The Slickers Read online

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  Glossary

  STORIES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE reflect the words and expressions used in the 1930s and 1940s, adding unique flavor and authenticity to the tales. While a character’s speech may often reflect regional origins, it also can convey attitudes common in the day. So that readers can better grasp such cultural and historical terms, uncommon words or expressions of the era, the following glossary has been provided.

  “begorrah”: (Irish) used as an exclamation or a mild oath; alteration of “by God.” [return to text]

  binnacle: a built-in housing for a ship’s compass. [return to text]

  bitt: a vertical post, usually one of a pair, set on the deck of a ship and used for securing cables, lines for towing, etc. [return to text]

  Black Maria: patrol wagon; an enclosed truck or van used by the police to transport prisoners. [return to text]

  bowler: derby; a hard felt hat with a rounded crown and narrow brim, created by James Lock & Co, a firm founded in 1676 in London. The prototype was made in 1850 for a customer of Lock’s by Thomas and William Bowler, hat makers in Southwark, England. At first it was dubbed the iron hat because it was hard enough to protect the head, and later picked up the name bowler because of its makers’ family name. In the US it became known as a derby from its association with the Kentucky Derby. [return to text]

  bows: the exterior of the forward end of a vessel. [return to text]

  bracelets: a pair of handcuffs. [return to text]

  buck up: take courage; take heart. [return to text]

  bump: to kill. [return to text]

  chee-chalker: a newcomer to Alaska and the Klondike; an Indian word meaning one who is inexperienced or has no knowledge; a tenderfoot. [return to text]

  Colt revolver: Colt Detective Special; a short-barreled revolver first produced in 1927 by the Colt Firearms Company. Though originally offered as a .32 caliber, the most common of the Colt Detective Specials were .38 caliber and had a two-inch barrel. The short barrel design made this gun popular for use as a concealed weapon by plainclothes police detectives. [return to text]

  coyote: used for a man who has the sneaking and skulking characteristics of a coyote. [return to text]

  cuspidor: a large bowl, often of metal, serving as a receptacle for spit, especially from chewing tobacco, in wide use during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. [return to text]

  cutter: 1. a ship’s boat, powered by a motor or oars and used for transporting stores or passengers. [return to text]

  cutter: 2. a type of US Coast Guard vessel that is over 65 feet in length. Cutter originally referred to a small, single-masted vessel, fore-and-aft rigged with two or more headsails. The term was adopted by the US Treasury Department when the US Revenue Cutter Service was formed in 1790, which then became the US Coast Guard in 1915, and cutter has come to mean a small armed vessel in government service. [return to text]

  davit: a cranelike device, used singly or in pairs, for supporting, raising and lowering boats, anchors and cargo over a hatchway or side of a ship. [return to text]

  dick: a detective. [return to text]

  drill: shoot. [return to text]

  durian: a tree native to the tropical rain forests of Southeast Asia that bears a foul-smelling but deliciously flavored fruit. The seeds are roasted and eaten like nuts. [return to text]

  El: elevated railway. [return to text]

  fo’c’s’le: forecastle; the upper deck of a sailing ship, forward of the foremast. [return to text]

  forty-five or .45 automatic: a handgun chambered to fire a .45-caliber cartridge and that utilizes the recoil or part of the force of the explosive to eject the spent cartridge shell, introduce a new cartridge, cock the arm and fire it repeatedly. [return to text]

  gibbet: an upright post with a crosspiece, forming a T-shaped structure from which criminals were formerly hanged for public viewing. [return to text]

  G-men: government men; agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. [return to text]

  greenhorn: an easterner unacquainted with cowboy ways. [return to text]

  gum: interfere with. [return to text]

  Havana: a seaport in and the capital of Cuba, on the northwest coast. [return to text]

  hawser: a thick rope or cable for mooring or towing a ship. [return to text]

  hempen: made of hemp, the fiber from the hemp plant used to make canvas, rope, etc. [return to text]

  horned spoon, by the great: a “horned spoon” is a tool made from a cow horn. The saying “by the great horned spoon” was at one time a fairly common American oath and used to make a statement emphatic. Its first recorded usage was in 1842. [return to text]

  jaspers: fellows; guys. [return to text]

  Judge Colt: nickname for the single-action (that is, cocked by hand for each shot), six-shot Army model revolver first produced in 1873 by Colt Firearms Company, the armory founded by Samuel Colt (1814–1862). The handgun of the Old West became the instrument of both lawmaker and lawbreaker during the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century. It soon earned various names, such as “Peacemaker,” “Equalizer,” and “Judge Colt and his jury of six.” [return to text]

