American Language Supplement 2

by H. L. Mencken

  There remain the theatre auxiliaries – for example, the box-office crew and the corps of stage-hands. The vocabulary of the former was printed in the New York Times in 1935,1 and that of the latter in American Speech in 1928.2 From the box-office list I take the following:

  Annie Oakley, skull or clicker. A pass. See also ducat.

  Box. The doorkeeper’s receptacle for ticket-stubs; also the stubs themselves.

  Buy. A ticket agency’s purchase of seats.3

  Count the box, v. To count the stubs in the box, which see.

  Count the rack, v. To count the tickets left unsold in the box-office.

  Crashing. Getting into a theatre without a ticket.

  Dressing a house. Seating an audience in such a manner that it appears to be larger than it is, usually by leaving every other pair of seats vacant.

  Ducat. A pass; also, a desirable seat.

  Dumps. Tickets returned to the box-office by ticket-agencies.

  Gyp. One who charges more than the legal premium on agency tickets.

  Hardwood. Tickets for standing-room.

  House-seats. A few seats reserved by the management for favored patrons or guests.

  Ice. Commissions formerly paid to box-office men.

  Murder. A heavy demand for tickets.

  Rat, or digger. A sidewalk ticket speculator.

  Schlag, or brutal. A very light demand for tickets.4

  Steerer. One who directs persons turned away from the box-office to a ticket speculator.

  Treasurer. A euphemism for ticket-seller.5

  From Gable’s “American Stage-Hand Language,” lately cited, and from various articles in Variety, come these examples of the argot of stage crews:

  Ad curtain. The curtain behind the asbestos, so called because it formerly bore advertisements.

  Asbestos. The main curtain, usually fireproof.

  Booth. The electrician’s station.

  Carps. The stage carpenter.

  Clear. A warning to stage-hands that the curtain is about to go up.

  Cover. A property-man who stands in the wings during gunplay on the stage, to discharge a pistol in case that of the actor fails to go off.

  Cyclorama, or cyc. A back drop with extensions enclosing the whole stage.

  Deck-hand. A stage-hand.

  Drop. A hanging piece of scenery.

  Flat. A piece of rigid scenery.

  Flood. A light illuminating the whole stage.

  Fly-floor. A platform midway between the grid and the stage floor. To it the lines supporting scenery are tied off or belayed.

  Flyman. A grip who handles the ropes supporting scenery.

  Grid. A framework high above the stage from which the lines supporting the scenery are suspended.

  Grip. One who assists the carpenter and second hand.

  Juice. The electrician.

  Line. A rope supporting scenery. Each drop has three – a short line, a center line and a long line.

  Operator. An assistant to the electrician.

  Pin-rail. A rail on the fly-floor to which lines are fastened.

  Pocket. An electrical outlet.

  Practical. Said of scenery or properties that are not merely painted, but really work.

  Props. The property-man.

  Scene-dock, or organ-loft. The place where scenery belonging to a theatre is stored.

  Second hand. The carpenter’s chief assistant.

  Set. The entire scenery for a scene.

  Skate. To slide a flat across the stage.

  Spot. A small light whose rays are concentrated in one place.

  Strike. To dismantle a set.1

  The argot of the movie-lots shows a good many loans from that of the theatre, but it has also produced some picturesque novelties of its own, chiefly having to do with the technical process of picture making. Most of the following specimens, assembled from various sources,1 were scrutinized and revised by Miss Anita Loos and the late Edgar Selwyn, to whose friendly aid I am much indebted:

  Baby. A small spotlight.2

  Beard, muff, or feather-merchant. An extra with natural whiskers.

  Beef. A laborer.

  Best boy. The first assistant to a gaffer, which see.

  Blupe. An unwanted sound on a sound track.

  Boom-jockey. A sound man who follows the action with a microphone.

  Bottle. A camera lens.

  Breakaway. A chair or other object made of Balsa wood, which falls to pieces when one performer uses it to clout another; also, any simulated glass object made of clear sugar for the same purpose.

  Bulber. A photographer.

  Bungalow. The metal housing of a sound-proof camera.

  Butterfly. A disk of gauze used to diffuse light, or a speck on the camera lens.

  Canary. An unidentified noise.

  Carbon-monkey. The man who renews the carbons in the lights used on a technicolor set.

