Grant talks about the lingo of criminals from 1930s. Here are more examples from police reporter Ben Kendall’s 1931 Los Angeles Times article, “Underworld ‘Lingo’ Brought Up-to-Date.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Crime Lingo from the 1930s”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.
And I’m Grant Barrett. Martha, I was reading the newspaper from 1931.
Catching up, are you?
Catching up. Catching up on my underworld lingo.
You have a ways to go.
Well, there was a great article in November of 1931 written by a fellow by the name of Ben Kendall.
And he was a police reporter who got a little entangled with the wrong side of the law.
So I think this slang is good.
He had started out in Chicago, moved to L.A., and along the way, he picked up a lot of curious language, and he’s put it in print here.
And what’s really interesting, there’s two things about this list.
One, a lot of this stuff is still with us.
And two, in a lot of cases, he’s one of the earliest people to put this language in print.
So we have, for example, he talks about McGimper.
Do you know what McGimper is?
McGimper.
Was that an early version of MacGyver?
I don’t know.
Somebody who invented things?
It’s a pimp or a procurer.
He uses it in this sentence.
She would go straight if it wasn’t for that McGimper who knocks her for a loop when she don’t bring in the Giedis.
And we’ll talk a little bit about Giedis later in the program.
Okay.
And how about this one?
Well, you know what a chiseler is, right?
Somebody who chisels off money, right?
Yeah.
A cheat?
Yep.
Ben Kendall defines it as a petty grafter or a borrower or a price cutter.
This guy’s always looking for a deal, right, or a little extra money for his pocket.
Well, it’s interesting that he felt compelled to put that in a newspaper article.
I mean.
Right.
It shows you that it wasn’t mainstream at the time, right?
And I think most people would, like, for example, glom, to steal or to take is in his glossary.
That means at the time he would think that most people wouldn’t know the term.
And so he really is kind of putting this stuff in print at a time when looking back on it, it made a difference.
Well, this list sounds like a lot of fun.
We should link to it on our website.
Of course, yeah.
We’ll put some good samples of it.
Okay.
Sounds great.
And if you want to talk about underworld slang or overused jargon,
Or if you have a question about grammar or punctuation or old family sayings or the origin of a word,
Call us, 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
