A Dallas-area police officer is curious about low sick, a term which he and his fellow officers use to describe someone dangerously ill. Sometimes rendered as low sig, the expression is largely associated with the speech of African Americans, and appears in such works as Simple Stakes a Claim by Langston Hughes (Amazon) and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor (Bookshop|Amazon). This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Low Sick”
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, I’m Phillip.
I’m from DFW area in Texas.
And I was wondering about the phrase low sick.
The low sick or low sig, I’m not sure exactly which one.
As a police officer, that’s a phrase we use.
We’ll say it over the radio so that other officers know the status of whatever the victim is.
You know, if he got hit by a car or something, we would say he’s low sick, meaning that his chances of survival are low or slim.
But we don’t want to say that over the radio.
So I was just wondering where that came from and how that came about and if it’s low sick or low sick or what.
So you’re a police officer in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area, right?
That’s correct.
This kind of plugs into a couple different things, and I’ve definitely got information for you.
The term is low sick, L-O-W-S-I-C-K.
That’s two words.
While I do find it in one dictionary of police jargon and slang, it’s actually an American Southernism, and it’s largely used by Black Americans in the American South.
And it goes back about 100 years.
If you look online for people using it, there are a couple places where you find police in Dallas using it and maybe police in Atlanta.
But mostly it’s used by black authors that I can find anywhere in print using it, including one noteworthy example is a short story by Langston Hughes, Simple Stakes Acclaim from 1957.
And you can find it in the young adult novels of Mildred Taylor, such as Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry from 1976.
So it’s really interesting to me because this low sick, meaning near death or very, very ill, so ill that you it just really looks like you’re not going to make it.
This term appears to have migrated from being an everyday term for some people to being very specific in some police departments in the South, but not all police departments in the South.
Wow, that’s interesting. So it’s not low sick. I always thought it was low sick because they had like low vital signs or something.
Low sick okay good to know maybe it was low sig for low signal like like a radio might have a low signal if its battery was weak or like a you know if they’re about to be deceased I would say they have low vital signs so low sig it’s it’s kind of what I was thinking no it’s it’s low sick.
It’s just you you are you can have you can actually feel low I say this sometimes if I’m feeling low.
It’s like my mood is low. My spirit is low. I might be having a little bit of a mollez or queasy stomach.
And then you can be sick. And this is a combination of both those words.
So if you’re low sick, you’re like doubly not well.
Low sick is like the most sick you can be without croaking.
Okay. Well, that’s definitely follows in line with how we use it. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Yeah. I’m always looking for in-house uses of language language because this is one term I’d really like to get a handle on.
The fact that it leapt from being an everyday term for black Southern Americans to being used specifically for some police departments in the South is really interesting to me.
Appreciate the emphasis, sir.
Thank you very much.
All right.
Take care now.
Be safe out there.
Yes, sir.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
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