Cash.
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Turnover, or T. O.,
v
. To hand over a customer to another salesman.
2
Tzorris. Trouble caused by a customer who complains or is in default on his instalment payments.
Verlier. Go away; lose yourself.
3
Woman’s home companion. A house-to-house canvasser.
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Chorus girls. Girls who work the mangles.
Feet. Socks.
Fly. A handkerchief.
Gold-diggers. Those who open the bundles and look for coins in the wash.
Kitchen. A wash-room.
Peanut. A small bundle.
Weasel. A foreman.
Wheels. Washing machines.
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Cellar-rats. Workers who scrape the flesh from hides.
Daubers. Those who oil skins.
Greens. Fresh hides, skins, or pelts.
Japanner. One who applies the enamel to patent leather.
Lumper. One with no specialized skill who helps wherever needed.
Offal. The less valuable parts of hides, usually the head, shoulder and belly.
Sammie. A process in tanning by which skins are placed in damp sawdust to absorb moisture slowly and uniformly, making them soft.
Side. Half a whole hide, cut longitudinally along the backbone, with
offal
attached.
Tripe. Poor quality hides.
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Barber-chair. A fallen tree which remains attached to the stump.
Brush-cat. A sawmill man’s term for a logger.
Bucker. One who saws felled trees into logs.
Buckskin. A log with the bark peeled off.
Bull-cook. A chore man.
Bull of the woods. A camp boss.
Candy. The opposite of
haywire
.
Cat. A tractor.
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Choker. A loop of cable used to noose and hoist a log.
Clam-gun, idiot-stick, or muck-stick. A shovel.
Cock-shop. The camp office and store.
Cork. A shoe- or boot-caulk.
2
Ding-dong, or gut-hammer. The dinner-bell, usually a steel triangle.
Donkey-doctor. A mechanic who keeps machinery in repair.
Dough-roller, boiler, stewbum, stomach-robber, gut-burglar, sizzler, stew-builder, meat-burner, or mulligan-mixer. A camp cook.
Duff. The litter on a forest floor.
Faller. One who fells trees.
Flathead, sawdust-eater, or humpback. A sawyer.
Flunky. A camp waiter.
Ground lead. The process of dragging logs along the ground.
Haywire. “A term used to denote anything and everything which is either poorly operated or poorly put together.”
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High-rigger, or -climber. One who cuts the tops from high trees, that they may be used as spars in the handling of logs.
Hook-tender. A straw boss in the timber.
Ink-slinger. A camp clerk.
Ironburner. A blacksmith.
Land-looker, or timber-cruiser. One who surveys new land and maps it out for logging.
Limber. One who cuts the limbs from felled trees.
Macaroni. Sawdust.
Monk. A worker in a lumber-yard.
Push. A foreman.
River-driver, river-pig, river-hog, river-rat, or white-water bucko. One who drives logs down a river.
Savage, heathen, timber-beast, or brush-cat. A logger.
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Schoolma’am. A forked log.
Show. Any logging operation.
Side-winder. A tree that hits another as it falls.
Skid-road. A path along which logs are dragged to the mill.
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Slave-market. An employment agency.
Snoose. Snuff.
3
Swedish fiddle, briar, or misery-whip. A crosscut saw.
Timber. A cry of warning, signifying that a tree is about to fall.
Tin pants. Waterproofed clothing worn in the woods.
Wanigan, or wangun. A store-house or -room; also, a boat which supplies
river-drivers;
also, debts incurred at the company store.
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Banana-wagon. A tank on wheels used for refuse.
Barbering. Grinding.
Bitch. A clamp used to hold work on a lathe.
Bunion. A lump on a casting.
Chicago finish. A poor finish.
Funny sheet. A blueprint.
Glue-pot. A belt repairman.
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Banjo. A miner’s shovel.
Blossom. An outcropping of coal at the surface.
Boll-weevil, hill-billy, or snake-stomper. A new or inexperienced miner.
Bone. Coal full of stone.
Brass nuts. The manager of a mine.
Brattice, or brattish. A wall of wood, canvas or bricks used to cut off parts of the mine where there is gas.
Breast. The underground chamber where anthracite is mined; in the bituminous mines it is called a room.
Bug-dust. Fine coal particles.
Bug-eye, or -light, or doodle-bug, or lightning-bug. An electric miner’s lamp, worn on the cap.
Buggy, or bus. A small truck used underground.
Canary-bird. A device used to detect gas.
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Chalk-eye. A miner’s helper.
Crawfish,
v
. To move about on hands and knees.
Dilly. An animal or tractor used for moving coal-cars.
Dirty-neck. A miner.
Fire boss. An inspector charged with detecting gas, insecure roofs, etc.
Flat wheel. A leg or foot injury.
Gaffer. A foreman.
Galloper. An assistant superintendent.
Gob. A place where the coal has been taken out and the earth has fallen in.
Gob-pile orator. A talkative miner.
Hardtail. A horse or mule used in a mine.
Hawbush. A local strike.
Hole. A mine.
Horseback. A bulge of slate into a vein of coal.
Jessie James. A company weigher.
Monster, or rattler. A coal-cutting machine.
Out on the sod. Said of one who has left the mines.
Panther, or niggerhead. A hard rock formation in a vein.
Pennydog. An assistant to the boss.
Pigeon-hole. A small, shallow working.
Pot. A loose fossiliferous formation in the roof of the mine, dangerous to the miner.
Snapper. A brakeman on a motor coal-car.
Soldiers. Posts supporting the mine roof.
Trapper. The doorkeeper of a mine.
Wasp-nest. An accumulation of gas.
