2. CANT AND ARGOT
The cant of criminals is, in part, international. In its English form it includes a number of German words, and in all forms it includes Hebrew, Italian and gypsy words. The first vocabulary of it to be compiled was that of a German, Gerold Edilbach, c. 1420. This was followed in 1510 by the famous “Liber vagatorum,” which passed through many editions, and in which Martin Luther had a hand. The earliest English references to the subject are in Robert Copland’s “The Hye Waye to the Spyttel House,” 1517, a dialogue in verse between the author and the porter at the door of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. A great many similar books followed during the Sixteenth Century, and toward the end of the succeeding century appeared the first formal glossary, “The Dictionary of the Canting Crew,” by some unknown lexicographer signing himself B. E. This remained the standard work until the publication of the first edition of Captain Francis Grose’s “Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue” in 1785, which contained about 3000 entries. There was a second edition in 1788, with 1000 more entries, and a third in 1796. Grose went on gathering materials until his death in 1791, and a fourth edition was brought out by Hewson Clarke in 1811. A fifth, edited by Pierce Egan, followed in 1823, and a sixth in 1868. In 1931 Eric Partridge published a seventh, based on Grose’s third, with somewhat elaborate comments. Most of the dictionaries of slang also include thieves’ cant; I have listed the more important of them in the preceding section.
Down to the Civil War the cant of American criminals seems to have been mainly borrowed from England. During the 30’s a great many professional criminals were driven out of London by Sir Robert Peel’s act constituting the Metropolitan Police (1829), and not a few of them immigrated to the United States. In the 50’s they were reinforced by escaped convicts and ticket-of-leave men from Australia, many of whom settled in California.56 The argot of these argonauts was not only borrowed by their native brethren; a good part of it also got into the common slang of the day, especially along the two coasts. Some of it still survives, e.g., skirt for woman, hick for countryman, moonshine for illicit whiskey, dip for pickpocket, and rat for betrayer.57 But by the opening of the Civil War the American underworld was beginning to fashion its own cant, and by 1870 it was actually making exports to England. One of the first words exported seems to have been joint, in the sense of an illicit or otherwise dubious resort. Many others followed, and since the rise of racketeering in this country the eastward tide has been heavy. “Until about 1880,” says Eric Partridge, “English cant was essentially English, with a small proportion of words from French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Low German, plus an occasional borrowing from lingua franca, the mongrel Esperanto of the Mediterranean coast. Since that date, however, and especially since the war, it has received many guests from America.”58 Meanwhile, a number of terms borrowed from English cant have been changed in meaning in this country, e.g., conk, which means the nose to English criminals but has come to mean the head in the United States. The present jargon of the American underworld, says Dr. Elisha K. Kane of the University of North Carolina, “embraces the slang of three general classes — criminals, tramps and prostitutes. But as all classes meet, the cant of one is understood, to a degree, by all.”59 Dr. Kane says that of the terms listed in “the English beggar books and cony-catching pamphlets of the Sixteenth Century, not a dozen words have survived” in this country, and that these are “mostly verbs.” He adds that the lingo of all English-speaking criminals, as it has come down through the centuries, has gained in simplicity, and that the cumbersome polysyllables that once marked it, e.g., clapperdogeon, hankstelo, holmendods, jobbernoll, jockungage, nig-menog, supernaculum and tickrum-juckrum, have now disappeared. That it is true is proved by an examination of his own glossary, or of any of the others that have been printed.60
In general, criminal argot bears a close resemblance to ordinary slang, and employs the same devices to extend its vocabulary. Making an attribute do duty for the whole produces broad for woman, clatter for patrol-wagon, apple-knocker for farmer, law for policeman, yip for dog, hard stuff for metal money, eye for Pinkerton detective, and big-house for prison. Hidden resemblances produce ice for diamonds, paper-hanger for forger, and third-degree (borrowed from Freemasonry) for police examination. The substitution of far-fetched figures for literal description gives the felon altar for toilet-seat, bull for policeman, bug for alarm-bell, bone-orchard for cemetery, Fourth of July for gun-fight, and clown for village constable, and the contrary resort to a brutal literalness gives him croaker for doctor, and body-snatcher for kidnaper. He is fertile in abbreviations, e.g., dinah for dynamite, dick for detective, poke for pocketbook, poly for politician, and to gyp, obviously from gypsy. He invents many quite new