American Language Supplement 2
Page 113
1 From primipara. At subsequent deliveries she is a multip, from multipara, or a para-two, three, etc.
2 From schizophrenia.
3 The patients in tuberculosis sanitoria call taking the cure chasing. A hemorrhage from the lungs is spilling rubies. See T. B. Talk, by Anders H. Anderson, American Speech, Feb., 1935, pp. 77–78. Dr. William B. Bean, of Cincinnati, tells me that tuberculosis is called jupe in Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky.
4 These come from Hotel Slang, by William Stewart Cornyn, American Speech, Oct., 1939, pp. 239–40, and from Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
5 From Simon Legree.
6 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
1 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
2 Most of the terms following come from Furniture Lingo, by Charles Miller, American Speech, Dec., 1930, pp. 125–28. Those that are of German origin probably got into English through Yiddish.
3 Miller, just cited, believes that this word comes from the Hebrew. There is a Hebrew word, beracha, meaning a benediction. See Wonder Words, by Benjamin L. Winfield; New York, 1933, p. 20.
4 E. Jerome Ellison and Frank W. Brock say in Overstuffed Phoneys, Today, Jan. 16, 1937, p. 8, that borax comes from Ger. borgen, to borrow, to buy on credit. “This word,” says Winslow Ames (private communication, July 6, 1936), “now denotes through the furniture trade (and also in the architectural magazines) the flimsy, flashy sort of furniture that consists largely of molded ornaments stuck on veneered surfaces.” A store selling it is a borax-house.
5 Ger machen, to make, to effect, to perform.
6 Miller says that this is used by salesmen in the presence of the customer.
7 Ger. schleppen, to move, to drag.
8 Ger. schmieren, to smear, to grease.
9 Miller thinks it may come, not from Ger. schmiss, a blow, but from Ger. schmitz, also a blow. It is used, he says, “when it is discovered that a customer cannot make a sufficiently large down-payment, or when a salesman has misquoted a price to his disadvantage and can get rid of it only by discouraging the sale.”
10 Ger. schneiden, to cut.
11 Possibly from Ger. schnucke, a small sheep.
12 Ger. schreien, to cry out. The original verb, according to Miller, is also used as a noun, as in “Cut out the schreien!”
1 Miller calls this “a formation that originated from a decidedly vulgar expression in Jewish.… It has become so common that it is used freely, with no consciousness of its vulgar beginning.”
2 The object here, says Miller, is to get the aid of the second salesman when the first fears that he is not making headway. The relief man is usually introduced as the sales manager, general manager, or president.
3 Ger. verlieren, to lose. “It is employed,” says Miller, “when a salesman wants to let another salesman know that the latter’s presence is interfering with a sale.”
4 Edward C. Ames says in Note on Suite, American Speech, Dec., 1937, p. 315, that the pronunciation sweet sounds affected to most customers, and that salesmen wait until a customer uses it before using it themselves. Otherwise it is soot. See also Department-Store Salespeople and Shoe Clerks.
5 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
6 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
7 These come mainly from the glossary in Holy Old Mackinaw, by Stewart H. Holbrook; New York, 1938; Logger Talk, by James Stevens, American Speech, Dec., 1925, pp. 135–40; Timberland Terminology, by Orlo H. Misfeldt, the same, Oct., 1941, pp. 232–34; Paul Bunyan Talk, by Elrick B. Davis, the same, Dec., 1942, pp. 217–25; Rhymes of a Western Logger, by Robert E. Swanson; Vancouver (B.C.), 1943, pp. 49–56, and Logger-Talk, by Guy Williams; Seattle, 1930. Other authorities are listed in Burke, pp. 101–02. Some early Maine terms are in Joys and Perils of Lumbering, Harper’s Magazine, Sept., 1851, pp. 517–21. The argot of New Zealand loggers is in Fiddlers, Ropies and Skiddies, New Zealand Free Lance, Aug. 18, 1943. p. 7. I am indebted here to Mr. J. Heenan. I am also indebted to Miss Helen F. Northrup and to Messrs. Stewart H. Holbrook, James Stevens, Washington J. McCormick, Charles E. Brown, Carl B. Costello, Harold H. Sherley, Harold Russell, Fred Hamann, Paul Drus and John B. Martin.
1 From caterpillar, but now applied to all tractors.
2 Says a correspondent: “The first logger who heard an Easterner say caulk thought he was trying to say cork.”
3 Timberland Terminology, by M. Misfeldt, before cited, p. 233. See Supplement I, pp. 393–94.
1 Williams, before cited, p. 12. Says Davis, before cited, p. 217: “Lumberjacks call themselves loggers. To call them lumbermen is an invitation to a brawl. To a logger, a lumberman is a sawdust-eater down at the macaroni-mills.”
