Carnie Talk from the West Coast

Abstract

THE ARGOT OF the carnival-of the performers, hustlers, flatties, and roughies who are, in their own proud phrase, 'with it'-has not gone unregarded by students of American speechways. Valuable wordand phraselists drawn wholly or in part from the language of carnival workers appeared in the early files of this journal and found a place in the lively pages of the American Mercury during its high and palmy days under H. L. Mencken's editorial direction.' The subjoined glossary of carnie talk is offered here only as a recent sampling of an interesting occupational jargon in which, as one might expect, changes have taken place in the two decades or more since most of the earlier studies of it were published. In this list, as in previous ones, the language of the carnies shows a double nature. One one side it manifests a strong affiliation with circus jargon, and at a greater remove, with the language of theatrical troupers in general. The carnie is a performer, he is 'in show business,' and for him the declaration 'He's show folks!' is a seal of complete approval. In part, his language, like other occupational jargons, functions as a verbal shorthand, a necessary means of dealing efficienttly with the objects and activities which are peculiar to his hard, itinerant life. A large percentage of the terms glossed below have for referents the procedures involved in laying out and setting up the temporary structures of a carnival, the widely varied games, rides, and shows through which it attracts its clientele, and the characteristic acts and attitudes of both the carnies and the good, douce citizens who patronize their enterprises. Carnival language, on the other side, betrays a large admixture of under-