Grifter and Carny Slang

"Baby Needs Milk" (Carny): When you see a fellow carny flirting with a townie, you might wander by and say this just to mess up your buddy's 'score', either as a joke or if you know that this particular townie has oh, say, the police chief for a father. "Calling Card" (Carny): A high ride, visible from long distances, displaying a large sign with the show's name. "Losum Game" (Carny): This term is often given by some as a carny term for a game play that should be aborted. However, it is almost certainly a misunderstanding of the German or Yiddish "lassen ihn gehen," pronounced "loz im gain," meaning "let him go." If a carny knows that further playing of a particular mark will present a problem, he will tell his co-worker "loz im gain" instead of saying "You're fleecing the sheriff's son, you idiot, now cut it out!" The agent needs to end the game and possibly refund the mark's money rather than find out what the consequences might have been. You can see the phrase "in action" (though not in a carnival context) in a scene featuring Mel Brooks as an Indian in "Blazing Saddles." My source says "I remember an old flattie who was playing a mark and the head of the store told him to "loz im gain". The mark, probably Jewish and thus knowing the term, replied "Hell, why didn't you say 'loz im gain' 40 bucks ago?" "On The Lot And In The Air" (Carny): "I have arrived at the lot, the attraction is set up, and we are ready to begin serving customers." "Put 'em on the send" (Carny): To extract every last dime a person has and encourage them to go home (or to the ATM) for more money. "With It and For It" (Carny): Describes someone who is both a veteran of outdoor entertainment and (unlike those who try it and quit) who finds the life well-suited to him or her. "Working Hot and Cold" (Carny): Operating a game that treats some customers one way (take the money and give nothing) and others the opposite (give the Sheriff's pals lots of stock). Every now and then, the arrangement might be reversed (a pleasant game for Mom and Dad and the kids, a very expensive proposition for a particularly rich and dumb mark, or for someone the owner doesn't like). (Carnival) Layout (Carny): The layout of the typical full-featured carnival was a time-tested pattern designed to draw crowds all the way through the entire carnival and maximize their spending. The carnival was always laid out in the shape of a horseshoe. The crowd would enter open end, and by natural instinct would proceed up the right leg. Game concessions were the first joints they would encounter along the outside of the right leg of the horseshoe. Rides would be located down the center column, with the carousel always being the first ride beyond the front gate. After the games the crowd would find the shows and the penny arcade. In the corner at the right hand bend of the horseshoe the big girl show would draw crowds along that far. Across the back of the horseshoe would be the major rides, including one or more Ferris wheels. In the left corner, mirroring the placement of the girl show, would be the "jig show" (black girl 1

show). Then along the far leg of the horseshoe-shaped map, other shows and then more games all the way to the front gate. (Game) Layout or Laydown (Carny): The marked place on a joints counter where the mark puts his money to indicate his bet, or the "target" table the mark's coin lands on as he tries to win, or the chart that shows odds, payouts, etc. (to) Clean the Midway (Carny): To be so skillful an outside talker that you can gather a very large tip and turn almost all of them. If you're good, and you're really "on," the midway looks mighty empty after your bally. (to) Frame a Show or Joint (Carny): To build a new show or joint, or to gather a medicine-show cast. (to) Hopscotch (Carny): To book your joint at various individual dates throughout the season, playing your choice of events rather than traveling with a single carnival. (to) Oach (Carny): To skim money from your boss - like a jointee pocketing a few of the many dollars that come in over the course of the night. This, both in common parlance and on the lot, would be "holding out", but carnies abbreviate it to "H.O." and through heaven knows what process, "oach" or "oaching." Some sources read this as "oats", defining such horse fodder as the money that is held back ("I put a few oats aside.") Isn't a living language full of surprises? (to) Screw the Carnival (Carny): To leave the business mid-season (maybe school is starting, maybe you finally figured out that you're not going to make any money with the kind of fees you have to pay these days.) 1 3 2 6 Systems: A betting system for gamblers that claims to win $120 from a $20 wager. It does not work. 10-in-1 (Carny): See "Ten-In-One" 419: The US criminal code for Advance Fee Fraud and a nickname for the scam. 86'ed (Carny): Banned from the lot. The term is in general use meaning "we have no more [something]" or "to get rid of [something]." There are many 'folk etymologies' explaining the origin of the term, but all are dubious. A&S Man (Carny): "Age and Scale" operator ("guess your age or weight" operator). Also commonly known as "Age and Weight" or "Fool the Guesser" or "Guess Your Weight," the game is quite profitable operated as a hanky-pank (in which the charge to play more than covers the wholesale cost of the prize). Alternatively, a good guesser, aided by game rules that help him more than customers suppose ("your birth month within two months" gives the guesser a span of 5 of the 12 months) and if he fails, it's still making him plenty. Certain cheats can also help the guesser: a common magic device that lets him secretly write down his "guess" after the mark has announced his age or weight, or writing his "prediction" as a glyph that can be interpreted as "Jan" or "June" thus giving the guesser leeway of 10 of the 12 months. Guessing age within 2 years, he might secretly guess and write "60", and if the mark is 56 he'll tell her (but not show the written guess) 53, letting her win and also feel that her young looks fooled the guesser. Or, in the same case, he might write "561" and cover either the 5 or the 0 when displaying the written guess, allowing him to win if she's anywhere from 54 to 63. Again, if he fails, the guesser still makes money over the cost of the prize. Some A&S joints offer a wide range of premises: the guesser may be asked 2

to guess how many in your family (within 2), the year of your car (within 2), your mother's or father's age (within 2), etc. AB (Carny): Amusement Business, the trade magazine of the outdoor entertainment industry. ABA (Carny): A commercial "traveler's check," often purchased under assumed names, useful for carrying and transferring large sums of cash without bank or I.R.S. scrutiny. Account Flash: A large amount of money that appears in a victim's account for a short period of time. Usually through a bad check. Used in Advance Fee Fraud. Ace: A decent or good-humored guy. A sport. Addict: A mark that can't be knocked (see below). He believes so much in the con that he comes back again and again to be taken. Add-Up Joint, or Add 'Em Up (Carny): Game where each play (each dart thrown, ball rolled, balloon broken...) scores points that are totaled for the player. In its most direct form, it is a fair enough game (though it is illegal in some areas as a 'game of chance') but it is very similar to the larcenous "razzle dazzle' game which adds a 'build up' feature (q.v.) and cannot be won. Advance (Carny): Advance work is everything pertaining to the show's business before the show arrives in a town. Advance Fee Fraud: Promising a victim a large sum of money if they invest a small amount of money. Advance Man (Carny): Employee who handles details such as licenses and sponsors before a carnival arrives in town, and sometimes handles bribes to local officials for leaving the carnival alone. Affinity Fraud: Targeting victims who share the same race/religion/culture/politics as the victim. One of Victor Lustig's Ten Commandments Of The Con Artist. After-Catch (Carny): Items sold to show patrons after they have paid their admission and seen the show. Afterpiece (Carny): A multi-gag comedy act closing a medicine show. After-Show (Carny): Blowoff (q.v.) Agent (Carny): The one who works a game, especially a game that requires some skill and finesse to sell to the marks, and most especially a rigged game. Sometimes the owner, sometimes an employee working on percentage. Many carnies feel that the name 'agent' implies dishonesty. Skilled agents would be bored (and overpaid) working a no-skill joint like a dime pitch. Ahead (Carny): Refers to someone or something sent or done before the show arrives at any location. Akwukwo: A fake check. Used by Nigerian Letter Scammers. Al-A-Ga-Zam (Carny): Greeting from one pitchman to another. Alibi Store (Carny): A game in which the agent gives you an explanation of why you didn't win. Maybe "you threw the ball too fast," or how you violated the rules (leaned over the foul line, etc.) He often offers you a "better" chance to win (for another fee, of course) but you'll never win a thing. There's no need to hide the gaff when the authorities inspect, and big replay profits (until the mark catches on, of course, and starts a beef.) Alibi: A carnival game that is hard to beat but not impossible. 3

