straighten out
v. phr.— «In the mid-1990s, when “Little Joe” D’Angelo was “straightened out” (Mob slang for inducted) by the Gambinos, he got a hamburger in a Queens diner, D’Angelo testified last week at the Gotti trial. He said the Mob bosses who inducted him, including “Junior” Gotti, didn’t bother to burn a picture of a saint in D’Angelo’s hands, as ritual required. Instead, someone wrote “saint” on a piece of paper and drew a cross.» —“The mafia is on shaky ground” by Richard Willing USA Today May 9, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Language is always evolving, and that’s also true for American Sign Language. A century ago, the sign for “telephone” was one fist below your mouth and the other at your ear, as if you’re holding an old-fashioned candlestick...
Brittany in Green Coast Springs, Florida, says that when she was grumpy or irritated as a child, her mother would say a phrase that sounded like Don’t be such a scooch. This bit of Italian-American slang, often rendered as skutch, denotes a “pest”...