Slang Quiz with James Ellroy

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. It’s time for our slang quiz.

And who better to try to solve a linguistic mystery than our guest today?

Writer James Elroy is author of L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia. His new novel about gangsters, corrupt cops, and conspiracies is called Bloods a Rover.

James, welcome to A Way with Words.

Hey, it’s good to be here. Slang me, baby.

Absolutely.

So your book, let’s just talk just a second. The book is called Bloods of Rover. This is the third book in the series?

It’s the Underworld USA trilogy. It’s the third in a big political trilogy that covers 1958 to 72. And, you know, the odd title, Bloods, B-L-O-O-D, apostrophe S, A Rover, is a quote from A.E. Hausman.

Really?

Yeah. So, hence the title, and hence my appearance on your show.

Well, James, I was going to ask, we usually ask our contestants about their favorite slang term. Is there one that you can share on us that we can air on public radio?

Well, let’s see. I will leave four blank spaces that allow everyone to fill in the blanks. How’s that?

All right, let’s hear it.

Dip.

And the last four letters are—

Oh, yeah. Dipstick is five letters. And then for the D. And I have a character in Bloods a Rover who is smarter than everyone else, but a little bit incompetent. And he is routinely referred to as dip.

Mm—

Sounds like you’re going to whoop the pants off this quiz, but let’s see how you do. Are you ready?

Yes.

All right. Well, given your background, of course, I’ve tried to find some language that’s kind of from the underworld. And the books that you write make me think that you probably know all these words, but we’ll see.

Okay. And so what we’re going to do is I’m going to give you a paragraph or a sentence that contains the word in context. Maybe I’ll give you some information about it. And you just kind of tell me what you think it means. I’m going to give you some choices, A, B, or C. And your job is just to pick the right meaning for that word. And if you do need Martha’s help, she’s standing by, okay?

Okay.

The estimable Martha.

The estimable Martha.

The estimable Martha.

Here we go. This first one is taken from an actual criminal justice manual. In this example, a cadet is just one week away from becoming a full cop. The cadet says,

Right.

Last night I was driving home from the academy. I stopped to get some gas. Some dude comes running up, flapping his arms, and yelling like crazy about being robbed. Here I am, sitting in my car with my gun on, and my old buzzer staring him right in the face. I told him to call the cops. It didn’t hit me until I was a mile away that I was a cop.

So what is the buzzer that should have been so obvious to them both? Is it A, a badge? Is it B, the cherries and blueberries on the roof, that is, the lights? Or is it C, a megaphone?

A badge.

That’s exactly right.

Yeah.

Yeah, and the cool thing about this term is it’s got such a long history, and yet it’s still used. And that quote, by the way, is relatively recent. I think it’s from the 90s. It’s still used in the lingo of cops and cadets today.

I did not know that.

It’s what gets you in the door.

Yeah, yeah.

Exactly. That’s exactly it. It’s like you hold up that badge, it’s as if you press the buzzer to release the door lock.

Oh, that’s cool.

All right, this next one’s a little harder. I thought that one might be easy peasy.

Okay.

And as a matter of fact, this next one’s so hard, it actually involves not one mystery term, but three.

Okay?

I’m listening.

It’s from a 1956 issue of Billboard magazine. In a brief blurb called Pipes for Pitchman, the writer says, quote, Judging by the folks on hand at the opening of the Knoxville, Tennessee tobacco market, it looked more like a convention of sheet writers. He goes on to mention a bunch of names, and then he says, all were working paper and seemed to be getting the GEDUS, no doubt due to the good growing season.

So my question for you is, what does it mean when a, quote, sheet writer works the paper and gets the GEDUS? That’s G-E-E-T-U-S.

Is it A, when a fake tobacco salesman writes sham contracts to get lots of suckers to make down payments on bundles of tobacco that they’ll never receive?

Right.

Is it B, when a periodical salesman sells a lot of subscriptions, or is it C, when a television scriptwriter shops his program ideas to all the cigarette marketing people and lands big, fat program sponsorships?

It’s A.

You think it’s when a fake tobacco salesman writes sham contracts?

Right.

What makes you think that?

It’s a guess. This kind of southern parlance is beyond my ken, so I’m guessing.

Okay.

I’ve got to tell you, I’ve spent a great deal of time looking at Billboard magazine. Google has indexed it and put it online for free. And there’s some just genius language there from the pitchman and some old-style selling that we don’t really do anymore. And actually the correct answer was B. A sheet writer is somebody who sells subscriptions to a sheet or a magazine. And the Getus, sometimes spelled with a D, but G-E-E-T-U-S or G-E-D-U-S or even Geter, is the money that he makes. And if he’s working in the paper, that means he’s just getting a lot of deals, a lot of contracts signed, a lot of subscriptions filled out.

So I highly recommend it to you. Just check it out. There’s just so much great stuff. I mean, I think I could write a book on it because it’s just this language that’s so crazy, these guys who are obsessed with selling these subscriptions. And a lot of times they were con men. A lot of times their background, they were selling subscriptions to magazines that didn’t exist.

Anyway, thanks for playing with us. This was good. I’m looking forward to reading the new book. Bloods are over on sale wherever books are sold.

I’ll be better at this game next year.

All right. Well, when you have your next book, number four in the series?

That’s right.

We’re going to see the word Gitas in there.

No, I have a memoir coming out next year.

You do?

Oh, nice. Are you finished with it or can you work in the word Gitas?

Yeah.

Okay. Well, I hope you got a lot of Gitas for it.

Shackles, shackles, shackles.

James Ellroy, thank you so much for playing the slang quiz with us today.

Thank you very much.

Thanks a lot, James.

Thanks, bye-bye.

Bye.

And if you’re puzzling over a linguistic mystery, you can always call us 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.