2 Used metaphorically to designate the street of saloons, flophouses, etc., frequented by loggers in town. Harvey C. Muldoon says in Skid Road, San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 2, 1946, that the first skid-road was in Seattle, and that its vestiges are “more or less defined by the present Yesler way.” Other skid-roads are Trent avenue in Spokane, Howard street in San Francisco, and West Pender street in Vancouver.
3 From snooser, the logger’s term for a Scandinavian. The snuff was introduced by Scandinavians, and is very peppery. It is chewed, not snuffed.
4 Abnaki Indian waniigan, a trap. Traced by the DAE to 1848.
5 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
6 The following terms come from Mining Town Terms, by Joseph and Michael Lopushansky, American Speech, June, 1929, pp. 368–74; Lingo – Mine Run, Writer’s Digest, Nov., 1941, pp. 28–29; Glossary of Current and Common Mining Terms, issued by the Bituminous Coal Institute, revised edition; Washington, 1947, and Lexicon of Trade Jargon. I am indebted here to Miss Virginia Allen, Eric Bender and Fred Hamann.
1 Formerly actual canaries were used.
2 These come from The Lingo of the Mining Camp, by Helen L. Moore, American Speech, Nov., 1926, pp. 86–88; Mining Expressions Used in Colorado, by Levette J. Davidson, the same, Dec., 1929, pp. 144–47; Mining Jargon in Nevada: A Guide to the Silver State; Portland (Ore.), n. d., pp. 58–63; The Folklore, Customs and Traditions of the Butte Miner, by Wayland D. Hand, California Folklore Quarterly, Jan., 1946, pp. 1–25, and April, 1946, pp. 153–78, and Lexicon of Trade Jargon. The vocabulary of the early California miners is dealt with at length in California Gold-Rush English, by Marian Hamilton, American Speech, Aug., 1932, pp. 423–33. They gave the general speech many terms, e.g., prospector, to pan out, to make a stake, to grubstake, hard-pan, paydirt and claim-jumper, and popularized many others that they did not invent, e.g., gulch, jim-jams, canyon and tenderfoot.
1 The following list is mainly based on Derrick Jargon, by Winifred Sanford and Clyde Jackson, Southwest Review, Spring, 1934, pp. 335–45; Language of the California Oil Fields, by Frederick R. Pond, American Speech, April, 1932, pp. 261–72; Oklahoma; a Guide to the Sooner State; Norman (Okla.), 1941, pp. 121–22, and Pipe Line Terms, by Leon Hines, American Speech, Dec., 1942, p. 280. I am greatly indebted to Mr. Lawrence E. Smith, of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, for revising my first draft and making additions to it, and also to Messrs. T. W. Archer, Fred Hamann, Miles Hart and Alfred M. Landon.
1 Robert Shafer says in The Origin of Basic Sediment, American Speech, Oct., 1945, p. 238, that B. S. originally had its usual vulgar significance, but that basic sediment was substituted when oil-men began to grow refined.
2 See Cat Cracker and Cat Plant, by M. M. S., American Speech, Feb., 1944, p. 46.
3 See Doodlebugs, by Mody C. Boatwright, Lamp, Aug., 1946, pp. 10–11.
4 Almost obsolete. Chemicals now do the work.
1 Pronounced tower. Formerly it was twelve hours, but now it is eight. See afternoon, daylight and graveyard.
2 The DAE’s first example is dated 1903, but wildcatting, the verb, is traced to 1883.
3 From Language of the Livestock Market, by Russell F. Prescott, American Speech, Dec., 1935, pp. 269–72; How They Talk in the Stockyards, by A. A. Imberman, Baltimore Evening Sun (editorial page), Dec. 15, 19
39; Words From South Omaha, by Rudolph Umland, American Speech, Oct., 1041, pp. 235–36, and Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
1 I am indebted for most of these to Mr. A. Aubrey Bodine, chief of the photographic department of the Baltimore Sunpapers, and Mr. Jack Price, photo editor of the Editor & Publisher. The rest come from Slanguage of the Amateur Photographer, by Robert Johnston, American Speech, Dec., 1940, pp. 357–60, and More Jargon of the Amateur Photographer, by Gene Bradley, the same, Dec., 1941, pp. 316–17.
2 R. L. Simon says in Miniature Photography; New York, 1937, p. 16, that the term was invented by a San Francisco news photographer in 1925. The first candid camera in wide use was the German Leica.
3 Mr. Jack Price, before cited, says that it was launched c. 1912 by James Kane. of the New York Journal. He took a photograph of an actress seated on the rail of an incoming steamship, and discovered on developing it that it included more of her person than either he or she had suspected. “That,” he exclaimed, “is what I call real cheese-cake” – a favorite New York sweet. Other accounts ascribe the coinage of the term to Joe Marsland, c. 1925. Discussions of it are in Time, Sept. 17, 1934, p. 30; Broadside, July, 1943, p. 1; Saturday Review of Literature, June 24, 1944, p. 22; and American Notes & Queries, Sept., 1945, p. 88; Nov., 1945, p. 123; Jan., 1946, p. 155, and Feb., 1946, p. 172.