Alligator Man (Carny): Sideshow human oddity afflicted with skin condition, commonly icthyosis, that gives the skin a scaly, reptilian appearance. Amusement Business (Carny): The trade magazine of the trade, originally "The Billboard". Many traveling showmen would use Billboard as their address (Carny): the magazine would forward mail to them along the show's route. Anatomical Wonder (Carny): A sideshow performer able to do stunts such as 'the man without a stomach' (pulling the gut in until the backbone shows), pulling themselves through a coat hanger or tennis racket, and other India Rubber Man stunts. Annex (Carny): The area of a sideshow joint where the blowoff is located. Apple Joint, Cigarette Joint (Carny): Game joints in which you throw darts or pitch coins hoping to hit a sticker printed to resemble an apple or a cigarette pack (usually with the distinctive "Lucky Strike" red circle). At one time, the prize in the cigarette joint was a pack of cigarettes. Apple: (1) A mark or sucker. (2) Any person. Arcade (Carny): A tent housing coin-operated amusement games (Carny): normally only on larger shows. Arch (Carny): The front entrance to a carnival. Arrow (Carny): A paper sign, consisting simply of a large (usually red) printed arrow, used to mark the route between towns. Taped to road signs by the 24-hour man the day before the show moves. Can be placed in any orientation: the occasional straight-up arrow to tell you you're on the right track, a single tilted arrow to warn of an upcoming turn, and two or three tilted arrows in a group to indicate where to turn. At Show (also called "catch wrestling") (Carny): 'At' is short for "Athletic", and indicates a wrestling show where locals are challenged to enter the ring and beat (or last a certain amount of time against) the carnival's champion wrestler. The local boys might be persuaded to secretly cooperate, delivering an arranged win or loss as intended. Matches would usually last less than five minutes, followed by a return to the bally platform, where the loser (always the towner in the first match) would loudly demand a rematch, complaining that he'd been cheated. Many in the audience would pay to go back in to see the local hero try again, watching carefully to catch any cheating. This might be worth repeating several times until the locals tired of it or ran out of money. The traveling wrestlers had an effective repertoire of "concession holds", or "hooks," which would let them end the match in an assured victory at will. The hooks were so painful that the local boy would shout a loud "uncle" or "I give" or just "aaaaaargh!", eliminating any suspicion that the referee had ruled unfairly. Aunt Sally (Carny): "Aunt Sally," originally a fairground game, is now a pub game played almost exclusively in a very small area in Britain. It featured a figure of an old woman's head with a pipe in its mouth. The goal was to break off the pipe by throwing a baton about 18" long. The target has since been simplified into a small cylinder (still called "the dolly") atop a stake, to be knocked off by the baton. The game was sufficiently widespread and popular that by 1898 "Aunt Sally" was a colloquialism in mainstream use meaning someone who was the object of easy but unfair attack. B.C. (Carny): "Be cool," a warning to stop whatever you are doing or saying. Perhaps the Chief of Police is watching you while you're about to take all his 4

daughter's money, so STOP whatever you are doing immediately and find out why the person said B.C. Baby Show (Carny): Also known as 'unborn,' 'life,' 'bottle,' 'freak baby' and 'pickled punk show.' Back End (Carny): The far end of the lot, where the large shows and rides are located. This placement of strong attractions draws customers from the gate through the entire length of the lot. It doesn't help anyone if patrons linger at the front end and do not circulate, so a particularly strong back-end attraction can take home as much as 50% of its gross income, sometimes (when other back-end attractions are weak) even 100%. Concessions, wherever located, are considered part of the front end. Back Yard (Carny): Sometimes also called "the living lot." Here, away from public access, are private trailers for living and storage. Back Yard Boy (Carny): A general gofer, sometimes a 'roughie' but more often an inexperienced helper. Backtracking (Carny): When an independent attraction or a small carnival does not have its entire season arranged beforehand, it may find that the only good lot in its next location has been already taken by another outfit. The only choice then may be to backtrack and replay a town you have already visited this season, resulting in sparse business and discouraged agents. Baffle Blocks (Carny): Six-sided or eight-sided or more logs used as dice. They resemble the dice used in some ancient Chinese gambling games. Bag Man or Fixer (Carny): The official in the locale where the carnival is set up to whom protection money is paid, either to overlook actual violations or not to find imaginary ones. Bail the Counter (Carny): As in "bail out of an airplane." Usually, the only way out of a joint is to "bail", or jump over the counter. Bally Cloth (Carny): Canvas, often painted with text, covers and backs the bally platform. More importantly, canvas often forms a door for performers to enter the bally platform and partially (but not entirely) obscures the goings-on "inside", teasing the audience with incomplete views of the excitement to be had for the price of a ticket. Bally or Ballyhoo (Carny): The "Bally" is the "outside talker's" spiel drawing a crowd (called a "tip") to see a sideshow. The bally is a sophisticated commercial, usually illustrated with quick appearances by the performers featured in the show. Its longer, original form, "Ballyhoo," has come into general usage meaning "to attract the attention of customers/voters by raising a clamor." The word originated at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, in the "Streets of Cairo" pavilion. The performers from the Middle East spoke only Arabic. Exhibit manager W.O. Taylor would call the Beledi dancers (a term later corrupted, also by Taylor, to "belly dancers") and musicians out during slack periods to attract a crowd. Since these calls were on no set schedule, the tired performers would mutter "D'Allah hun", roughly meaning "Oh, for God's sake!", as they rose to the extra duty. Taylor began simply calling them to (as he heard it) "ballyhoo." We do not know, though we can guess, what else the performers may have had to say in Arabic about the boss. The bally is also known as the "first opening," while the inside talker would introduce the crowd to the show with the "second opening." Ward Hall recently advised that the "most sure thing to draw a tip: (Daytime) A beautiful girl 5

in a revealing costume holding a big fat snake, (Night time) fire, eating, fire juggling. To top this: A strong freak, such as a pinhead. But drawing a tip is just the start. Then you need to freeze the tip while the talker makes the pitch, then to close the tip: a sword swallower or fire blast. It must be instantaneous to close the bally. If you have steady moving large crowd, the bally should only last five or six minutes, and do six to ten ballys per hour. To entertain is not the purpose of the bally. It is to stop people so you can sell the contents of the show. The entertainment is on the inside. The bally people except the talker should be called to the bally platform and then all but the talker should leave while the talker brings the bally to its climax and turns the tip. To operate a strong bally show you need three or four people who only work the bally. There is no time for them to go inside and entertain. It is best to use three talkers to rotate, one hour on bally and two hours off. This way they will have the energy needed to punch hard for the hour they are on, when the show is playing spots where you get crowds from the time you open at 9am till closing at midnight or after, which is what a show needs to do if the operator expects to become wealthy. The most expensive thing you can have on the bally is an inexperienced, poor, lazy talker, which could cost you a fortune. The best talkers work on a percentage of the gross ticket sales to create the incentive to work hard when they are tired and would rather step down late at night, instead of making one more bally to get more gross. And of course give the talker one or more feature freaks to bear down on when they make the openings." Bally talkers often specialized, one talker making the opening and then handing the mike to another to make the pitch and turn the tip. Band Organ (Carny): A mechanical, air-pressure operated musical device, usually incorporating such instruments as a pipe organ or calliope, drums and various rhythm instruments, glockenspiel, etc. Operated, like a player piano, by a punched paper roll. The essential and charming accompaniment to the carousel. Banner, Banner Line (Carny): Canvas squares hung in front of sideshows depicting (usually in greatly exaggerated form) the wonders to be found inside. A single show would have a banner or two, a ten-in-one would have a "banner line" in "modular" twelve-foot sections. Standard banner sizes were 8'x10' or 10'x12', with larger sizes, perhaps 14 or 16 feet, on the ends of a bannerline. Banners spanning the attraction's doorway might be 36'x8'. Taller doorway banners, perhaps 36'x10', were tied off at an angle at the bottom, affording enough room for the crowd to walk under them. Bar Bet: An unusual wager usually performed in a bar. Barker (Carny): "Barker" was never an authentic carnival term. Carnies call the person gathering a tip for a show a "talker". The "outside talker" attracts the tip and the "inside talker" or "lecturer" conducts the crowd through a ten-in-one show, describing the acts and building interest in the "blowoff". Moreover, "hurry hurry hurry", the phrase you often hear chanted by the "barker" in movies, is far less sophisticated than the real outside talker's intricately contrived appeals. Some authentic samples can be heard elsewhere on this disk. The term "barking" was in current use in mainstream culture in the early 20th Century to mean drawing customers by talking in a continual flow of repetitive lines and phrases. "Barking" was also called a "grind pitch" by some professional talkers. "Come on we got tomatoes today girls, a tisket a tasket, I sell them by the basket." Used primarily by vendors at a stationary spot, such as a vegetable stand or the doorway to a 6