  Juneau: port city in southeastern Alaska. In 1900 it was made the capital of the territory of Alaska and later the state capital when Alaska joined the Union in 1959. It is named after the gold prospector Joseph Juneau, who discovered gold in the area in 1880. [return to text]

  kapok: a silky fiber obtained from the fruit of the silk-cotton tree and used for insulation and as padding in pillows, mattresses and life preservers. [return to text]

  Ketchikan: a city located on the southwestern coast of Revillagigedo Island near the southern boundary of Alaska, and named after the Ketchikan Creek that flows through the town. Much of the town sits over water, supported by pilings. Ketchikan has the heaviest average rainfall in North America and is one of the four wettest spots on Earth. With 160 inches of rain a year, the rainfall is measured in feet, not inches. The locals refer to rain as “liquid sunshine.” [return to text]

  klootches: Indian women of northwestern Alaska. [return to text]

  lobo: wolf; one who is regarded as predatory, greedy and fierce. [return to text]

  material witness: a witness whose testimony is both relevant to the matter at issue and required in order to resolve the matter. [return to text]

  monkey fist: a ball-like knot used as an ornament or as a throwing weight at the end of a line. [return to text]

  newshawk: a newspaper reporter, especially one who is energetic and aggressive. [return to text]

  Oleleh: Oleleh Harbor; a harbor on the island of Sumatra. [return to text]

  pannin’: panning; criticizing or reviewing harshly; giving an unfavorable review of. [return to text]

  paper suitcase: an inexpensive suitcase made of hard cardboard. [return to text]

  Police Positive .38: Colt Police Positive; a .38-caliber revolver developed by the Colt Firearms Company in answer to a demand for a more powerful version of the .32-caliber Police Positive. First introduced in 1905, these guns were sold to many US police forces and European military units, as well as being made available to the general public. [return to text]

  Punch: the chief male character of the Punch and Judy puppet show, a famous English comedy dating back to the seventeenth century, by way of France from Italy. It is performed using hand puppets in a tent-style puppet theater with a cloth backdrop and board in front. The puppeteer introduces the puppets from beneath the board so that they are essentially popping up to the stage area of the theater. [return to text]

  rod: another name for a handgun. [return to text]

  roscoe: another name for a handgun. [return to text]

  rowels: the small spiked revolving wheels on the ends of spurs,
which are attached to the heels of a rider’s boots and used to nudge a horse into going faster. [return to text]

  rubber hose: a piece of hose made of rubber, used to beat people as a form of torture or in order to obtain a full or partial confession and to elicit information. A rubber hose was used because its blows, while painful, leave only slight marks on the body of the person beaten. [return to text]

  sap: dumb guy; a fool. [return to text]

  Scheherazade: the female narrator of The Arabian Nights, who during one thousand and one adventurous nights saved her life by entertaining her husband, the king, with stories. [return to text]

  shivved: knifed; stabbed with a shiv (knife). [return to text]

  shorthorn: a tenderfoot; a newcomer or a person not used to rough living and hardships. [return to text]

  sidewinder: rattlesnake. [return to text]

  slick-ear: “wet behind the ears”; someone who is inexperienced or naïve. [return to text]

  slickers: swindlers; sly cheats. [return to text]

  slug: a bullet. [return to text]

  “snow”: cocaine or heroin in the form of a white powder. [return to text]

  SOS: the letters represented by the radio telegraphic signal known as Morse code, used especially by ships in distress, as an internationally recognized call for help. [return to text]

  spittoon: a container for spitting into. [return to text]

  SS: steamship. [return to text]

  stateroom: a private room or compartment on a train, ship, etc. [return to text]

  stay: any of various strong ropes or wires for steadying masts. [return to text]

  stern: the rear end of a ship or boat. [return to text]

  Sumatra: a large island in the western part of Indonesia. Most of Sumatra used to be covered by tropical rainforest. [return to text]

  ’tween decks: between decks; spaces between two continuous decks in the hull of a vessel. [return to text]

  two bits: a quarter; during the colonial days, people used coins from all over the world. When the US adopted an official currency, the Spanish milled (machine-struck) dollar was chosen and it later became the model for American silver dollars. Milled dollars were easily cut apart into equal “bits” of eight pieces. Two bits would equal a quarter of a dollar. [return to text]

  well deck: the space on the main deck of a ship lying at a lower level between the bridge and either a raised forward deck or a raised deck at the stern, which usually has cabins underneath. [return to text]

  West Indies: a group of islands in the North Atlantic between North and South America, comprising the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles and the Bahamas. [return to text]

  wisenheimer: smart aleck; wise guy; one who is obnoxiously self-assertive and arrogant. [return to text]