American Language Supplement 2 (157 page)

3
Some of those more or less in use in American prisons are in Underworld Slang, by Convict 12627, Jackson, Tenn., 1936. See also English Underworld Slang,
Variety
, April 8, 1931, reprinted in
American Speech
, June, 1931, pp. 391–93; Rhyming Slang, by Alan Tomkins, London
Sunday Dispatch
, Feb. 16, 1941; Adventures in Rhyming Slang, by Alan Dent,
Strand Magazine
, April, 1943, pp. 86–88; and Some Notes on Rhyming Argot, by Sir St. Vincent Troubridge,
American Speech
, Feb., 1946, pp. 45–47.

4
I point, as examples, to
to get in the groove, icky, jailbait
(an adolescent girl,
i.e
., one whom it would be a penal offense to seduce),
to blow one’s top, hep-cat, slick chick, skin-beater
(a drummer) and
pad
(an apartment) in College Slang, by Dorothy M. Schullian,
School & Society
, Sept. 4, 1943, pp. 169–70; and Jive and Slang of Students in Negro Colleges, by Marcus H. Boulware; Hampton (Va.), 1947. In Johns Hopkins Jargon,
American Speech
, June, 1932, pp. 327–38, J. Louis Kuethe reported that “such expressions as
big shot, hot spot, to muscle in, to pay off
and
to scram
” had already “made the journey from the rackets to the classrooms,” and in Agricultural College Slang in South Dakota,
American Speech
, Oct., 1936, pp. 279–80, Hugh Sebastian reported several jazz-band terms as prevailing there.

1
Hollywood, by Robbin Coons, in various papers of Oct. 16.

2
Many reports on the campus vocabulary, new and old, are listed by Burke, pp. 130–35. Others are noted in AL4, p. 569. Among yet others that I have encountered are Current College Slang (University of Virginia), by Gilmore Spencer,
Virginia Magazine
, Oct., 1926, pp. 16–17; Keeping Up With Joe Gish (Princeton),
Princeton Alumni Weekly
, May 24, 1929; Handed-Down Campus Expressions, by K. L. Daughrity,
American Speech
, Dec., 1939, pp. 129–30; Current Undergraduate Slang, by H. H. Rightor,
Princeton Alumni Weekly
, May 22, 1931, p. 798; Short Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, Cant (University of Virginia), by John Wyllie,
University of Virginia Alumni News
, Jan., 1936, pp. 80–81; College Slang (University of Denver),
Clarionette
, March 18, 1937; Cadet Slang at the Citadel (Charleston, S.C.), by R. I. McDavid, Jr.,
South Atlantic Bulletin
, Dec., 1937, pp. 3–4; A Citadel Glossary, by the same,
American Speech
, Feb., 1939, pp. 23–32; A Dictionary of Exeter Slang, by A. Fisher and Harvey Williams,
Phillips Exeter Bulletin
, April, 1938, pp. 15–20; Slanguage,
Lobo
(University of New Mexico), Oct. 13, 1937; Latest Lingo – Campus, by Joyce Thresher,
Mademoiselle
, Aug., 1943, pp. 62–63; Odd Colloquialisms (University of Nebraska), by M. C. McPhee,
American Speech
, Oct., 1940, pp. 334–35; Missouri University Colloquialisms, by Lelah Allison, the same, Feb., 1941, p. 75; Whitman College Slang, by William White, the same, April, 1943, pp. 153–55; American Schoolboy Slang, by F. V. L., Jr.,
American Notes & Queries
, Jan., 1945, pp. 151–52; Campus Slang at Minnesota, by Nancy Calkin and William Randel,
American Speech
, Oct., 1945, pp. 233–34; An Aggie Vocabulary of Slang (Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas), by Fred Eikel, Jr., the same, Feb., 1946, pp. 29–36; Chapel Hill
Chaff
(University of North Carolina), by Louis Graves, Chapel Hill
Weekly
, April 4, 1937, p. 1. The best recent work on campus slang in England is Public School Slang, by Morris Marples; London, 1940. The German authority is Deutsche Studentensprache, by F. Klug; Strassburg, 1895 For Scandinavia there is Skolpojks ock Studentslang, by R. Berg,
Svenska Låndmalen
, No. 8, 1900.

3
I am indebted for help here to Messrs. Fred Hamann, Thayer Cummings, William H. Mittler and Tom Bowman.

4
For a while it seemed to be lost altogether, and not until after a long search did I find it in the Library, and borrow it through the courtesy of Dr. Luther H. Evans, then chief assistant librarian and since 1945 librarian. In this search I was given friendly aid by Mr. and Mrs. Harold Strauss and Messrs. Frederick Clayton, Walter H. Duncan can, Henry G. Alsberg, R. I. Garton and Wilmer R. Leech.

