American Language Supplement 2 (152 page)

1
Mr. Everett DeBaun, of Philadelphia, calls my attention to other apparent loans from Romany speech,
e.g., benny
, an overcoat (Rom.
bengree
, a waistcoat);
can
, a jail or privy (Rom.
caen
, to stink):
to cop
, to steal, and maybe also
cop
or
copper
, a policeman (Rom.
cappi
, booty, gain);
cush
, money (Rom.
cushti
, good);
shiv
, a knife (Rom.
chiv
, a blade), and
stir
, prison (Rom.
staripen
, a prison).

2
Knebel’s MS. is still preserved in the university library at Basel. It was printed for the first time in
Taschenbuch für Geschichte und Alterthum in Süd-Deutschland
, by Heinrich Schreiber; Freiburg (Switzerland), 1839. Records of the trials were also made by Hieronymus Wilhelm Ebner, and his MS. is also preserved at Basel. It was printed in Exercitationes Iuris Universi, by Johann Heumann; Altdorf, 1749.

3
The text of Liber Vagatorum, with Luther’s prefaces, is in the
Weimarisches Jahrbuch für deutsche Sprache, Litteratur und Kunst
for 1856, Vol. IV, pp. 65–101. This
Jahrbuch
, which lasted only a few years, was edited by Hoffmann von Fallersleben, the author of Deutschland über Alles. Hotten (1832–73) was an English bookseller and bibliographer who was in America from 1848 to 1856. In the latter year he set up as a publisher in London, and in 1859 issued his Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant and Vulgar Words, several times reprinted, with additions, during the years following. In 1866, when Moxon suppressed Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads in response to an uproar from Puritans, Hotten took it over. He was the first English publisher to publish Lowell, Artemus Ward, Charles Godfrey Leland, Bret Harte and Ambrose Bierce. He wrote biographies of Dickens and Thackeray, and also a History of Signboards, 1867.

1
In England the monasteries were dissolved in 1539.

2
Taschenbuch für Geschichte und Alterthum
, before mentioned.

3
Hotten suggests that this may be a corruption of Ger.
predigen
, to preach.

1
New York, 1909, p. 60.

1
The best edition is that of T. H. Jamieson in two vols.; Edinburgh, 1874. It contains a good account of Barclay, pp. xxv
ff
.

2
London, 1899; Vol. III.

1
The first English poor law was passed in 1601.

2
Now used in the sense of a confidence man.

3
Here is a use of
homely
in the American sense, to indicate lacking in beauty. In current English usage the word means simple, unpretending, and is not applied opprobriously. But it was good English in the American sense down to the Eighteenth Century, and was so used by Shakespeare in The Comedy of Errors, II, 1590.

4
It seems to be likely that this was the original meaning of the word. In that sense the NED traces it to 1611, whereas in the sense of nonsensical words its goes only to 1674. Its origin is unknown. Ernest Weekley suggests in his Etymological Dictionary of Modern English; London, 1921, that it may have some connection with the Dutch
pladder
, meaning both a weak tipple and foolish talk, but this is only a guess.

5
Dollar
was used in England to designate the German
thaler
from the middle of the Sixteenth Century. Toward the end of that century it came also to designate the Spanish
peso
or
piece-of-eight
. It was adopted as the name of the unit of American currency by an act of the Continental Congress on July 6, 1785.

1
This, conceivably, may have been the original form of
cocktail
. See Supplement I, pp. 256–60.

2
Originally, a young rabbit. It began to be applied to dupes toward the end of the Sixteenth Century, and for many years thereafter swindling was called
cony-catching
.

3
It is possible that the origin of
crap
, the American dice game, may be found here.
Crap
is always listed in dictionaries as
craps
– a curious pedantry, for it is called
crap
by the players, and appears in the singular in
crap-shooter
and
to shoot crap
. It is traced by the DAE to 1843.
Crap
in the sense of excrement, and often used in the United States as a derogatory term for foolish talk, is also always singular.

4
Curmudgeon
retained this narrow meaning until the Nineteenth Century. It now connotes churlishness rather than miserliness.
Cf
. Autobiography of a
Curmudgeon
, by Harold L. Ickes; New York, 1943.

5
Filibuster
, in the American sense of one fomenting insurrection, came in in 1850. It was given wide currency by William Walker’s expedition to Nicaragua in 1855. The offspring verb, signifying an attempt to delay the action of a legislative body, is traced by the DAE to 1853.