show (perhaps most recently heard from the doorways of Times Square sex shows.) It's easy to see how the general public applied the term to the carnival talker. Differentiated from the "street cries" of vendors who traveled the street in wagons, whose cries tended to be more musical and more piercing in tone to attract the attention of people inside their houses. Barnstorming (Carny): Operating an attraction from spot to spot with little pre-planning or advance publicity, hoping to generate enough business on short notice. Barnstorming would generally be done in the off-season when carnivals had ceased business. In its usual use, outside the carnival, 'barnstorming' referred to an aviator with his own light, land-it-in-someone's-backyard airplane, going from town to town offering rides for money. Bat Away (Carny): Orders (q.v.) giving the OK to take players money any way you want to. Only used when the 'fix' is in to the degree that even legitimate beefs won't bring any heat from the cops. Beano (Carny): Lotto-type group games go far back in history, and one called "Beano" became very popular as a carnival game in 1929. Players would buy cards printed with a matrix of numbers, the agent would draw numbered discs from a cigar box and players would mark those numbers which appeared on their cards with beans. The player who achieved an unbroken line of beans either across or vertically or diagonally was to yell "beano" to announce that he had won. In 1930, toy developer Edwin Lowe designed a version he could patent, hiring a mathematician to work out several thousand different game cards and titling his proprietary version "Bingo." Beans, or Beanies (Carny): Amphetamines ("stay awake for days" pills), often found in truck cabs during jumps, right next to the bulk package of condoms. Invaluable when you have to take down a Ferris wheel late at night after closing and then drive all night and all the next day. Captain Don Leslie, interviewed for the Sideshow Central website in 2004, said that one-day stands with the circus were particularly taxing: "You were working 18 or 22 hours a day, you cant keep that f'n pace up very long. At night, when youd go to the office, theyd give you an envelope with gas money for the truck and thered be speed in there. The show gave them to you, so you wouldnt wreck their f'n trucks." Bearded Lady (Carny): A female "human oddity" with a beard, usually genuine, though there have been occasional gaffs. Bed of Nails (Carny): A common carny show stunt, and as with most such stunts (sword swallowing, fire eating and the like) the secret is that there is no secret, you just do it. The usual bed of nails has so many nails set less than 1" apart that lying on them, though uncomfortable, does not puncture the skin. The average performer can safely allow an audience volunteer to stand on his chest while lying on the bed, and can allow a cinderblock to be broken on his chest with a sledgehammer without ill effect (inertia keeps the shock wave within the cinderblock, which isn't too hard to break.) Beef (Carny): A complaint from a patron or law officer concerning anything about the show. You have the patch and your fellow carnies to back you up if you create a beef you can't handle, but to keep respect you should try to "never let a beef leave your awning." Behind the Six: Short of money. Also light, chick, chicane. 7

Beijing Tea Scam: A scam in which con artists overcharge victim's for a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. Bender (Carny): Contortionist. Bendover Store (Carny): Cynical nickname for a game joint involving thrown balls, where the agent has to bend over hundreds of times a day to retrieve the balls. Betting Systems: Techniques to beat a game of chance by changing the amount of bets. These do not work. Bibles (Carny): Items (often, but not always, miniature Bibles) sold for extra income by performers in a ten-in-one. The freaks would sell "pitch cards" printed with photos and biographical information, giants often sold souvenir rings, etc. Big Eli (Carny): The Ferris wheel, from the most successful of the ride's original manufacturers, the Eli Bridge Company. Big Mitt: A fixed poker game. Big Store: A fake shop, betting house, office or similar environment, set up by the con artist. Bill (Carny): A poster (as also used in the circus). Also, a roster of acts or performers (as also used in theatre and wrestling). Billboard (Carny): See Amusement Business. Bit (Carny): Another term for a fee due from you. Blade Box (Carny): An act in which the performer (usually a woman) lies in a box while steel blades are pushed through it, apparently a traditional "cutting a woman in half" illusion, until the "blowoff" is announced: "Sheila is going to step behind the curtain for a moment and remove her costume. We are not doing this to be lewd or crude, but this feat requires her to twist and contort her body so severely that she cannot perform it while hampered by even this small item of clothing (here, honey, just hand out that costume and I'll fold it up nice for you) and now that she has prepared herself, she will recline in the cabinet and (opening the curtain as Sheila, lying in the cabinet, waves her arm to the crowd) I'm going to close the lid. Notice that the lid has openings for 13 steel blades (the crowd also notices even more openings they will get to peer through). Now I am not going to cut this beautiful young lady, because as I insert each blade she is bending, twisting and contorting her body in and around every one of these blades of steel, just like a snake, just like a rubber band, she can bend her body as these blades threaten to sever the most delicate parts of her body. (Pause for a look down into the box.) And now, I'm going to give the real men in the audience a chance to come up on stage and see for themselves! Sheila invites each and every one of you up here to see how she does it. You're going to see how her amazing body can twist around these razor-sharp blades, you're going to see the texture of her skin! But you should know that this lovely and talented little beauty receives no pay for displaying herself to your eyes in this fashion. Sheila feels that exposing her act and her body this way is worth one dollar, because she is paid only through your curiosity and your generosity. Now if I can get you all to line up at the foot of the stairs, just hand your dollar to the man at the foot of the steps and come up and see this beautiful little girl in the state she is in now, unashamed and waiting for you to view her." Of course, when you paid your dollar and looked into the box, the girl (who had so conspicuously handed out her garments) was wearing a tight bathing suit, and that's all that was promised: she's not wearing the costume you 8

first saw her in. The tip was moved through the area so fast they hardly had a moment to figure out that they hadn't seen a nude girl, even though they had seen the "magic secret" of how she was contorted around the blades. A classic "blowoff" feature. Blade Glommer (Carny): A sword swallower. Blank (Carny): An engagement with poor attendance, or a player who looks like a good mark but who actually has few dollars to spend. Blind Opening (Carny): A bally by the outside talker, or introduction by the inside talker, phrased in general terms that could apply to any (or a changing array of) attractions. It might describe the horror and thrill you'll experience seeing nature's strangest oddities, but it did not need to be specific about exactly which oddities. Block Game: Shell game played with small hollow boxes weighted on top. Also called the blocks, the boxes, the dinks, the hinks, the nuts, the peeks, the shells. Block Out: To crowd a troublesome member of the public out of a gambling game. E.g. Three Card Monte. Blockhead Act (Carny): An act in which a man seems to drives a spike or ice-pick or other long slim object into his nasal passage. Actually the spike inserts very easily, and the "hammering" is mimed. The act is usually credited to Melvin Burkhart, but Todd Robbins cites a 1906 manuscript by Walter Deland. The stunt was originally done as part of a human pincushion act. Burkhart added comedy patter and byplay and made it into a comedy act that stood on its own merits. He started performing it in 1929, but it was still too "strong" for many of the shows he worked back then. He did play it successfully in Ripley's Odditorium in New York in the late 1930s, where Robert Ripley dubbed Burkhart "The Human Blockhead," a nickname he carried proudly as he achieved great popularity with the act until his death in 2005. Many modern-day performers have copied Burkhart's presentation in style, or even line-for-line. Blow Off: Getting rid of an victim. Blow Your Pipes (Carny): To become hoarse from screaming at 'marks' all day long. Blow: 1. To allow the mark to win some money in a short-con. 2. To lose. "I blew my stake." 3. To realize. "He never blowed it was a gaff." 4. To leave. "Let's blow this joint." 5. An accomplice losing money in a rigged game. Blower (Carny): A game in which numbered ping-pong balls must be grabbed out of an air stream. Blowoff (sometimes shortened to "the blow") (Carny): This is where the real money is. Why? Because you don't have to split your "inside money" with the front office! At the end of a carnival show, the crowd (sometimes just the men) is often offered an extra added attraction for an extra fee, something you can either pay to see (if you have a strong enough stomach or perhaps a strong enough desire to see a lady you think might be naked, as implied with the "blade box") or you could "blow off" and leave without seeing the extra feature. Since the "inside talker" was also usually the magician, he would do his brief magic act for the ladies and children while the gents paid a little extra to go behind the curtain to see the blowoff. Always implied was the idea that the "good stuff" is in the attraction you havent paid for yet. It might be simple to the point of crudity: "OK boys, this is 9