1
“The American skilled craftsman,” said Ernest A. Dewey in
Labor Today
, Sept., 1941, p. 19, “speaks two languages – his native tongue and the language of his trade. Sometimes humorous, always odd to the uninitiated ear, are the strange terms, titles and phrases he applies to the tools, processes and machinery he uses in his work. Over a period of years these technical and derisive terms have developed into a craft language as distinctive to his trade as the skill in his practised hands.”

2
From
hog
, one of the names for a locomotive.

1
On the Pennsylvania Railroad a caboose is known officially as a
cabin-car
.

2
I take most of the above and those following from A Glossary of Railroad Terms, by W. F. Cottrell and H. C. Montgomery,
American Speech
, Oct., 1943, pp. 161–70, but have also borrowed from Lingo of the Rails, by Freeman H. Hubbard,
Railroad Magazine
, April, 1940, pp. 32–55; Railroad Avenue, by the same; New York, 1945; Highball, by Lucius Beebe; New York, 1945; Glossary of Railroad Slang,
Photography
, Jan., 1946, p. 149; The Railroader; by W. F. Cottrell; Palo Alto (Calif.), 1940, pp. 118–39; The Engineer Explains It, by Frank Shippy,
Saturday Evening Post
, April 15, 1939, p. 26; Lingo of the Line,
Tracks
, June, 1945, pp. 28–31; Railroad Stuff, by Stephen J. Lynch,
Writer’s Digest
, April, 1942, pp. 30–32; Railroaders Have a Word For It, by Doris McFerran,
American Mercury
, June, 1942, pp. 739–42, and The Rails Have a Word For It, by Lyman Anson and Clifford Funkhouser,
Saturday Evening Post
, June 13, 1942, p. 27. Earlier sources are listed in AL4, p. 583, n. 1, and Burke, p. 110. I am also indebted to Messrs. Paul F. Laning, Phil Hamilton, James F. Rabbitt, Phil Stong, Fred Hamann, J. H. Fountain and Henry B. Brainerd.

3
A Glossary of Pullman Service Terms,
Pullman News
, Sept., 1922, p. 137.

1
See
News Butcher, Railroad Magazine
, June, 1940, pp. 97–99.
Butcher
in this sense is traced by the DAE to
c
. 1889, but is undoubtedly older.

2
When
table d’hôte
meals appeared on diners at the beginning of World War I
consist
was borrowed to designate the list of dishes in a given meal.

3
Dope
appears in virtually all American craft argots as a designation for a liquid of unknown composition.

4
Cottrell and Montgomery, before cited, say that it comes from the name of the first train signals, “which were in the form of painted metal globes hoisted to the cross-arm of a tall pole.” To this day the green, or go-ahead signal is the highest. See
Highball
, to Speed, by I. Willis Russell,
American Speech
. Feb., 1944, pp. 33–36.

1
Origin of
Jerkwater, Engineman’s Magazine
, Sept., 1945, pp. 148–49: “In June, 1870, the New York Central made, at Montrose, N. Y., the first installation that permitted locomotives to pick up water on the fly. The term
jerkwater
came into the language to designate localities whose importance consisted almost solely of the water pans between the tracks there.” I am indebted here to Miss Esther Johnstone, of Richland, Wash.

2
Black Metropolis, by St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton, quoted in
Negro Digest
, Jan., 1946, p. 80: “Tradition has it that on Labor Day, 1890, a Negro porter at the Grand Central Station, New York, tied a bit of red flannel around his black uniform cap so that he could be more easily identified in the crowd. As a consequence he ‘cleaned up,’ and set a style which became the emblem of America’s red-caps.”

1
I take these from the Lexicon of Trade Jargon, before cited.

2
These come from the same Lexicon of Trade Jargon. The trolley-car gave us
to slip one’s trolley
.

3
Said R. E. L. Russell in Twilight Falling On Men of Morse, Baltimore
Sunday Sun
, Aug. 22, 1943: “Little new blood is coming into the trade, for it has long been slowly dying.” I am indebted to Mr. Russell, an old newspaper colleague and a famous telegrapher in his day, for help with what follows.

4
It was launched by Walter P. Phillips, of the Associated Press, in 1876. Every word or phrase in daily newspaper use was abbreviated,
e.g., gb
, Great Britain;
ik
, instantly killed;
td
, Treasury Department;
ac
, and company;
ancm
, announcement;
elcud
, electrocuted;
fapid
, filed a petition in bankruptcy;
hur
, House of Representatives;
pips
, Philippines;
twm
, tomorrow morning, and
scotus
, Supreme Court of the United States. In the 1925 edition of the Phillips Code there were 2500 such abbreviations, and a new one was added whenever a new personality or idea began to appear in the news. Mr. Carl A. Nelson, publisher of the
Telegraph & Telephone Age
, tells me that at the start the operators took down the code words as received, and newspaper editors had to write in their meaning, but that after the typewriter came in operators did the expanding. The code has now been adapted for use with the teletype. See Phillips Code Today,
Telegraph & Telephone Age
, April, 1939.