words, e.g., goofy and zook (an old prostitute), and borrows others from foreign languages, e.g., spiel, fin and gelt from German, and ganov, kibitzer, kosher and yentzer from Yiddish.61 He makes common nouns of proper nouns, e.g., Brodie (from Steve Brodie), meaning a leap; Valentino, meaning a handsome young man who preys upon women; and Pontius Pilate, a judge. Finally, he devises many new verbs and verb-phrases or provides old ones with new meanings, e.g., to belch (to talk), to bible (to make oath), to breeze (to clear out), to case (to spy out), to crash (to enter forcibly), to drill (to shoot), to jail (to be convicted), to finger (to point out), to h’ist (to hold up), to bump off, to hi-jack, to do the book (to serve a life sentence), to flatten out (to lie low), to give the once-over, to go gandering (to look for something or someone), to shake down, to wipe out. Down to a few years ago, for some reason unknown, Cockney rhyming cant, supposed to have come in by way of Australia, was very popular among American thieves. It consists largely of a series of rhyming substitutions, e.g., mince-pie for eye, lump O’ lead for head, north and south for mouth, tit for tat for hat, twist and twirl for girl, storm (or trouble) and strife for wife, and babbling brook for crook. It has now gone out of fashion, but a few of its locutions, e.g., twist for girl, remain in use. The idea behind such far-fetched forms is to conceal meaning from the uninitiated. This is an essential characteristic of cant, as opposed to slang. The criminal frequently has to communicate with his fellows in the presence of the enemy, and under circumstances which make a revelation of his plans hazardous to him. For the same reason he inclines toward the terseness that Dr. Kane has remarked. “Brevity, conciseness,” says Ernest Booth, “is the essence of thieves’ jargon. To be able to convey a warning and the nature of the danger in a single word or phrase is the test.”62 Mr. Booth describes a tense situation in which “two or more thieves must make immediate decision regarding their actions.” “Lam [i.e., run away]?” pants a waverer. “No — stick [i.e., remain and shoot it out],” replies the leader — “and the battle is on.”
As Dr. Kane says, the argots of criminals, of tramps and of prostitutes have a great deal in common and are mutually intelligible; nevertheless, there are some differences. The criminals themselves are divided into classes that tend to keep apart, and the tramps and prostitutes shade off into the general population. There are also regional differences, and a term still in vogue in the East may be passé in the Middle West or on the Pacific Coast, or vice versa. Thus the Western crooks sometimes call a forger a bill-poster and on the Pacific Coast he may be a scratcher, whereas he is usually a paper-hanger, which is the eldest term, in the East. Again, in the East a jewelry-store is a slum-joint, whereas in the West it is an ice-house. Whenever a new form of thieving is invented it quickly develops a sub-cant of its own. Thus the automobile thieves who had their heyday in 1928 or thereabout devised a series of terms of their own to designate cars of the various more popular makes and designs, e.g., breezer for an open car, shed for a closed car, front-room for a sedan, B.I. for a Buick, caddy (or golfer) for a Cadillac, ducker for a Dodge, Hudson-pup for an Essex, papa for a Lincoln, spider for a Ford, Studie for a Studebaker, and so on.63 In the same way the drug peddlers who began to flourish after the passage of the Harrison Act in 1915 were ready with neologis
ms to reinforce the terminology of drug addiction in the general cant of the underworld. Physicians who supplied addicts with drugs became ice-tong doctors, the addicts themselves became junkers, and the Federal agents who tried to put down the traffic became whiskers, gazers or uncles. A mixture of cocaine and morphine was called a whizz-bang, an occasional user of drugs was a joy-rider, and to simulate illness in the hope of getting drugs was to throw a wing-ding.64 The racketeers who came in with Prohibition in 1920, and quickly arose to first place in the underworld, were lavish enrichers of its language. Some of their inventions, indeed, were adopted by the whole population, e.g., big shot, bathtub-gin, torpedo, trigger-man, gorilla (the last three meaning assassin), hide-out, pineapple (a bomb), heat (trouble), to needle, to cook (to redistil denatured alcohol), to cut (to dilute), to muscle in, to take for a ride, to put on the spot. Their term for genuine liquor, McCoy,65 promises to survive, at least until the last memory of Prohibition fades. They added two Yiddishisms to the common stock of all American rogues: meshuggah (crazy) and goy (a Christian). Racket itself, of course, was not a new word. It had been used by English criminals, in exactly its present sense, in the Eighteenth Century. Racketeer was a novelty, but I suspect that it was introduced, not by anyone deserving to be so called, but by some ingenious newspaper reporter.66