how it works now that there's just us men in here, the tattooed lady is gonna go behind the curtain and any of you that wanna go with her can give me a dollar and follow along. She's gonna sit in a chair, she's gonna lift up her dress and she's gonna show you what you've all been waiting to see. Now who's man enough to go back there and see for himself?" More often it was a bit more subtle: "Boys, we all know what you came here to see, and you've seen a good show already. I know there isn't a single one of you out there who doesn't think he already got his money's worth. But you came in here to see more than a set of knockers. And you're going to see A LOT MORE, I promise you. We couldn't tell you everything on the outside because you know there's women and kids on the midway. But back here we can talk right out. It's going to cost you another half a buck (Carny): but if it's the last fifty cents you have in the world, it'll be well spent. Lulu's going to put on a show you'll remember the rest of your days. And there ain't no fooling, neither. She's going to come out just the way you want her to, and you're gonna see it ALL!" It might even be possible to do a second ding after they've seen the lady naked: "Boys, us dancers, we don't get paid, only what we get in tips. Now I'm going to show you fellows something you may have heard about but I bet you ain't never seen it. And if you want to stay for it, why your tips will be the only pay I get. But it's worth it, believe me. You'll thank your lucky stars you did, and with what you'll learn tonight, when you go home you're going to make your own little ladies VERY happy they let you come in here! Let me give you a little hint. When I start this little private show just for you, there ain't going to be but two things on this stage, me and this soda bottle." Blow-Off. Any technique to get rid of the mark after he has been taken. Also used for the climax of a scam. Blue One (or sometimes Black One) (Carny): A date that does poor business. Opposite: "Red One", probably from the usual colors of the winning numbers on a game layout. Bluecoat: (American grifter slang) A uniformed policeman. Boat-Rider: A professional gambler who works ocean liners and often steers for confidence games. Boiler Room: A high pressure telemarketing sales room. Boiler-Net Room: An online boiler room targeting forums and chat services. Bonnet: An old British swindler term for shill. May be derived from the French bonneteur. Bonneteau. This is the French name for three-card monte. Literally, a little cap or hat. Bonneteur came to mean a con man (from an earlier usage that meant a stranger who greets "too friendly"-presumably by lifting his hat). Some writers have claimed that the word came from the bend in the cards, which resembles the bill of a man's cap. But the word used to be used for thimble-rig and almost any street con, and was predated by the use of bonneteur for con man. See Bonnet above. (Thanks to Ronald A. Wohl for this information.) Booster: 1. Shill who acts the part of a bettor. The shill that encourages the sucker to bet. "I got sixty of his money! If you got a good eye, this is easy!" 2. (Carny) Most often, a person dealing in stolen ("boosted") goods. Also, someone you can look to for illicit substances. Booth (Carny): A game run by community group or sponsors, not by professional carnies. 10

Boston Version (Carny): Cleaned-up version of a strong show routine. Bottom Dealer (1): A card cheat who deals from the top of the deck instead of the bottom. Bottom Dealer (2): A slang term for any criminal or person of low ethical standards. Bouncer (Carny): A rubber reproduction of a pickled punk (q.v.). There were any number of reasons for using reproductions instead of genuine specimens including local legal restrictions and easier availability. Box Job: Safe cracking Bozark (Carny): Rarely heard term specific to wrestling matches in carnivals: a female wrestler or boxer. Bozo (Carny): Character who insults customers to induce them to try to throw balls to spill him in a dunk tank. The joint is usually named "Dunk Bozo," in less sensitive days it was known as the "African Dip" or (in even older days) "Nigger Dip". Bozo's "calls" over a loudspeaker are very effective at drawing customers. Bozo is often made up as a sort of "nightmare clown," but (as in the great depiction in the Jodie Foster/Gary Busey movie "Carny") he's definitely not a sweet guy - his taunts grow more embarrassing, barbed at the start and increasing to real nastiness, trying to make the current mark so angry he'll continue throwing balls until he hits the switch and dunks his tormentor. BR (Carny): A fat-looking bankroll flashed by an agent to dazzle the mark, who comes to believe he actually has a chance of winning it. It might just be a "carny roll," a high-value bill or two wrapped around a lot of $1 bills. Broad Tosser (Carny): Operator of a three card monte game, rarely seen in carnivals today because it is so widely known to authorities and public alike as an unwinnable swindle. Also called springer, tosser, dealer, operator. Broad: A playing card. The O.E.D. dates this term to 1812. Broads were cheaper made cards, and were wider than the better quality cards used for the more aristocratic sort of games such as whist. Also, a railroad ticket. Buck (Carny): Slang for $100. "My speeding ticket was a buck forty!" Bucking the Tiger. Playing Faro. The dealer was an entrepreneur and banked his own game, usually renting space from a saloon or other establishment. The wild ride on a tiger usually didn't end well. Build Up (Carny): A game offering the player an assured prize with continued play, PLUS all his money back, but each play costs twice the amount of the previous play. Since most people don't really grasp the amazing speed of exponential progression (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64) the cost grows huge. Most players give up and abandon their money, because even Bill Gates doesn't have the bankroll it would take to win. "Here buddy let me help you get even, we can play a little double-up-catch-up. Whatcha got ta lose? Remember, when you beat me you get all your money back and this beautiful Rolflex watch. The only way you can lose at this game is to run out of money or drop dead, and you look healthy to me." [By the way, the watch would be a knockoff marked 'Rolflex,' not a genuine Rolex.] As a verb, "to build up." It also refers to the type of agent you are: flattie, alibi, buildup. Sometimes this term is applied to games that let you trade several small prizes (won for a single play) for bigger prizes.