1
Now
gewgaws
.

2
Probably from the German
römer
, meaning the same. It had degenerated into
rummer
even before B. E.’s time.

3
Asbestos.
Salamander-stone
, at a somewhat earlier period, was applied to a stone that, “once set on fire, can never be quenched.” (NED, 1583).

4
P. T. Barnum’s
Tom Thumb
was Charles Sherwood Stratton, born at Bridgeport, Conn., in 1838. He died in 1883.

5
“The merit of Captain Grose’s Dictionary,” said the preface, “has been long and universally acknowledged. But its circulation was confined almost exclusively to the lower orders of society: he was not aware, at the time of its compilation, that our young men of fashion would at no very distant period be as distinguished for the vulgarity of their jargon as the inhabitants of Newgate; and he therefore conceived it superfluous to incorporate with his work the few examples of fashionable slang that might occur to his observation.” The additions, as a matter of fact, were not numerous, but some of them have survived,
e.g., bangup
.

1
Egan (1772–1849) is chiefly remembered (and collected) today because George and Robert Cruikshank illustrated his Life in London, 1821. In 1824 he began publication of a weekly,
Pierce Egan’s Life in London and Sporting Guide
, which later became
Bell’s Life in London
, and was merged, in 1859, in
Sporting Life
. Life in London was a great success in its day, and so was a series of pamphlets called Boxiana, or Sketches of Antient and Modern Pugilism, which he began in 1818 and continued until 1829. There are interesting notes on him in the London
Times Literary Supplement
, Aug. 7 and 21, 1943.

1
In all probability this influence may have been exerted through A Collection of the Canting Words and Terms Both Ancient and Modern Used by Beggars, Gypsies, Cheats, House-Breakers, Shop-Lifters, Footpads, Highwaymen, &c. appended to Nathan Bailey’s Universal Etymological Dictionary; third edition; London, 1737, for Bailey also borrowed from B. E.

2
For example, those of
Abram cove, acteon, Adam’s ale, altitudes, artistippus, armor
and
autem
, to go no further than the
a
’s.

3
For example, those of
Adam-tiler, ambidexter
and
anglers
.

1
In the Baltimore of my boyhood,
c
. 1890, a loose brick was called a
she-brick. She-bricks
have disappeared as the old brick sidewalks of the town have yielded to cement.

1
B. E., 1698, lists
greenhead
, “a very raw novice, or unexperienc’d fellow.”

2
The NED traces
sandwich
to 1762, but it was still rather slangy in 1785.

3
Harrison (1534–1593) was a Londoner and an ardent antiquary. He was a clergyman and became canon of Windsor in 1586. His Description of England is an amusing, informing and altogether excellent piece of work. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from Holinshed.

1
Cursetor
or
cursitor
was a polite synonym for
vagabond
in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. The NED’s first example is taken from Harman’s title-page.

2
i.e
., loitering loafers and lazy blackguards.

3
I have modernized the spelling of the definitions.

4
Bouse
and
bowse
were early forms of
booze
.

1
This suggests Gipsy influence.
Romany
is the Gipsies’ name for themselves.

2
Harman’s list was reprinted in full in The Oldest Rogues’ Dictionary,
Encore
, Sept., 1942, pp. 343–45.

3
In W. J. Burke’s Literature of Slang there is listed but one such work antedating Harman’s Caveat, to wit, The Hye Way to the Spittell Hous, but it is certain that many such things have been lost.

4
Studies in Philology
(Chapel Hill, N.C.), Vol. XXXVIII, 1941, pp. 462–72.

5
It is significant that Irwin had to go to England to find a publisher. There he got aid from Eric Partridge. His material was accumulated during “more than twenty years’ experience as a tramp on the railroads and roads of the United States, Canada, Mexico and Central America, and on tramp steamers in Central American waters.”

1
The Big Con; Indianapolis, 1940.

2
His plans for it are set forth in
Studies in Linguistics
, April, 1943.

3
For example, in the survival of rhyming slang. An account of the argot of American criminals of the 1900 era is in The Lingo of the Good People, by David W. Maurer,
American Speech
, Feb., 1935, pp. 10–23. A great deal of it is now obsolete.

4
The Argot of the Underworld,
American Speech
, Dec., 1931, pp. 99–118.

5
Petty swindlers who follow carnivals, fairs, etc.

1
Short-con workers
operate on a modest scale, and are usually content with whatever money the victim has on him at the time he is rooked. They seldom employ the
send
– that is, they seldom send him home for more.

2
The Big Con, before cited, pp. 270–71.

3
Private communication, April 7, 1940. The anonymous author of The Capone I Knew,
True Detective
, June, 1947, p. 80, says that
syndicate
, used by Al to describe his mob, was “picked up from the newspaper stories about him.

