mahoff
n.— «The man known as “the big mahoff” of Philadelphia gambling told the Kefauver senate crime committee today that he…denied cash payoffs to Richardson for protection.…Rosen and Weisberg, both Russian born, came to the hearing together.…Weisberg explained that “the big mahoff” means “the big shot,” but deined he had ever heard Rosen called that.» —“‘Big Shot’ Tells of Gifts to Cop in Philadelphia” by Willam Moore in Washington, D.C. Chicago Daily Tribune Feb. 20, 1951. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
When a teenager went a week without talking as part of a school project, he noticed a surprising side effect: Instead of rehearsing a response to what other people were saying to him, he was focused on listening — and feeling smarter as a result...
Victor, a film noir fan in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, says closed captioning has made him newly aware of dialogue he’d previously missed. Watching The Maltese Falcon, for example, he ran into the phrase crackin’ foxy. The crack is the same crack as...