11

Building a Tip (Carny): What the "outside talker" does, gathering a crowd of potential customers (a "tip"). He then "turns" the tip, sending them to the ticket booth. Bull (Carny): A promoter of wrestling matches. Bullet (Carny): A round painted panel within a banner giving descriptive or promotional information about the banner's subject. A banner, for instance, might depict a "Frog Boy" as a green frog-shaped animal with a human head. Now anyone with any sense knows that such a creature could not exist. Inside is a man with flipper-like arms and legs. But the bullets on the banner are the convincers: "Alive!" says one. Okay, he's alive. "You won't believe it!" says another. And, indeed, as promised, the people coming out of the show can be heard to say "I didn't really believe he was going to look like that banner." Bumper Car Game (Carny): "Bumper Cars" are a well-known ride, but the Bumper Car Game was popular at one time both as a hanky-pank or a gambling game. H.C. Evans (see their catalog in our "On the Midway" e-book) made a lovely chrome bumper car. About the size of a roller skate and quite heavy (18 pounds), the car was pushed with considerable force to bounce back and forth along a short straight track with bumpers at each end. When the car stopped, a pointer on the side of the car indicated one of a series of numbers painted along the track, thus choosing your prize or advancing game play. Bunk (1): To fool or scam some one (2): To leave Bunkhouse (Carny): A trailer providing extremely spare housing. The owner rents space to workers who don't own personal trailers and who don't make enough to afford a motel. The trailer is split down the middle, on each side are closet-sized cubicles big enough for a mattress and about 18" to move around. Some "rooms" have one bed, some have bunks and others in the "fifth wheel" section have an elevated bunk with a little more elbow room. Burn the Lot (Carny): To allow agents to cheat brazenly and leave the locals so outraged that they won't allow yours or any other carnival in their town for a long time. Burr (Carny): Operating expenses. Butcher (Carny): Strolling refreshment merchant, peddler of lemonade, candy, pretzels, and other edibles. C Note: Hundred-dollar bill. Cackle Bladder: A method by which a con artist might fake his death. A small bag of chicken blood that the con artist pops when 'stabbed' or 'shot'. Cackle Bladder: Any death faked for the purposes of a scam. Cake Cutting (Carny): Short-changing. Cake Eaters (Carny): Locals, rubes. Call (Carny): The time you need to be on the lot and ready to work. Also, your repertoire of lines to "call 'em over," attract marks to your joint: "Hey, buddy, win the little lady a great big bear, just three in the basket, here, you can try it free!" Dealing with innumerable passersby and needing to attract them with the 'joint' equivalent of a bally, certain phrases become second nature when they are successful, so a particular agent might be associated with a certain call. Once the call has worked, the agent "closes the sale" using his tried-and-true assortment of "cracks." But he shouldn't "overcall", or call anyone who is in the legitimate range of a call from another joint. 12

Camera-Hugger: A tourist, particularly one who is a potential victim. Canvas Joint (Carny): A game housed in a portable canvas-on-woodenframe shack. Cap: Expenses connected with roping and fleecing a mark, especially the roper's expenses on the road. Also called the nut. Capable Support: Assistance of good shills in monte or other short-con. Capper: Three-Card Monte shill who acts the part of a bettor. The shill who "doubles" when the sucker bets on the right card. Carnival (Carny): An outdoor entertainment usually consisting of an overall management that carries some of its own rides and concessions, plus additional offerings by independent showmen, ride owners and concessionaires. The benefits of being with a large carnival include a steady route with no planning, and many of the costs are included with the rent, like electricity, clean up costs, insurance and placing your concession. The downside is that you have to pay through the nose for it. The basic nut is high (Carny): rent will vary but most county fairs will run between $25 to $80 per foot (1999 prices). If your concession is a 10 foot center concession you will pay for a side and a half and it will come to between $375 to $1200 for 7 to 10 days rent. Additional dings may add up to $150 per spot plus money to the lot man. Also, the large shows always play a certain number of still dates or blanks on which you will still have to pay full rent; you can lose a lot of money and have to play a couple of spots to catch up. Carny (Carny): Someone who works in a carnival. The term is also applied to the carnival itself. This by way of Todd Robbins: "As Chris Christ put it, 'Ward [Hall] and I are showmen. Don't call us carnies. Carnies are junky ride jockeys that are here today and gone tomorrow. The difference between a carny and a showman is the difference between chicken shit and chicken salad!' And as someone who has tried at times to emulate them, I [ed.] can tell you that there is a vast difference between framing an attraction and being showman enough to present it effectively to the public. Also, sometimes designates the carnival's "secret language" similar to pig-latin. Carny Marriage (Carny): Carnies are an unromantic lot, as a rule. According to others, as a sign that a couple intends to be monogamous (or relatively so) for a while, thus keeping the individuals (more or less) from straying and from unwanted romantic advances, they may engage in a carny marriage. The sign that they are "married" in the eyes of their fellows is a ride once around on the carousel or Ferris wheel; a divorce is less formal, sometimes with a ride turning in the other direction, but more often at the end of the season or when both parties just say "to hell with it." Carny Roll (Carny): A bankroll consisting of a high-value bill or two wrapped around a lot of $1 bills, flashed by the agent to give the impression that a mark could make a lot of money playing this agent's game. Carousel (Carny): A perennial favorite ride. A turning platform with seats, some made up on poles as animals, especially horses, and some of which move gently up and down in a slow "galloping" motion. Music (traditionally a mechanical band organ) provides atmosphere. Carry the Banner (Carny): A carny or medicine pitchman who is penniless, and has nowhere to sleep but the town park. 13

Catch Wrestling (Carny): A style of wrestling using tricky submission holds (see "At Show"). The name refers to a Lancashire (U.K.) phrase "catch as catch can", to use any means you can get away with to end a match in your favor. Catcher: The con artist who first found the victim. Particularly in the Nigerian Letter Scam. Cellar Man: A card cheat who deals from the bottom of the deck instead of the top. Center Joint (Carny): Concession that can handle players from all four sides (also "Four Way Joint"). Usually pays at least 1 times the rent a similar-sized line-up joint would pay. Chain letter: A pyramid scheme in which new recipients of a letter pay old recipients. Chart (Carny): A table of values used to convert the numbers you rolled in game play to a final score. See "Razzle Dazzle" in the Games chapter. Enables so many possible ways of confusing a mark that an agent can easily "build him up" again and again, letting him believe that he is very close to a big win, but really never letting him get a winning score. A "Chart Store" is a joint featuring this type of game. NEVER play a chart game! Chase The Ace: Another name for the game of Three Card Monte. Check Up (Carny): When an accumulation of money is taken out of the agent's apron to a safer place. The money is counted in front of the agent, and the agent gets his cut later. Cheechako: A term from the Alaskan Gold Rush of the 1890's; it describes someone who is completely new to the territory, a tenderfoot, a babe in the woods. From a native Alaskan word meaning "foreigner." Cheese Wheel (Mouse Wheel) (Carny): A game (now rare) with a round cake-shaped play area, with holes in each of several segments around the circumference. Customers bet on which hole a mouse will choose to enter. The mouse will always enter the hole secretly wiped by the agent with a drop of ammonia. Chester (Carny): A child molester. A carny might be more likely to notice someone's undue interest in and behavior toward children because he is always observing the behavior of individuals in the crowd, and because venues like a carnival, where there are a lot of children and more than the usual chaos, tend to attract such predators. Chick, or Chicane: Short of money. Chill (Carny): To get the mark to leave ("He was getting rangy, so I chilled him.") Or to isolate the mark from his friends using your sticks (secret assistants). Chopped Grass (Carny): Dried herbs used in medicines being pitched. Chuck-a-Luck. A dice game played with three dice in a cage. A banking game much like Grand Hazard. Chuggers: Charity 'Muggers' who appear to be collecting for a charity but actual take all or some of the money for themselves. Chump (Carny): Sucker. Naive, gullible player (as in W.C. Fields line "Never give a sucker an even break or wisen up a chump.") Chump Change: Small amounts of scammed money. Chump-twister (Carny): A carousel. Ciazarn (Carny): Carny talk, a sort of "pig-latin." A guide is on this page. 14

