Cumshaw, A Bit of Military Slang

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hey there, I’m Stu.

Hi, Stu. Welcome to the show.

Where are you calling from?

I’m calling from Suffolk, Virginia.

It’s a little hamlet outside the Virginia Beach and Norfolk area.

Welcome to the show. What’s on your mind?

Well, it’s the word cumshaw.

I worked, it’s a Navy base that’s nearby, and all my life I worked with people who said, I’m going to cumshaw this, I’m going to cumshaw that. I always thought of some secret Navy code because no one would ever give me a definition, a real definition of it.

I think we can help you with this, Stu.

I think we absolutely can.

So a Kamsha artist is someone who is clever about doing trades in the military. And this is a real art in the military because you don’t necessarily have what you want when you want it, as you might remember if you’ve been in the service yourself.

Yes, I’ve been in the Army.

Yeah, in the Army. There we go.

It might be as simple as trading cigarettes to, you know, have somebody look the other way when you come in after a light’s out. Or if you need a part for a machine but don’t have it, well, a Kumsha artist knows people. And through a complex series of favors and trades, they can get that part and get it ready to be installed.

And usually food and booze are a part of the trades. And maybe even an entire machine. It’ll just appear there in the morning, thanks to a Cumshaw artist. Maybe not officially checked out of where it came from, but maybe officially checked into its new home.

After all, it all belongs to Uncle Sam, right? So that’s Cumshaw. To Cumshaw is clever trades. Sometimes it’s really, really clever stuff, like swapping use of someone’s car for your date night and return of a load of fresh meat for the next barbecue.

Maybe the guys who eat in your mess are all tired of chicken and some other guys in another mess are all tired of pork. So you put those two supply chiefs together and take a little off the top for your own. You know, he’s usually a really friendly guy. He’s fun to talk to and he just knows what to do to get the thing that you want.

And maybe it’s not strictly legit, but it’s never completely outright illegal, you know.

Okay.

But, you know, there’s a really interesting history to this word. It’s 200 years of history behind the word Kamshostu.

Well, tell me about it.

Well, it goes back to when the British started their history in what is now the port of Hong Kong in the early 1800s. The British were trading with the Chinese. And in Mandarin, there is a word, if you’ll forgive my pronunciation, it’s something like Gangji, which basically means a gift or a present or can be used as a thank you.

And in a dialect spoken in the port city of what is now Jiangmin, there’s another word which is similar, Gamsia, which means about the same thing. And these two words sounded to the Englishman like the word sounded like Kamsha. And so they hear this word not only from children and beggars on the street asking for food or coins or gifts, but also from Chinese translators and trading port officials who were looking for payment before doing their jobs.

Now, sometimes that payment was official, but sometimes it was a bribe.

Oh, that’s interesting.

That term just kind of became entrenched in the Royal Navy. And then when the American forces started spending their time in China, they also picked up the term from the Royal Navy. And you can find as early as the 1830s, it shows up in American newspapers, things called Cumshaw boxes, present boxes, these really ornate Chinese-made boxes that you could put presents in to give to people.

So, Stu, how about that? A lot of history behind that word.

I’ve wondered most of my life, in my 70s, and I’ve wondered most of my life what the official definition of cumshaw was. And just, you’ve really filled me in on the history of the word, not realizing it actually it came from the port of what I know is Hong Kong.

And Stu, thank you so much for sharing those memories.

Thank you all so much, and have a blessed day.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Well, if there’s a word that you’ve been wondering about all these years, we’d love to talk with you about it. So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or spill the whole story in email, words@waywordradio.org.