1
I take all these from Maurer.

2
The glossary in The Big Con is also in The Argot of Confidence Men,
American Speech
, April, 1940, pp. 113–23, and Confidence Games, by Carlton Brown,
Life
, Aug. 12, 1946, pp. 45–52.

3
The Lingo of the
Iug-Heavy, Writer’s Digest
, Oct., 1931, pp. 27–29.

4
I Wonder Who’s Driving Her Now, by William G. Shepherd,
Journal of American Insurance
, Feb., 1929, pp. 5–8 (reprinted in
American Speech
, Feb., 1930, pp. 236–37); Hot Shorts, by T. J. Courtney,
Saturday Evening Post
, Nov. 30, 1935, pp. 12–13, 72–74.

1
Hijacker’s Argot, Chicago
Tribune
, Jan. 22, 1939.

2
Yoking
Means Just That, Baltimore
Evening Sun
, July 16, 1946, p. 32. Ordinarily,
to mugg
means to photograph, especially for the Rogues’ Gallery.

3
The Argot of Forgery,
American Speech
, Dec., 1941, pp. 243–50.

1
Says Maurer in
American Speech
, April, 1941, p. 154: “Modern thieves call a stolen watch a
super
(or
super and slang
if the chain accompanies it),… not realizing that the word is really
souper
, a pun on the older form,
kettle
.”

2
In Along the Main Stem,
True Detective
, March, 1942, p. 73, a writer signing himself The Fly Kid suggested that
okus
(or
hokus
) may have issued from
poke
by way of
hocus-pocus. Hocus-pocus
itself has long been a headache to etymologists. The NED inclines to the theory that it came from the pseudo-Latin patter and assumed name of a juggler during the reign of King James I, but Weekley believes that it may have arisen as a blasphemous perversion of the sacramental blessing,
hoc est corpus
(
filii
). It has analogues in Norwegian, Swedish and German.

3
I am indebted here to Mr. Everett DeBaun, of Philadelphia. He tells me that
gun
and
cannon
have nothing to do with artillery. The former is derived from the Yiddish
ganov
, a thief, and
cannon
is simply a more elegant form. During the Golden Age of the Dillingers the newspapers took to calling a racketeer’s girl a
gun-moll
, but this was an error. A pickpocket who specializes in robbing women is a
moll-buzzer
, whether male or female. Inasmuch as most women operators confine their work to their own sex, they are usually
moll-buzzers
. See The Language of the Underworld, by Ernest Booth,
American Mercury
, May, 1928, p. 78.

4
In The Argot of the Underworld, by James P. Burke,
American Mercury
, Dec., 1930, pp. 454–58,
catholic
is given as another name for a pickpocket, but without any attempt at an etymology.

5
I am indebted here to Mr. Victor T. Reno, of Los Angeles. See Slick Fingers, by Ralph L. Woods,
Forum
, Dec., 1939, pp. 273–77.

6
The origin of this term has been much debated and is still unsettled. Etymologies relating it to Kid
McCoy
, the pugilist, and to Bill
McCoy
, an eminent rum-runner, are given in AL4, p. 580, n. 1. Both are improbable. The late Alfred E. Smith, appealed to for light, once derived it from the name of a Bowery oracle named
McCoy
, whose word on any subject was accepted as the low-down (Smith Gives the Origin of Phrase
the Real McCoy
, New York
Times
, Nov. 27, 1936), but Al actually knew no more about the matter than any other Harvard LL.D. DeBaun says that the phrase first got into circulation in 1915, just after the passage of the Harrison Anti-Narcotic Act, and he believes that it was derived from the name of a British firm which sold superior drugs, but Maurer tells me that it has been in use among safecrackers since
c
. 1900 at the latest to designate commercial nitroglycerine in contrast to homemade
soup
or
stew
cooked out of dynamite. He says that the older safecrackers believe that it comes from the name of an old wildcatter in the Pennsylvania oilfields who diverted nitroglycerine to them. Others derive the term from an Irish ballad,
c
. 1870, telling of a woman named
McCoy
who gave her husband a beating, thus proving to him that she was
the real McCoy
. Yet others say that it comes from
the real McKaye
, a Scottish phrase of similar meaning. Mr. G. Dundas Craig, of Berkeley, Calif., tells me that he heard
the rale McKay
“long before 1898.” Another correspondent says that
the real MacKay
goes back to the Jacobite troubles of 1715–45, when doubt arose as to who was the true chief of the clan. But Partridge says that it comes from the American
the real McCoy
and did not reach England until
c
. 1929.