Circassian Girl (Carny): A freak show standby, now as common as a "tattooed girl": a white woman with frizzed hair, usually presented either as an exotic middle-eastern girl or as a "white woman captured in infancy by an Arab sheikh and only recently rescued from his harem." Circus Candy (Carny): Cheap candy in an impressive looking box. Circus Jump (Carny): A difficult move between lots, usually calling for tearing down, driving, setting up and opening for business on the new lot without time to sleep. Clem (Carny): Another term for "mark," particularly a gullible rural local. Also, a fight between a townie and carnies. Clerk (Carny): A concession employee, usually a less skilled person operating hanky-panks and other un-rigged games, whose chief function is to collect players' money and make change. Paid much less than agents. Click Fraud: Clicking on 'pay-per-click' advertisements without an interest in the product or service. Close the Gates: Shills crowding out unwanted observer to the monte. Closed Monte: Version of monte played with outside man and inside man. Played "privately" in monte store, train, or bar. Clutching (Carny): "Riding" the clutch on a ride (same function as the clutch on a car), ostensibly to provide a few thrilling speed variations or outright jerks to please the riders, but really to generate "thrown change." Search under the seats after a few rides and you'll find all sorts of dropped coins. Coconut Shy (Carny): A British fairground game, probably a variant of "Aunt Sally" (q.v.), in which players throw balls to knock a coconut off a post. Players may win the coconut, or other prizes. In British colloquial use, "to shy" means "to throw with a sideways snapping motion." Collection (Carny): A build-up method of working a joint. You get the mark going at x amount a shot. You let him continue shooting and pay after he owes you several fees. When he gets so high you "collect": point out his prize (so far), collect the money you're owed, and try to keep him going for at a higher price for a bigger prize. The object is to keep him confused, still shooting, and owing you more. Color (Carny): Blood, especially when drawn intentionally by "blading" with a small hidden piece of razor, drawn for show, in carnival wrestling matches. Come On: An apparent advantage for the victim to encourage them to take part in the scam. Come-Through. A fleeced mark who refuses to be blown off and follows con men in attempt to have them arrested. Committee (Carny): Representatives of the local sponsor, usually a local charity with whom proceeds are shared. A sponsorship arrangement goes a long way toward cooling police scrutiny of the games, and often includes the sponsor's advertising and ticket-selling efforts as a part of the arrangement. Sponsorship makes it easier at times for the show to locate on public land. Members of the committee may count tickets at the end of the day to make sure the charity gets its agreed share. Occasionally or often (depending on who you ask) the committee members may be on the take. Concession Manager (Carny): Second in authority only to the carnival owner, the concession manager supervises the location of the concessions, arranges for 15

security personnel, and handles beefs arising from concession operation. Generally takes home about half of the 10% collected from the games. Concessions (Carny): The food stands, games and shops on a midway, given the right to be there by virtue of a hefty payment to the carnival owner (usually on a dollars-per-front-foot basis), often plus a percentage of the gross, plus electrical charges, bribes and more. If you understand that the food stands, also called 'concessions,' at your local sports stadium are working under exactly the same arrangement, youll understand why a hot dog can cost $5. Cook House (Carny): Sometimes a large eating establishment open to the public, like a restaurant or cafeteria. More often, the place where personnel eat, not open to the public. Cool Out or Off (Carny): Convincing a mark that he has not been taken. The term comes from the big con games. Kootch Show (Carny): A raunchy girl show. Cop (Carny): To cheat or manipulate a sucker at some point in a game, or to take anything (particularly but not exclusively if you take it by subterfuge.) An agent might arrange his counter at just the right height and invite pretty marks to lean over for an extra-close throw so that he can cop a feel (of breast.) Also, when a rigged game malfunctions, carnies say that it copped. The H.C. Evans Company catalog elsewhere on this disk sold pegs for a Pitch-Till-You-Win game with the claim that they could be set to "cop or blow as desired," meaning they could be set to easily accept a ring thrown by a customer or be impossible to ring. Cop a Heel: Run away. Cop and Blow: For con men or shills to win and lose bets with the sucker, to make the play look fair. Cop: An accomplice winning money to prove a rigged game can be beaten. Corn Game (Carny): Bingo game (with dry corn kernels used as counters). Corn Punk or Corn Slum (Carny): A pitchman's remedy for corns. Count Store (or Add-em-up) (Carny): A game in which the final score is counted up by the agent, certain numbers winning prizes. The agent miscounts or sets very unusual combinations of numbers as winning numbers, thereby reducing the payout. At one time, count stores were not open in the daytime because women and children were not allowed to play. One former carny said, "The nice part of a 'count store' was that you never gave anything away. My game could not be beat. I only gave it away if I wanted to. I could always keep the same flash. If you packed it nicely you could use it year after year. [And why did] they give me dollars if I didn't give them prizes? Entertainment, my friends! Many more people will pay for entertainment than will pay for teddy bears." Country Boy: A complicated version of closed-monte popular in Texas and the South. Also, Texas Twist, Texas Tornado. See Texas Twist Country Store (Carny): A concession selling a variety of small items of merchandise, often including jewelry engraved with your name, etc. Cowboy (Carny): Hooligan who comes on the lot looking for ways to cause trouble. Crack (Carny): A phrase an individual carny polishes and tweaks until it is super-effective at getting the attention of passing marks to stop and play. Cracks are developed and learned by instinct and by observation, and different ones may be employed to influence different types of marks. All of these comments are 16

"when he says / then you say" phrases, as in, when he says "I've already spent too much," you say, "I know, with so much invested you're bound to win!" Crack Out of Turn: For shill or con man to miss a cue or speak his lines out of place. Crank, Cradle, or Strom (Carny): A pedal or handle to secretly control a rigged game. Usual tipoffs: Flattie sits at the counter (to be able to work the pedal without being noticed) - joint is framed with drapes going all the way to the ground and secured at the bottom so no one can see the pedal, extra drape hanging to the ground on operator's side of the counter hiding his feet. Dead giveaway: a double row of horizontal stitching, four inches apart, around the sidewall at counter height, hiding the cable transmitting the pedal's movements to the game. With this arrangement, a flattie can secretly control the stop of a wheel, engage or release the gaff on a cat rack, or (by miming the pull of a string as he works the pedal) demonstrate how easy it is to pull up a flashy prize in a string game. Crescent (Carny): When there is not enough room to rig all your banners, you may crescent (curve) your banner line to avoid "drop offs" (q.v.) Crew: A group of con artists Crime Show (Carny): A midway attraction featuring memorabilia from famous criminals ("Bonnie and Clyde's Death Car" was a famous feature). Cross Fire: A conversation in grift slang between the outside man and inside man so that a mark or bystanders can't understand. Croupier: The person who runs a gambling game. e.g. dealer Cut (Carny): Your (the agent's) share of the money, your percentage. Cut-In (Carny): The fee for getting electricity hooked up to your joint by the electrician (juice man). D.Q. (Carny): Short for "disqualified" (probably from wrestling parlance). To be thrown off the lot and ordered not to return. Might happen to a rowdy mark or to a worker who steals or messes with something he should leave alone, or causes more problems than he's worth. An employee fired from one joint can consider himself d-q'd, because no one else will hire him. Dark Ride (Carny): A "haunted house" that you ride or walk through. The animated scary surprises inside are known as "tricks" or "gags." Daub: A colored paste used to mark cards on the fly. Dead Man (Carny): An extra anchor stake for a guy wire or banner line, buried in especially soft earth. Deadhead. A mark that is not likely to bet much money. Dealer (Carny): An agent who works a percentage game. Deep-Sea Gambler: Same as boat-rider. Deuce Reader (Carny): An "Admission $2" sign. Devil Baby (Carny): A gaffed exhibit, ostensibly a freak featuring horns, fangs, hoofed feet, and claws, usually constructed to appear mummified or otherwise preserved. Dick. Police detective. Digger (Carny): A coin-op featuring a flashy pile of prizes (some good, some worthless) inside a glass case, with a claw device above guided by the customer to try to pick up the prize they want. It is possible to stock the best prizes in areas the claw can't reach, or rig the claw to drop heavier prizes. 17