There is a special prison argot, grounded in large part, of course, on thieves’ cant, but with some special terms of its own.67 Naturally enough, most of the articles of the prison bill-of-fare have derisory names. In virtually all American prisons stew is slum, bread is punk or dummy, gravy is skilley, sugar is sand or dirt, eggs are bombs, roast beef is young-horse, sausages are beagles or pups, and coffee is jamoca (apparently from Java and Mocha). A prisoner lately dressed in is a fish, a sentence is a bit, the isolation cells are the hole, the ice-box, or the cooler, good time is the prisoner’s allowance for good behavior, a guard is a screw or hack, a recidivist is a two-time loser (or three-time or n-time, as the case may be), visiting day is the big day, a prison visitor is a hoosier, hacksaw blades are briars, the prison itself is the big house, a reformatory is a college or ref, a county workhouse is a band-box, and a police-station is a can. To smuggle a letter out of the place is to fly a kite. To escape is to crash, to blow, to cop a mope, or to go over the wall To be released is to spring or to hit the bricks. To go crazy while in confinement is to go stir-bug. To report a prisoner for violating a rule is to turn him in. To be imprisoned for life is to do the book or to do it all. To have no hope of release is to be buried, lagged or settled. To be sentenced to death is to get the works. To be hanged is to be topped or to dance. To be electrocuted is to burn, to fry or to squat. The march to the electric-chair is the last waltz. The chair itself is the hot-seat or hot-squat, and the death-house is the dance-hall. Special argots are also in use in various lesser sorts of hoosegow, e.g., reformatories and orphanages. The only report that I have been able to find on the vocabulary of incarcerated orphans68 indicates that the young inmates speak a jargon made up of borrowings from both school slang and criminal cant. From the former come bull-fest, collegiate, nifty and pash, and from the latter to scram, to gyp and screw (a watchman or officer).
The argot of tramps and hoboes also coincides with that of criminals, for though some of them are far from felons they inhabit a section of the underworld, and are pursued almost as relentlessly as yeggmen by the constabulary. Tramps and hoboes are commonly lumped together, but in their own sight they are sharply differentiated. A hobo or bo is simply a migratory laborer; he may take some longish holidays, but soon or late he returns to work. A tramp never works if it can be avoided; he simply travels. Lower than either is the bum, who neither works nor travels, save when impelled to motion by the police. The wobblies (members of the I.W.W.) of the years following the war were hoboes but certainly not tramps or bums. But all three classes use substantially the same argot.69 In it a bed-roll is a bindle or balloon, and the man who carries one is a bindle-stiff. A blanket is a soogan and a suitcase is a turkey. The place where tramps and hoboes foregather is a jungle or hang-out, and one who frequents it unduly, hoping to cadge food from the more enterprising, is a jungle-buzzard. A beggar is a panhandler and an old one is a dino. A sneak-thief is a prowler, a dirty fellow (most tramps are relatively clean) is a grease-ball, a Texan is a long-horn, a Southerner is a rebel, a migratory worker is a boomer, an employment-agent is a shark, and a farmer or other poor simpleton is a scissor-bill. The tramp who carries a boy with him, to rustle food for him and serve him otherwise, is a jocker or wolf, and the boy is a punk, gazooney, guntzel, lamb or prushun.70 To steal washing off the line is to gooseberry it. The discourse heard in mission-halls is angel-food, and the bum who listens to it is a mission-stiff. A Catholic priest is a buck or Galway, and the Salvation Army is Sally Ann. In the days before hitch-hiking, hoboes spent a great deal of their time stealing rides on the railroads, and their railroad vocabulary remains rich and racy. A locomotive is a hog, a coal-car is a battle-wagon, a caboose is a crummy, a freight-car is a rattler, a refrigerator-car is a reefer, a freight-train is a drag, a fast freight is a manifest or red-ball, an engineer is a hoghead, a conductor is a con, a brake-man is a Shack or brakie, and a section-hand is a gandy-dancer. Most of the larger railroads of the country have names in the argot of the road. The Chicago & Alton is the Carry-all, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy is the Q, the Baltimore and Ohio is the Dope, the Missouri Pacific is the Mop, the Southern Pacific is the Soup Line, and that part of it between Maricope, Ariz., and Yuma is the Gila Monster Route. In the old days a small town used to be a tank or a jerkwater, but now it is a filling-station. A tramp’s professional name is his moniker, e.g., Frisco Slim. The favorite jungle delicacy is mulligan or slum, a stew made of meat and vegetables. Food in general is chuck, garbage or scoffings, a meal given out at a kitchen door is a lump, milk is cow-juice, butter is salve or axle-grease, soup is shackles or Peoria, beer is slops, coffee is hot-stuff, mud or embalming-fluid, pancakes are flat-cars, sausage is gut, a chicken is a gump or two-step, catsup is red-lead, eggs are headlights, corned beef and cabbage is Irish turkey, pastry is toppings, and the meringue on a pie is calf-slobber.
