Read American Language Supplement 2 Online
Authors: H.L. Mencken
American Language Supplement 2 (143 page)
The decorous DAE does not list
jazz
, but the NED Supplement, while avoiding the original meaning of the term, shows that the musical meaning was well understood in England by 1918, and that
to jazz up
in the sense of to liven or brighten, was in vogue by 1920. The DAE traces
ragtime
, the predecessor of
jazz
, to 1897, but
it must be considerably older. The first
blues
were written by W. C. Handy, of Memphis, in 1911. Some of the other terms of
jazz
addicts come from sources almost as blushful as that of
jazz
itself,
e.g., jitterbug, cat, jerk, hot, to blow one’s top, I ain’t coming
, and
juke
.
1
Dr. Lorenzo D. Turner, the chief American authority on African loan-words in Negro American, says that
juke
is a corruption of a Wolof term,
dzug
or
dzog
, meaning to lead a disorderly life, to misconduct oneself,
2
and that
juke-house
, among the Negroes of the Southeast, means a house of ill repute.
3
Cat
, according to the NED, has been in use as a synonym for harlot since
c
. 1400.
Boogie-woogie
, according to Zora Neal Hurston, had the original significance, in the South, of secondary syphilis.
4
Jitterbug
, according to Tamony, is a fan “whose reaction to swing is always physical.”
5
The rest scarcely need glosses.
6
The American underworld is much less given than that of England to the banalities of what is called rhyming slang,
e.g., twist and twirl
for girl;
bowl of chalk
for talk;
bang and biff
for syphilis
(syph);
by the peck
for neck, and
fleas and ants
for pants. Maurer, from whom I take these examples,
1
says that such forms are vastly more prevalent on the Pacific Coast than in the East, but that the common belief that they are introduced there from Australia is erroneous. The Australians use them to some extent, but mainly only as loans from England. “There is a tendency,” says Maurer, “to clip one term and allow it to carry the meaning, even though it no longer rhymes, as
twist
, a girl, from
twist
and
twirl
.” Not a few such words and phrases were picked up in England by American soldiers during World War II, but they seem unlikely to survive.
2
In 1943 many of them were used in a movie called “Mr. Lucky,” but they apparently puzzled and displeased the American fans.
3
They are most used today by the lower varieties of underworld denizens, and seem to be more prevalent in prison than outside, though a few,
e.g., twist
, have some currency and have been adopted by the hep-cats. Campus slang, once a chief source of popular neologisms, has been swamped in recent years by those welling up from the underworld, and the grove of Academe borrows more from the barbarians than it offers them.
4
What passed for collegiate speech formerly had a considerable vogue in the movies, but in 1943
a war correspondent at Hollywood was reporting that it had “suddenly and unaccountably gone into a slump.”
1
I should add that he said in the same dispatch that the slang of the jitterbugs was also beginning to lose ground.
2
This last may have been a bit premature, but there is every indication that jive is not long for this life.
3
In the days of the Federal Writers’ Project in New York it planned a “Lexicon of Trade Jargon” that promised to be very useful, but when the project blew up the manuscript was still incomplete, and since then it has reposed, unpublished, in the Library of Congress.
4
One must regret that it was never finished, for the
argots of the trades contain many picturesque terms,
1
and the orthodox dictionaries of slang give them only the most cursory notice. Inasmuch as an adequate account of them would fill a volume twice as large as the present one it will be impossible to do much better here, but we can at least glance at some characteristic specimens. The argot of railroad men may well come first, for it is extraordinarily extensive, has provided the common vocabulary with many familiar phrases,
e.g., to jump the track
and
asleep at the switch
, and in part descends from the much older argots of coaching and the sailing ships.