4 The usual plan is to pull the slide but not spring the shutter. Mr. Jack Price, before cited, tells me that this device was invented c. 1913 by Wade Mountfort, a New York ship-news photographer much afflicted by bogus French noblemen on incoming ships.
1 In this sense, apparently an Americanism and a relatively recent invention of Hollywood press-agents. In the early days of photography it was used for photographic, and in that sense is traced by the NED to 1839.
2 First used, I believe, by Variety.
3 Said to be a repunctuation of Hebrews XIII, 8, thus: “Jesus Christ! The same yesterday, and today, and forever!”
4 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
5 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
1 From Speech in the Post Office, by Paul Bisgaier, American Speech, April, 1932, pp. 278–79, and Lexicon of Trade Jargon. I am also indebted to Mr. Hartford Beaumont.
2 Apparently from the German nichts. Traced by the DAE to 1879. See AL4, p. 157, n. 2.
3 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon. Many other potters’ terms are in a poem, From Clay to Roses, by Harry Brokaw, Congressional Record, May 2, 1946, p. A2568.
4 Pugilists as a class are far too stupid to invent an argot of any interest. What passes as such is mainly produced by sports writers. Many of its terms are given in Jargon of Fistiana, by Robert E. Creighton, American Speech, Oct., 1933, pp. 34–39. I offer a few samples here. A number of pugilistic words and phrases have got into the general speech, e.g., to hit below the belt, knockout, to throw up the sponge, and to take the count.
1 Obviously suggested by the resemblance of a cauliflower-ear to the vegetable.
2 Traced by the NED to 1606.
3 Partridge calls it an Americanism and says that it was first used after 1900. Not in Alfred H. Holt’s Phrase Origins, New York, 1936.
4 Westbrook Pegler’s column, March 11, 1947.
5 Traced by Farmer and Henley to 1857.
6 Probably borrowed from the racetrack, where it signifies a sorry nag. It may be related to the synonymous palouser, which may be derived from the name of the Palouse Indians of the Northwest. Holt, before cited, suggests that it may come from the Spanish peluca, a term of reproof.
7 Dr. Harrison S. Martland says in Punch Drunk, Journal of the American Medical Association, Oct. 13, 1928, p. 1103, that “the basic lesion is due to traumatic multiple hemorrhages.”
8 Coined by the late Abraham Lincoln Herford. See my Heathen Days; New York, 1943, p. 101.
9 It was with a blow which shook the solar plexus that Robert Fitz-simmons knocked out James J. Corbett at Carson City, Nev., March 17, 1897, but Peter Tamony says in The Advent of Solar Plexus, San Francisco News-Letter & Wasp, Oct. 27, 1939, p. 18, that the sporting fraternity did not become aware of the term until the effects were explained by Dr. John H. Girdner, of New York, two days later. The old-time English pugilists called the pit of the stomach the mark.
10 Its origin is discussed in White Hope, by Steven T. Byington, American Speech, April, 1943, pp. 156–68.
11 These come mainly from English As She is Spoke Where Nags Run, by Hugh Bradley, New York Evening Post, May 15, 1936; Race-Track Lingo, by Charles H. Dorsey, Jr., Baltimore Evening Sun, April 15, 1940; A Billion Across the Board, Fortune, Sept., 1944, pp. 202–14, and Horse English is Very Simple, by Arthur Siegel, Boston Traveler, May 26, 1946. I am indebted here to Mr. Bradford F. Swan.
1 “When a jockey has such an allowance,” says Dorsey, “it is indicated on the programme by an asterisk, hence the bug.”
2 Dorsey says that the word is apparently derived from gipsy, and “has no derogatory significance whatever.”
3 “Because,” says Bradley, “Kentucky trainers used to tell a client his horse finished fourth when he was way out of the running.”
4 The Living Language, by Dwight L. Bolinger, Words, May, 1939, p. 74.
5 Defined by Webster 1934 as “one that enters any competition under false representations as to his identity, past performance, or the like; esp., a horse entered fraudulently in a race under a false name to obtain better odds in the betting.” The term seems to be an Americanism, for it does not appear in the NED, and Partridge omits it from his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, though he admits the verb to ring in the sense of “to manipulate, to change illicitly,” and to ring in in the sense of “to insert, esp. to substitute, fraudulently.” The DAE unaccountably overlooks it, but it is to be found as ringer-in, in the sense of an interloper, in Harper’s Magazine, Feb., 1857, p. 421.