Dime Museum (Carny): A collection of specimens, exotic objects and live acts and performances, usually set up in an old store front. These were both the original museums and the original freak shows, most popular primarily in the 19th and early 20th Century. Present-day roadside museums are their descendants. Ding (Carny): (1): The offer, to those customers already inside your show, of the chance to see a really special added attraction, not advertised on the outside, for an additional fee. The blade box illusion is a classic ding ("Come up and see how she fits in there for just a quarter - she couldn't do it if she had any clothes on") (2): Expenses (over and above the percentage) paid to the carnival operator, such as charges for utilities, trash collection, insurance, sales tax, I.D. badges, parking space for your camper or trailer, another fee to park your car, security, inspection fees, advertising, official shirts, and tip to the lot manager. You might have to pay the operator's man to sell tickets, since they don't trust you. And, of course, they didn't tell you this in advance, nor did they tell you about the "pay one price for everything" promotion (so most of the crowd will be riding all day instead of buying tickets to your show) and somehow the operator's percentage, quoted to you as 50% of your gross, has mysteriously jumped to 57% and the guy who told you 50% is nowhere to be found. And those "inside sales"? Not this time, unless you want to pay 57% of that money too. And on and on You don't like it? Well, you're now blocked in by rides and trucks, and you're unable to leave. Ding Show (Carny): I remember going into an "absolutely free" show in Atlantic City in the 1960s. Inside, before getting to see "the real stuff," I was stopped at a gateway by the iron grip of the proprietor, saying "Aren't you going to give a contribution?" No mention of what I was contributing to, but for a buck I got to see a series of cardboard dioramas depicting great naval actions, obtained free from the local Navy recruiting office. A Ding Show is absolutely free, except that you aren't getting out without being strong-armed for a "contribution." Dippers: A type of pickpocket. Direct Sales (Carny): Concessions where a customer can buy a souvenir or other similar item. Dodge-'Em Cars (Carny): The bumper-car ride. Dog House (Carny): An enclosed booth occupied by the ride jock. Do-gooders (Carny): Individuals who are self-righteously convinced that the carnival business is too disreputable to allow, that all show animals are certainly being mistreated, and that the display of human oddities is demeaning and immoral. They have succeeded in getting many restrictive laws and regulations passed, resulting in a lack of show work for freaks, who almost universally disdain do-gooders and their motives. Dollar Day (Carny): (See "ding" above) One of the hated "hidden costs" a showman may be forced to accept, offered as a promotion to the public by fair sponsors: $1 parking, $1 admission, $1 rides. You may have the most spectacular ride on the lot, but on Dollar Day everybody rides for a buck, and you can't "opt out" even if your regular charge is $2 or $3 or more. Dollar Store: The first version of the monte store created by Ben Marks in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Eventually spawned a legitimate business as well as the socalled "big store" of the big con. 18

Donniker (Carny): A rest room or toilet. Derived from 'dunnekin,' in common use among lower-class Britons in the 1700s meaning 'outhouse.' Probably derived from 'dung' and "-kin", a suffix referring to a small container or private room (many euphemisms for 'bathroom' refer to it as a 'closet' or 'the small room'). In Australian slang today, an outhouse is a "dunny". Donniker Joint, Donniker Hole (Carny): A particularly unfavorably placed joint, or unfavorable place to locate a joint. A bit like being seated next to the kitchen or restroom door in a restaurant. Also "Larry loc," from "larry", meaning anything broken. Double (Carny): A two-performer medicine show bit; or to perform more than one role. Also, a $20 bill. Drag In A Mark: Secure a potential victim. See also Roper. Drag the Midway (Carny): The practice of going from your attraction toward the gate and enticing people to come directly to your joint, show or ride. Draw (Carny): Money, a small percentage of total pay, advanced nightly to the ride help. Give them too big a draw and they'll come back tomorrow drunk, if they come back at all. Also, a "draw" is an outside talker's inducement for the tip to pack together close to the bally platform - "Come in closer and look at the hole right here in the stage. If you're standing too far back, you won't be able to see the hole. I'm going to need everyone to come in closer so everyone can see this little hole right here in the stage" Drop Counter Box (Carny): Ticket box with a specially-rigged counter designed to drop a portion of the change a ticket-buying mark is due into a hidden box as it is pushed toward the buyer. Drop the Awnings (Carny): To close down a joint after the night's work is done. Dropcase (Carny): A briefcase-size case which opened to reveal a bagatelle betting game (an array of pins with slots at the bottom indicating prizes) played with coins or marbles. It was used by street grifters (who almost always rigged the game). A secondary meaning: A briefcase or suitcase equipped with folding legs often used by street vendors to display their wares. The pitchman's "keister and tripe" was a different arrangement for the same task. Drop-in. Something easy; very easy money. It is called this because sometimes a fat mark will drop-in on a confidence game without being steered. Drop-Offs (Carny): Banners in a lengthy banner line for which there is no room at the current engagement. Drug Abuse Show (Carny): An act where the performer supposedly has been driven insane, become deformed or mutilated, or has even given birth to a hideous mutant baby because of drug abuse. It's really a basic geek or "wild man" show dressed with a modern theme. The pitch or banner would usually say something like "See the shocking and heartbreaking victim of drug abuse!" Ducat (sometimes 'ducket') (Carny): A free game ticket or other free pass to something, dispensed either as an enticement to play or to cool down a disgruntled player. Give an unhappy man a ducat to the girl show and he may attain a happier attitude. Especially when the girl show operator, seeing the ducat, points the customer out for a little special attention from the girls. The agent who gave out the ducat will get a bill from the girl show for 'services rendered.' Sometimes also used to refer to money. 19

Duck Pond (Carny): Game in which customer selects a numbered toy duck from among those floating around in a circulating stream. Can be run straight or as an alibi store ("See, kid, those red numbers mean a prize from the bottom shelf only.") Or those 6's (the giant stuffed dog) become 9's (a penny plastic soldier) really fast. Duke (Carny): When a shill (game operator's employee posing as a member of the crowd) persuades someone to play, especially to play a rigged game. The shill gets a fee for this, often a percentage of what the agent extracts from the mark. Duke Shot (Carny): A demonstration game-shot made by the operator of an unwinnable game, or by the shill, to convince the mark that the game can be won. Also used to describe an immoral or illegal move by a carny. Duker (Carny): A person handing out "Good for One Free Game" tickets (see 'Duke' above). Duking In: Getting a mark to involved by getting him to play for a shill, or a shill makes a bet for him. Same as mitting in. Dukkering (Carny): Gypsy fortunetelling. This is a word directly from the most common of the Romany languages indicating fortunetelling conducted by Gypsies in the traditional Gypsy style. From a recent forum post: "There's a very good reason I don't do a lot of dukkering anymore. People act like they're doing YOU a favor for letting you pull out your cards (or your tea leaves, or whatever). Just got sick of the hassle." Dump: To lose intentionally, done between two players to take a side bettors money Earnest Money. Money required from the mark as a show of good faith. Educated (Carny): Knowledgeable. A mark who has been "with it" at some point in life is probably too 'educated' for the game. Educated: A victim or con artist who knows and understands a scam. Electric Chair Act (Carny): An act (often called "The Human Dynamo") in which the performer (usually named "Mister Electrico" or the like) would appear to be immune to the effects of electricity (Carny): actually a phenomenon of high voltage electricity which permits an ungrounded person to light neon or fluorescent tubes at a touch, and do other similar stunts without being harmed. The widespread availability of second-hand "quack" medical devices suitable for powering this phenomenon made it easy for carny electricians to rig the gaff, but this is a very dangerous stunt if done wrong. See Ray Bradburys classic fantasy novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes" for a wonderful depiction of this act. Emby (Carny): A particularly gullible mark. End (Carny): The percentage of the gross a paid agent gets from the owner of the joint. Fair Date (Carny): An attraction booked to draw crowds to a sponsored stand. Often big-name concerts, stunt driving shows, or wrestling matches. "Kenny Rogers is playing a fair date on the 15th" means that he will be a special featured attraction at [whichever] fair on that day. Fairbank (Carny): When the agent allows the player to think the agent has "cheated" himself, giving the player an (illusory) advantage. He may allow the player to win a small initial game, give him an extra ball, miscount the score in the player's favor, all to get the player play longer in hope of winning big. 20