In its terms for various functionaries and objects it is largely derisory. A locomotive engineer is a
hogger, hoghead, hog-jockey, hog-mauler
,
2
grunt
or
eagle-eye;
a fireman is an
ash-cat, ash-eater, blackie, diamond-cracker, bake-head, tallow-pot, fire-boy, bell-ringer, dust-raiser, soda-jerker, coal-heaver
or
smoke;
a conductor is a
big ox, big O, skipper, brains, boss, captain, drum, grabber
(passenger service) or
king
(freight); a brakeman is a
shack, hind-hook, club-winder
or
ground-hog
(freight) or a
thin-skin, baby-lifter
or
dude-wrangler
(passenger); a section-hand is a
donkey, gandy-dancer, jerry, snipe
or
terrier;
the foreman of a section gang is a
king snipe;
a flagman is a
bookkeeper;
a switchman is a
yard goose;
a yardmaster is a
ringmaster, dinger
or
bull goose;
a station-master is an
ornament;
a trainmaster is a
master mind;
a master mechanic is a
master maniac;
a train dispatcher is a
detainer
or
delayer;
a car-repairer is a
cherry-picker, tonk
or
car-knocker;
an engine-wiper is a
dishwasher;
a round-house machinist is a
chambermaid, nut-splitter, -buster
or
-cracker
, or
kettle-mender;
a boiler-maker is an
iron skull;
a repairer of air-brakes is an
air-monkey;
a railroad policeman is an
egg;
a clerk is a
paperweight
or
shiny pants;
a Pullman porter is a
bed-bug;
an official is a
brass collar
or
main pin;
a new employee is a
Casey;
one who is unpopular is a
scissorbill
or
scissor;
and one who is solicitous for the company’s interest is a
stockholder
. A locomotive is a
hog, pig, mill, calliope, smoker, jack
or
pot
, or (if small) a
coffee-pot, kettle, peanut-roaster
or
dinky;
a caboose is a
bouncer, shack, chariot, bedhouse, crib, cage, cracker-box, crumb-box, crummy, louse-cage, dog-house, glory-wagon, go-cart, monkey-wagon, palace, pavilion, shelter-house, buggy, hack, van, parlor, way-car, shanty, hearse, library, saloon, cook-shack, clown-wagon
or
zoo;
1
a refrigerator-car is a
reefer, reef
or
freezer;
a tank-car is a
can
or
oiler;
a cattle-car is a
cow-cage
or
-crate;
a sleeping-car is a
snoozer;
a locomotive tender is a
tank;
passenger-cars are
cushions
, and a private car is a
drone-cage
.
2
A few miscellaneous examples:
Asbestos, cobs, slack, real estate, or Pennsylvania. Coal.
Banjo, or scoop. A fireman’s shovel.
Battleship. A large locomotive or car.
Beehive. A yard office.
Bend the iron, or the rust,
v
. To throw a switch.
Big hook. A wrecking crane.
Bird-cage, or rubberneck-car. An observation-car.
3
Bird-cage, bug torch, or shiner. A lantern.
Black snake. A train of coal-cars.
Bootlegger. A train which runs over more than one railroad.
Bowling-alley. A hand-fired, coal-burning locomotive.
Brain-plate. A trainman’s badge.
Brownie. A demerit.
Brownie-box. A superintendent’s car.
Bull-pen. The crew room at a terminal.
Bullfighter. An empty car.
Bump,
v
. To displace another man by right of seniority.
Butterfly. A note thrown or handed from a train.
Candy-butcher or news-butcher. A pedlar selling candy, tobacco, magazines, etc., on a passenger train.
1
Caterpillar, or sailor, or tin lizard. A streamlined train.
Company jewelry. A trainman’s cap, badge and other insignia.
Consist. The make-up and type of cars in a train.
2
Cornfield meet. A head-on collision.
Crate. A box-car.
Crow’s nest, cockloft or penthouse. The cupola of a caboose.
Deadhead. An employee or other passenger riding on a pass; also, an empty passenger car; also, a locomotive being hauled by another.
Deck. The floor of an engine cab; also, the roof of a freight-car.
Die game,
v
. To stall on a grade.
Dope. Official order; also, a lubricant.
3
Drag. A slow freight.
Drunkard. A late Saturday night passenger train.
Eye. A signal,
e.g., red-eye
and
green-eye
.
Flip,
v
. To board a moving train.
Flat wheel. A lame man.
Fog, or putty. Steam.
Garden, or field. A freight-yard.
Gate. A switch.
Get the rocking chair,
v
. To be retired on pension.