  Century, or nigger. A cloth shade to shield the camera lens.

  Charlie, or walrus. An actor with a mustache.

  Civilian. A person not connected with the movies.3

  Co-ed. A small floodlight carried on the camera.

  Cooked. Said of an overdeveloped negative.

  Cook’s tour. A visit to a movie lot by civilians.

  Cow-waddy. A he-man in a Western film.4

  Cutting-room. The place where movies are edited.

  Dolly, v. To move up on a shot with the camera.

  Double frame, v. To slow up the speed of action by printing each frame of a film twice.

  Dub, v. To re-record and combine effects – dialogue, music, etc. – on one film.

  Extra. A performer in crowa scenes, without lines to speak and usually hired by the day.

  Fishpole. An appliance for holding a microphone over the head of a performer.

  Frame. Each picture on a film.1

  Free ride. A meal at the expense of the company.

  Gaffer. The head electrician.

  Gag-man. One who supplies the working script with comedy.

  Galloping. Variable motor speed.2

  Gimbal tripod. A camera-mount that simulates the motion of a ship.

  Gobo. A black screen mounted on a tripod, used for casting shadows.3

  Grease-room. A make-up room for extras. A make-up man is a grease-pusher.

  Hays office. The Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc., of which Elder Will H. Hays was president, 1922–45. Its chief function is to keep the movies out of trouble, and one of its duties is to censor pictures.4

  Hollywood. In the movie sense, the whole Los Angeles region. Legally speaking, Hollywood is that part of Los Angeles north of Melrose avenue and west of Vermont avenue.

  Independent, or indie. A movie producer not affiliated with one of the big companies; also, the owner of an independent movie-theatre.

  Inky. An incandescent light.

  Inky-dink. A small baby, which see.

  In the can. Said of a film that has gone through the cutting and dubbing processes and is ready to be shipped to exhibitors.

  Jelly. A gelatine sheet placed in front of a light to diffuse its rays.

  Juicer. An electrician. See gaffer.

  Junior. A spotlight intermediate in size between a broad and a baby.

  Kick. Light reflected from bright objects.

  Kill, v. To turn off a light.

  Klieg eyes. Eye inflammation produced by the glare of lights.5

  Lens louse. An actor who tries to put himself forward.

  Lily. A good take, which see.

  Location. Any place for making pictures that is not a lot, which sec.

  Loop it. To re-record dialogue in order to improve the reading of a line or to get rid of extraneous voices that were recorded with the original.

  Lot. Any permanent place for making pictures.

  Lowboy. A low camera base.

  Lupe. A tubular light of more than 1500 watts.6

  Match-box, or pickle. A miniature spotlight. />
  Matte shot. A film made with a section blocked out, to be filled later on another set.

  Mike-boom. An apparatus supporting the microphone.

  Mike-monkey. A sound man who manipulates the mike-boom.

  Milk a scene, v. To get everything possible out of it.

  Montage. An effect produced by dissolving into each other a series of short shots with dramatic crescendo.

  M. O. S. A scene without sound.1

  Moviola. A machine enabling film editors to see a picture and hear the sound during the cutting process.

  Neighborhood-house. A movie-theatre out of the downtown area, usually presenting the second or later runs of pictures.2

  Orange-peel. A roughened light reflector.

  Organ. A portable sound-control apparatus.

  Organ-grinder. The operator of an organ.

  Pan, v. To move a camera horizontally.

  Pill. A long speech, hard to learn.

  Quickie. A movie made in haste, usually by a small company and with little expenditure.

  Red-light. Warning over the door of a studio while a scene is being shot.

  Retake. A second photographing of a scene after a picture has been completely shot, usually to rectify blunders.

  Rifle. A small spotlight throwing a narrow beam.

  Roughie. A preliminary sketch made by the art department.

  Rushes. Quickly made positives of films shot during the day, for the inspection of directors and other functionaries.

  Scoop. A light with a shovel-shaped reflector.

  Scrim. A large gauze light-diffuser.

  Script-girl. A girl stationed on the set who keeps a detailed record of the shooting of every scene.

  Sheepherder, or lung-man. An assistant director in charge of extras.

  Shiner. A sun reflector for outdoor work.

  Shoot, v. To photograph with a movie-camera.

  Skip frame, v. To hasten the speed of the action by printing only every alternate frame.