5
Its origin is discussed in
American Notes & Queries
, July, 1941, p. 58, and Jan., 1942, p. 156; in the
Editor & Publisher
, May 4, 1940, p. 36, and in the Chicago
Tribune
, Jan. 13, 1940, p. 10, Jan. 15, p. 10, and Jan. 16, p. 10.

6
73:
Origin of the Symbol, Chicago
Tribune
, May 3, 1941, p. 12. See also Lingo of the Telegraph Operators, by Minnie Swan Mitchell,
American Speech
, April, 1937, pp. 154–55, and Some Telegraphers’ Terms, by Hervey Brackbill, the same, April, 1929, pp. 287–90.

1
Lineman’s English, by Charles P. Loomis,
American Speech
, Sept., 1926, pp. 659–60, and The Lingo of Railroad Linemen, by D. V. Snapp, the same, Feb., 1938, pp. 70–71.

2
Go f’r this
or
go f’r that
.

3
These come from The Vernacular of the Lineman, by Don Wolverton,
Southern Telephone News
, June, 1930, pp. 13–14; Telephone Shop Talk, by Edna L. Waldo,
Writer’s Digest
, May, 1927, p. 406–09; Telephone Workers’ Jargon, by Jean Dickinson,
American Speech
, April, 1941, p. 156, and Lexicon of Trade Jargon. I am also indebted to Messrs. Edwin R. Austin, Fred Hamann, Edward L. Bernays and J. Earle Miller.

1
Most of these come from Truck Drivers Lingo,
Commercial Car Journal
, March, 1938, pp. 18–19. Additions are from the Lexicon of Trade Jargon, and from Taxi-cab Language,
Christian Science Monitor
, May 27, 1940, p. 14; Truck Drivers Have a Word For It, by Doris McFerran,
American Mercury
, April, 1941, pp. 459–62; Knights of the Line, by James H. Street, New York
World-Telegram
, April 8, 9 and 10, 1937, and Truck Driver Lingo, by Bernard H. Porter,
American Speech
, April, 1942, pp. 102–05. I am also indebted to Mr. Robert J. Icks, of Stevens Point, Wis.

2
An undersized tire is a
bicycle tire
or
rubber band
.

3
American Notes & Queries
, Sept., 1944, p. 85. Also, an out-of-town truck, with no local terminal.

4
American Notes & Queries
, Feb., 1945, p. 166.

1
Usually addressed as
Jennie
or
Toots
.

2
The drivers of moving vans use some of these terms, but have many others of their own,
e.g., bagger
, a flight of stairs (
three-bagger:
three flights);
chowder
, small miscellaneous articles;
climber
, a house without an elevator;
doll’s house
, a penthouse;
fiddle
, a grand piano;
heel
, the heavier end of a large piece of furniture;
lap
, a round trip from van to apartment;
mountain-climber
, a movingman;
mouse-trap
, a house or apartment with narrow doors;
sweetheart
or
honey
, an object so large that it must be taken through a window with block and tackle;
Tammany Hall
, a poorly furnished home, and
washboard
, a small piano. I take these from the Lexicon of Trade Jargon; Moving Words, New York
Evening Journal
, Sept. 29, 1936, and Farmer’s Market, by Fred Beck, Los Angeles
Times
, Jan. 5, 1946.

3
I am indebted here to the Lexicon of Trade Jargon and to A Glossary of Taxicab Words and Phrases, by Paul Gould,
New Yorker
, Nov. 3, 1928, p. 94; The Slang of Taxi-cab Drivers, by Frank J. Wilstach, New York
Times
, Nov. 11, 1928, Sect. 5, p. 21, and The Taxi Talk, by George Milburn, in Folk Say, 1929, edited by B. A. Botkin. For the last I owe thanks to Mr. L. J. Carrel, of the University of Oklahoma Press. The argot of English taxi-drivers and busmen is listed in Slang, by A. N. Steele, London
Daily Herald
, Aug. 5, 1936, and This is
BUS
ic, London
Evening News
, April 19, 1944. Some specimens:
attic
, a bus deck;
ground floor
, inside;
jockey
, a driver;
the bunk
, the head office;
finger
, an official;
mush
, money;
rabbit
, a passenger;
set
, an accident, and
tub, tank
or
wagon
, a bus.