Glory. A string of empty cars.
Gone fishing. Laid off.
Goose,
v
. To make an emergency stop.
Gut. An air-hose.
Harness. The uniform of a passenger conductor.
Highball. A go-ahead signal; also, a fast freight running on a schedule; as a verb, to speed.
4
High liner. A fast passenger train.
Hog-law. The federal statute which forbids a train-crew to work for more than 16 consecutive hours.
In the ditch. Wrecked.
In the hole. On a sidetrack.
Jerk soup, or jerk a drink,
v
. To pick up water from a channel between the rails while a train is under way.
1
Kitchen stove. The firebox of a locomotive.
Ladder. The main track in a yard.
Latch. A locomotive throttle.
Liner. A passenger train.
Main iron, main steel, main stem, or high iron. The main track.
Manifest, red ball, hot shot, or ball of fire. A fast freight.
Mountain pay. Overtime.
Niggerhead. The steam dome atop a locomotive boiler.
Pigpen. A roundhouse.
Ping-pong. Switching duty.
Pike. A railroad.
Possum-belly. The tool-box under a caboose.
Red-cap. A station porter.
2
Ringtail. A hobo.
Roof-garden, or sacred ox. A helper locomotive.
Sky-rockets. Red-hot cinders from the smoke-stack.
Tea-kettle. An old and decrepit locomotive.
Telltale. Any warning device, but especially the rods which hang over the track on the approach to a bridge, to warn freight-train crews to duck.
Varnish, or plush run. A passenger train.
Whale-belly, or sow-belly. A steel coal-car.
Whiskers, or age. Seniority.
Wildcat. A locomotive pulling no cars.
Wind. Air-brakes.
X. An empty car.
Yard goat. A switching engine.
Pullman porters, cooks and waiters have an argot of their own,
e.g., alarm-clock
, a passenger who snores loudly;
battleship
, an old-fashioned Pullman with sixteen sections and no private rooms;
to buck the bronco
, to sit up all night because no berths are vacant;
eye-drops
, cinders;
to go upstairs
, to carry food from the diner to the day-coaches;
nailer
, a railroad detective;
rubber-tired
, said of a crack express-train;
snake
, a cheap tipper;
tin-can
, a buffet-car;
and
turtle
, a dish-washer.
1
Trolley crews, in the days of their glory, had their jargon, too,
e.g., boat
for a trolley-car,
horse
for a motor-man,
poor-box
for a fare-box,
stick
for a trolley-pole and
Sunday
for any day of light traffic,
2
but it is fading out with their art and mystery. So is that of the telegraphers, and for the same reason,
3
though some of it is preserved by radio operators. In the Golden Age of the craft its aristocrats were the newspaper telegraphers, who not only had to be fast and accurate at the Morse Code but also had to master the Phillips Code, which changed almost from day to day.
4
The old-time operators all suffered from
glass arm
, a variety of writers’ cramp, but it was cured for the senders when someone invented the
bug
, a semi-automatic key which worked sideways instead of up and down, and for the receivers on the advent of the
mill, i.e
., the typewriter. An unskilled operator was a
lid, ham, bum
or
plug
. To send a message at high speed was to
paste
the receiving operator, who was said to be
burnt up
or to
go under the table
. A wire to a remote place was a
monkey-wire
. At the end of his shift or of the day’s or night’s work the sender sent
30
.
5
His ordinary symbol of personal greeting to a colleague was
73
.
6
The modern automatic sending machine is an
iron horse
, the
receiver is a
printer
, and the girls who paste its tape messages on delivery forms are
paperhangers
. Messenger boys and linemen also have their jargons. To the former a delivery to a distant address is a
breezer
and they themselves are
trotters
, though they seldom go on foot. To the latter a pole is a
stick
, cross arms are
toothpicks
, an insulator is a
bottle
, digging tools are
knives and forks
, climbing spurs are
hooks
, a cant-hook is a
log-wrench
or
mooley-cow
, a safety-belt is a
scared strap
, a transformer is a
pot
, to fall from a pole is to
burn the stick
, and an inexperienced workman is a
grunt
.
1