  Skirt. A silk screen fastened over a spotlight to diffuse the light.

  Skull doily. A wig.

  Soup. The photograph’s developer.

  Spaghetti. Film.

  Speed, or up to speed. Used to indicate that the camera is running film at the standard speed of 90 feet a minute, or 1 1/2 feet a second.

  Stand-in. A person of the same height, build and coloring as a principal performer, employed to take the latter’s place during the tedious process of focusing the camera and adjusting the lights for a shot.

  Standing-board. A device for enabling a performer to rest between scenes without sitting down and thus rumpling his (or her) clothes.

  Still. An ordinary photograph of a scene or people in a movie.

  Stockade. A protection for the camera when animals are being photographed, or there is other danger of injury to it.

  Stunt-man, or -woman. A performer resembling a principal performer, employed to take the latter’s place in hazardous scenes, such as wrecks, duels, explosions, and leaps from automobiles and airplanes.

  Suck, v. To lift with a block and tackle.

  Swing-gang. The night shift of stage hands.

  Take. A scene or other unit of a picture.

  Titles. The legends used to explain the action of a movie.1

  Trailer. An advance notice of a new film, with specimen scenes, prepared for theatres in which it has been booked.

  Treatment. A first rough draft of a story for a screen play.

  Trucking shot. A shot made with the camera moving along with the action.

  Western, or horse-opera. A movie dealing with cowboys, Indians, bandits, etc.

  Whodunit (Who done it?). A melodramatic movie dealing with mystery and murder.2

  Yes-man. A sycophantic subordinate.3

  Zoom. To move a camera up to or away from an object quickly.

  Preview, meaning the showing of a picture, before its first public performance, at a special performance for movie critics and other privileged persons, is not a Hollywood invention. The identical verb is traced by the NED to 1607. The noun, however, seems to be an Americanism, for the NED’s two examples, one dated 1882 and the other 1899, and both antedating the movies, come from American publications. It has been borrowed by the English, and is now used in senses having nothing to do with motion-pictures, as it is in America. The austere Literary Supplement of the London Times uses it, for example, as a heading on advance notices of new books.1 Release, in the sense of a new picture just delivered, or about to be delivered, to exhibitors, was apparently borrowed by Hollywood from the jargon of newspaper offices. It arose in the latter when public dignitaries began sending out advance copies of their speeches marked For release at such-and-such a time. This legend was presently used by press-agents for a similar purpose, and a document so marked came to be known as a release. According to Eric Berger, writing in Coronet,2 photoplay was invented by Edgar Strakosch in 1912. The early motion picture producers disliked movie, which had begun to displace biograph, kinetoscope, kinetograph3 and cinematograph,4 and in 1912 the Essanay Company offered the princely prize of $25 for something more elegant. The money went to photoplay, sent in by Strakosch. The term gained a considerable popularity, and became the name of one of the earliest and most influential magazines for movie fans, edited from 1914 to 1932 by James R. Quirk, but movie nevertheless survived.

  A term which often puzzles movie fans is oscar, the name of a gold statuette awarded each year for various sorts of professional achievement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Hollywood opposite number to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.5 For the following account of the origin of the word I am indebted to the late Edgar Selwyn:

  Donald Gledhill, secretary of the Academy, and his wife were in Gledhill’s office and fell to discussing the impending arrival of a relative called Uncle Oscar. A newspaper man was waiting in an outer office. While this conversation was going on a jeweler arrived with a sample statue. At first glance Gledhill mistook him for the missing relative and said to Mrs. Gledhill, “Here’s Oscar now.” The newspaper man, thinking he referred to the statue, wrote in his column the next day: “The gold Academy awards are referred to as oscars by Academy officials.” This was lifted by other newspaper men all over the country, and in a little while the awards were being called oscars everywhere.1

  Many terms associated with the movies are the product of pressagents,2 e.g., wampas, a female aspirant to stardom;3 sheik, a romantic lover;4 cobra, a girl powerfully aphrodisiacal;5 vamp, a more mature woman skilled at conquering and wrecking men;6 starlet, sex-appeal,7 it,8 oomph,9 glamor-girl,10 motion-picture cathedral, and the magnificent super-colossal. Some of other terms emanating from Hollywood wits have their points, e.g., to go Hollywood, meaning, when applied to an actor, to succumb to a suffocating sense of his own importance,1 and, when applied to a movie writer or other intellectual, to abandon the habits and ideas of civilization and embrace the levantine life of the richer movie folks; casting-couch for the divan in a casting-director’s office; tear-bucket for an elderly actress playing heart-broken mothers; finger-wringer, for a star given to emoting; baddie for an actor playing villains; cliff-hanger, for a serial melodrama; sobbie or weepie for a picture running to sadness, and bump man for a performer who undertakes dangerous stunts. Variety uses flesh to designate live players who appear in movie houses.