6 “The species,” says Bradley, “is about as extinct as a New York starter who knows his business.”
7 This elegant euphemism got a large play in the newspapers at the time of the racing scandals in Maryland, 1946.
8 Dorsey says that it is derived from tackle.
1 The NED says that this is a misuse of the word. It actually means having an eye “the iris of which is whitish, streaked, parti-colored or different in hue from the other eye, or which has a divergent squint.”
2 Some of these terms have been borrowed from the English, just as racing itself was borrowed. Others have entered into the common speech, sometimes in figurative senses, e.g., ringer, horse-sense, well-groomed, also ran, to set the pace, tight rein, and walk-over.
3 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
4 i.e., tunnel excavators.
5 I take these from The Idiom of the Sheep Range, by Charles Lindsay, American Speech, June, 1931, pp. 355–59; Stock Jargon, in Nevada: a Guide to the Silver State; Portland (Ore.), n. d., and Lexicon of Trade Jargon. See also Cattlemen.
6 My authorities here are Lingo of the Shoe Salesman, by David Geller, American Speech, Dec., 1924, pp. 283–86, with a vocabulary by J. S. Fox; Shoe-store Terms, by Erik I. Bromberg, the same, April, 1938, p. 150; a United Press dispatch from Lincoln, Neb., July 2, 1936, describing an investigation made by students of Miss Mamie Meredith, instructor in business English at the University of Nebraska, and Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
1 Yiddish mie ken zie, I know her.
2 i.e., one who says “Show me this; show me that.”
3 Ger. schlacht, a battle.
4 Apparently from a Yiddish word meaning a misfortune or curse.
5 “The term is used,” says Geller, “to impress the customer with the fact that he is being given more attention for his money.”
6 Yiddish tochus lekker, arse-kisser.
7 See also Department-Store Clerks and Instalment-House Salesmen.
8 These come mainly from Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
1 St. Crispin is the patron of shoe-makers. Both he and his brother, St. Crispinian, practised the craft in Gaul, and both were beheaded a
t Soissons in 285 or 286. The first trades-union of American shoe-makers, formed in 1868, was called the Knights of St. Crispin.
2 The soda-jerker or jerk or hopper calls himself a soda-dispenser (his trades-union is the Cooks, Countermen, Soda Dispensers and Assistants Union) or fountaineer (Supplement I, p. 360). His jargon is very much like that of waitresses. (See Food-Dispensers.) It includes a number of terms of true cant, designed to prevent strangers understanding what is communicated, and some of them are simple numerals. Thus, thirteen or ninety-eight signifies that the manager is in sight, and ninety-five or ninety-six is a warning to the cashier that a customer is getting away without paying his check.
3 On Oct. 8, 1936 the Red Network of the National Broadcasting Company put on an interview with several soda-jerkers from Radio City, with Dr. W. W. Beardsley as the interlocutor. The advance notice, dated Oct. 6, said: “The soda-jerker’s behind-the-counter speech almost amounts to a code, covering any number of subjects in addition to that of dispensing sodas and sandwiches. In recent years its use has become nation-wide.” I am indebted here to Messrs. Theodore R. Goodman and William Feather.
1 These come from Slang of Steel, Fortune, Dec., 1935, p. 44, and Lexicon of Trade Jargon.
2 From dolomite.
3 See Supplement I, p. 604.
4 Some of these terms are now virtually obsolete, for the setting up of the Securities and Exchange Commission, on July 6, 1934, greatly crippled constructive salesmanship in Wall Street. Most of them come from Financial Racketeering and How to Stop It, by William Leavitt Stoddard; New York, 1931, pp. 4 and 5. I am also indebted here to Messrs. Dent Smith and Edward L. Bernays.
1 Stockbrokers and their clerks have some amusing nicknames for conspicuous stocks, e.g., Father Divine, International Telephone & Telegraph; Nipper, Northern Pacific; Monkey, Montgomery Ward; Jumpy, Johns-Manville; Knockout, Coca-Cola; Old Woman, New York, Ontario & Western; Betty, Bethlehem Steel; Big Steel, U. S. Steel; Minnie Mouse, Marine Midland; Mop, Missouri Pacific; Widow, West Indies Sugar; Ukulele, Union Carbide & Carbon; Rebecca, Republic Steel; Rockies, Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific; Sopac, Southern Pacific; Whiskey, Wisconsin Central. I am indebted here to Mr. C. MacCoy, of the New York Exchange and to Traders’ Tongue, Investor’s Reader, Dec. 15, 1943, pp. 4 and 5. Some bond issues have special names, e.g., Saps, San Antonio Public Service 4s; Sows, South Carolina Power 5s; Miserys, Missouri Power & Light 3 1/4s; Scarlett O’Haras, Southern Bell Telephone 3s.