What is a bingo? If you’re a taxi driver, a bingo is someone you don’t pick up because your cab is already occupied. Another bit of cabbie slang is bunco. That’s when they are called to a specific address but no passenger shows up. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “More Cabbie Slang”
We spoke on an earlier show about taxi driver slang and how among some taxi drivers the term bingo is a term you use if you can’t pick up a person hailing your cab.
And so you call your dispatcher and you say, hey, I got a bingo at 4th and Walnut.
And then they know to send somebody to go pick up that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, we heard from Daniel Humphreys, who wrote us from Cincinnati, to say that he drove a cab there for many years, and a term that he and his colleagues used was bunco.
And, Grant, you may know this one.
This is when you arrive at an address and nobody comes out.
And, you know, it’s been used in the slang of the underworld to mean a fraud or, you know, police slang, the bunco squad for fraud.
And I’m wondering if there’s a connection there.
And I asked Daniel about this, and he said, I don’t know if it’s used elsewhere.
The closest most cab drivers come to attending a convention is to travel to a foreign city and ride in someone else’s cab.
I love that.
I like that.
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