A large part of the argot of the hoboes is borrowed from that of the railroad men. In both, for example, a locomotive is a hog and an engineer is a hoghead. But the railroad men also have many picturesque terms that their unwelcome guests have never picked up. To them a conductor is not a con, but Captain, a grabber, the master, the skipper, the king-pin, the big-ox or the brains. A passenger brakeman is a baby-lifter, a fireman is a bell-ringer, tallow-pot, stoker, smoke, bakehead, fireboy or diamond-cracker, a trainmaster is a master-mind, a master-mechanic is a master-maniac, a machinist is a nut-splitter, a telegraph-operator is a brass-pounder, a car-repairer is a car-toad or carwhacker, an air-brake repairman is an air-monkey, a switchman is a cinder-cruncher, snake, goose or clown, a yard-master is a dinger, ringmaster or the general, his assistant is a jam-buster, a train-dispatcher is a detainer, a yard-conductor is a drummer, a track-laborer is a jerry or snipe, the foreman of a track-gang is the king snipe, and a yard-clerk is a mudhop, number-grabber or number-dummy. They use crummy to designate a caboose, but they also use buggy, hack, hearse, cage, clown-wagon, crib, dog-house, louse-cage, monkey-house, parlor, way-car, shanty or hut. The last is sometimes also applied to the cab of a locomotive. A Pullman sleeper is a snoozer, a large locomotive is a battleship, a stock-car is a cow-cage, a passenger-car is a cushion, a cross-over is a diamond, a train-order is a flimsy, a freight-yard is a garden, a switch is a gate, a yard-engine is a goat, a signal torpedo is a gun, a go-ahead hand or lantern signal is a high-ball, a fast passenger-train is a high-liner, the tool-box under the caboose is a possum-belly, a helper locomotive for mountain use is a pusher, roof-garden or sacred-ox, the step at the front end of a yard-engine is a scoop, telegraph wires are strings, and a yard-office is a bee-hive. To cool a hot-box is to freeze the hub, to set the brakes is to anchor her, to set the em
ergency-brakes is to wing her, to jump from a car is to hit the grit, to boast is to blow smoke, to quit for the day is to pin for home, and to quit the service is to pull the pin. The old term boomer, designating a railroad man given to drifting from road to road, is now almost obsolete, for there are very few boomers left.71 Another argot that impinges upon the speech of hoboes is that of the circus and carnival men. The carnival men, indeed, also borrow a great deal from criminal cant, for in parts at least their business skirts the dim frontiers of the law. They have effected some changes of meaning in their borrowings. Thus gonov, which means a thief to thieves, means a fool on the carnival lot, and the same meaning is given to guntzel, which means, in the jungles, the boy companion of a tramp. To the carnival men a stand outside a show is a bally-stand, concessions are joints or hooplas, a seller of cheap novelties is a gandy-dancer, a hamburger-stand is a grab-joint, a fortune-teller’s tent is a mit-joint, a photograph-gallery is a mug-joint, cheap prizes are slum or crap, a snake-eater or other such freak is a geek, a gambling concession is a flat-joint, and the man operating it is a thief.72 The circus men have a rather more seemly vocabulary.73 To them the gaudy pictures in front of the side-shows constitute the banner-line, the circus-programme is the Bible, toy balloons are bladders, tickets are dukets, the ringmaster is always the equestrian-director, the powder used for making pink lemonade and other such drinks is flookum, the manager of the circus is the gaffer, a hamburger-stand is a grease-joint, the men who drive stakes are the hammer gang, a dressing-tent is a pad-room, that for clowns is Clown Alley, posters are paper, bouncers are pretty boys, the big tent is the rag, the men who load and unload the show are razorbacks, clowns are white-faces or Joeys, acrobats are kinkers, bareback riders are rosinbacks, and the tattooed man is the picture-gallery. The patrons are always suckers. A man who works animals is never a tamer, but always a trainer. Elephants, whether male or female, are bulls, zebras are convicts, tigers are stripes, and camels are humps. To slough is to strike the tents preparatory to moving on, to spot is to lay out their situation on the next lot, to kife is to swindle, and to three-sheet is to boast. The Monday-man, who had an exclusive concession to raid clothes-lines in the vicinity of the lot, has succumbed to the accumulating virtue of circuses, and the mud-show, drawn from town to town by horses, has gone with him.74
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