  The queer jargon called jive, which had its heyday in the early 1940s, was an amalgam of Negro slang from Harlem and the argots of drug addicts and the pettier sort of criminals, with occasional additions from the Broadway gossip columns and the high-school campus. It seems to have arisen at the start among jazz musicians, many of them Negroes and perhaps more of them addicts,2 and its chief users were always youthful devotees of the more delirious sort of ballroom dancing, i.e., the so-called jitterbugs. Earl Conrad says in his foreword to Dan Burley’s “Original Handbook of Harlem Jive”1 that it was “one more contribution of Negro America to the United State
s” and that it had its rise in “the revolutionary times when it was necessary for the Negro to speak and sing and even think in a kind of code,” but this is a romantic exaggeration. It actually arose in the honky-tonks and tingle-tangles of the prejazz era, and many of its current names for musical instruments go back to that era or even beyond, e.g., bull-fiddle or dog-house for a double-bass; groan-box or box of teeth for an accordion; slip-horn, slush-pump, gas-pipe, syringe or push-pipe for a trombone; thermometer for an oboe; iron-horn, plumbing, squeeze-horn or piston for a trumpet; pretzel or peck-horn for a French horn; licorice-stick, wop-stick, gob-stick, blackstick or agony-pipe for a clarinet; fog-horn, fish-horn or gobble-pipe for a saxophone; box, moth-box or 88 for a piano;2 scratch-box for a violin; chin-bass for a viola; gitter, gitbox or belly-fiddle for a guitar; grunt-iron for a tuba; god-box for an organ; wood-pile for a xylophone, and skin or suitcase for a drum. So with the names for performers, e.g., skin-tickler, skin-beater, hide-beater or brave boy for a drummer; squeaker for a violinist; sliver-sucker for a clarinetist; whanger, plunker-boy or plink-plonker for a guitarist; monkey-hurdler for an organist, gabriel for a trumpeter; and brass officer for a cornetist. Any performer on a wind instrument is a lip-splitter.

  The jazz band is a variable quantity, and may run from four or five men to what almost amounts to a symphony orchestra. Jazz itself is divided into two halves, the sweet kind and the hot kind or jive or swing,3 of which boogie-woogie is a sub-species.4 All jazz is based upon a strongly marked rhythm, almost always in four-four time, but the sweet variety is otherwise not greatly differentiated from ordinary popular music.1 A performer who sticks to the printed notes is a paperman, and if he ever undertakes conventional music is a commercial, salon-man, long-underwear or long-hair. An adept at hot jazz, which is marked by harmonic freedom and a frequent resort to improvisation, is a cat, and if he excels at arousing the libido of the fans (who are also, by courtesy, cats) he is said to send or give or ride or to go to town or to be in the groove, and becomes a solid sender or gate. The test of his skill is his proficiency at adorning the music with ad lib. ornaments called licks, breaks, riffs, get-offs or take-offs. The wilder they are the better. When swing performers meet to lick and riff for their own entertainment they are said to hold a jam-session, clam-bake or barrel-house. Music that is banal or stale is corny.2 Boogie-woogie accentuates a monotonous bass, usually of eight notes to the measure.3 A woman singer is a canary or chirp. Any wind performer is a Joe blow. Tuning up is licking the chops. High trumpet notes are Armstrongs.4 Notes are spots. Rests are lay-outs. To emphasize the rhythm is to beat it out. To be out of a job is to be cooling. Jazz in Negroid style is gut-bucket. To keep good time is to ride. The jazz bands have changed much of the conventional Italian terminology of music. Music played dolce is said to be schmalz (German for lard), scherzo is medium bounce, a grace-note is a rip, the final chord is a button, a drop in pitch on a sustained tone is a bend, and a glissando is a smear or slurp.1