Fakir (Carny): The "Indian Fakir" was an early embodiment of the "Blockhead" and similar modern performers. With his "lifelong study of mystical Hindoo yoga," he might lie on a bed of nails, swallow swords, eat fire, etc. The word does not mean "faker," but comes from the Arabic "faqir", literally meaning a poor man (from "faqr" meaning "poverty"). A Muslim holy man who lived by begging, a fakir (like religious ascetics all over the world) might engage in stunts to show his piety and increase his income from begging. Fall mugu: To bed fooled by the Nigerian Letter Scam. False Shuffle: To shuffle the cards without actually change their order. Faro: Sometimes Pharo. Named from the French game Pharao. The foremost gambling game of the nineteenth century. Played on an oilskin layout painted with the faces of thirteen cards. Dealt from a shoe or box. Players bet on the order cards would come out. Fast and Loose (Carny): One of the 'big three' dishonest street games sometimes played on the long-ago carnival lot (the best-known being the 'shell game'). Fast and loose is played, like the other two, on a small portable tabletop (or as sailors used to refer to it, 'on the barrelhead'). A long circle of necklacechain is laid down in a complex series of loops, and the bettor (victim) attempts to put his finger into a loop he believes will remain caught on his finger when the chain is lifted. But the grifter has a way of laying the chain to control whether he wishes all loops to become 'fast' on the player's finger, or come 'loose' every time, enabling a skilled operator to put on a performance that attracts swiftly-escalating bets and walk away with big money every time. Also called 'grandmother's necklace.' A similar game, played with a rolled-up belt, is called 'the strap'. Fast and Loose: A crooked game of chance using a chain. Fast and Loose: This is the English Renaissance name for the short con swindle also known as Pricking the Garter or in American Grifter Slang as The Strap. The word can also mean the more modern version of the game known as The Endless Chain or On the Barrelhead. See Fast and Loose Fast Count (Carny): A score tallied so quickly by the agent that the player cannot confirm the result. Feature (Carny): A game that an agent operates especially well, his specialty. Fence-to-Fence Operation (Carny): A carnival where the carnival management also owns all of the concessions and rides. Fight Store: A kind of long con where the mark is convinced to bet on 'fixed' boxing match. Fin: Five-dollar bill. Find The Lady: Another name for the game of Three Card Monte. Fine wirers: A very good pickpocket. Fireball Show (Carny): A carnival of the most disreputable sort, full of dishonest games, really strong kootch shows and the like. Also a "Burn'em Up Outfit." First Call (Carny): The right to a favored spot on the midway. Strategically good placement (see "first on the right") can mean the difference between profit and poverty. Who gets first call can be affected by ownership (joints owned by the show had better get good holes) and how much you kick back to the layout man. 21

First Count (Carny): The right to be the first person to count the tickets or money, on the theory that the first count is most likely to be the most accurate and honest count (unless, of course, they've been rehashing some of the tickets.) Also a good opportunity to divert some of the funds into your own pocket. First of May (Carny): A novice worker in his first season. Shows usually play the season's opening spot on the first of May, and you'll always find new help hired on the first of May who have never worked shows before. First on the Right (Carny): The first 'hole' or two on the midway just to the right of the entrance. The sweetest loc (location) for most joints, as joints in that location are usually the first ones the crowd gets to. Fish: A sucker. Fix or Ice (Carny): A payoff to operate without too much scrutiny from authorities, either as "protection money" to keep the police from shutting you down even though you're operating legally, or as a bribe to allow you to operate fixed games and 'strong' shows. Also 'patch,' which is also the term used for the person who puts in the fix with the local authorities. "Sheriff, we need a couple of your men to work off-duty security. Some of our games are a little tough, but we don't play to no kids. If a player feels he's been cheated have your men bring them to me and I will personally take care of any problem. By the way, we want to donate this $500 to your favorite charity, I'm sure you'll see that they get it." Flag's Up (Carny): Signal that the cookhouse is open. Flash (Carny): Your best-looking prizes, arrayed to catch the eye of the crowd. 'Hard flash' is large and expensive-looking prizes. Note that these items may be completely impossible to win, the lesser prizes being hidden under the counter. Flash is also a verb: "to flash your joint", to make your joint more visible and attractive, and/or to set up an attractive display of prizes. One former carny said, "Flash is everything - the prizes you put out there and the way they are arranged." In Britain, prizes are "swag" and setting them up where customers will be drawn to your joint is "swagging". Flasher (Carny): A game using electronics or lights as indicators of the games result, bypassing local laws against mechanical wheels or similar devices. Flat Ride (Carny): A ride that stays at ground level, like bumper cars or a carousel. Flat Store or Flat Joint (Carny): Generally, gambling game, a game at which money is the prize rather than goods. The game at a flat joint is always entirely unwinnable. So called because the "wheel of fortune" or whatever other rig is played there, once set vertically for all to see, is now set flat horizontally so that only the player and the agent can see it. After you lose a bunch of money they might throw you some sort of prize to get rid of you. "Almost all of the carnies don't like the flatties because you can't win at their game and they take people for lots of money. I have seen a flattie take people for a week's pay, their car, sometimes even their home. There is no way any other type of agent comes close to making the money a flattie does." (Anonymous) "Always leave the mark with a dollar for gas", say some carnies. Flatten (Carny): To stop operating a game in a winnable fashion (in which the operator can generally keep a pretty high percentage of the income) and start working as a flat store (in which the operator can keep it all). The operator might 22

have peeked an especially attractive poke and decided not to chance losing any of the mark's money. Flattie (Carny): The operator of a Flat Joint or any less-than-legal game. Flea Circus (Carny): An exhibit purporting to display "trained fleas" pulling wagons, swinging on swings, etc. There are actually no fleas at all. The operator may have any number of ways to make tiny props appear to move by "flea power," from elaborate miniature mechanical means (operating the props as though the fleas were moving them) to hidden magnets animating black iron shavings. Flea Powder (Carny): Pitchman's term for powdered medicines. Flimp: A type of pickpocket. Floater (Carny): An operator who travels from one carnival to another. Floss (Carny): "Candy floss" is the technically-correct name for what the public calls "cotton candy". Flukum (Carny): Any mysterious liquid, from homemade liniment to hackedtogether Sno-Kone flavoring. Fly Gee. An outsider who understands confidence games, or thinks he does. Fool the Guesser (Carny): Often known to carnies as "Age and Scale", the game is quite profitable operated as a hanky-pank (in which the charge to play more than covers the wholesale cost of the prize). Alternatively, a good guesser, aided by game rules that help him more than customers suppose ("your birth month within two months" gives the guesser a span of 5 of the 12 months) and if he fails, it's still making him plenty. Certain cheats can also help the guesser: a common magic device that lets him secretly write down his "guess" after the mark has announced his age or weight, or writing his "prediction" as a glyph that can be interpreted as "Jan" or "June" thus giving the guesser leeway of 10 of the 12 months. Guessing age within 2 years, he might secretly guess and write "60", and if the mark is 56 he'll tell her (but not show the written guess) 53, letting her win and also feel that her young looks fooled the guesser. Or, in the same case, he might write "560" and cover either the 5 or the 0 when displaying the written guess, allowing him to win if she's anywhere from 54 to 63. Again, if he fails, the guesser still makes money over the cost of the prize. Fool's Errand: Sending a victim to find something that does not exist e.g. stripped paint. For It (Carny): Often paired with "With It". Describes someone who doesn't travel or work in the carnival but is connected in some way. Forty Miler (Carny): Newcomer to circus or carnival life, who (metaphorically speaking) never travels farther than 40 miles away from their home. Alternately, a performer or jointee who gets all the work he needs without traveling far from home. Fourree: Fake currency Four-Way Joint (Carny): Same as "a center joint", a joint that can be approached from all four sides. Freak Show (Carny): A show where human oddities displayed themselves (often selling photos, Bibles or other memorabilia). These were often ten-in-one shows and usually featured born freaks, 'made freaks' like tattooed people, and working acts like sword swallowers and fire eaters. 23

Freak: A carnival performer born with a interesting skill or characteristic. e.g. bearded lady or man with four legs. Front (Carny): 1. Generally, the outside of a show (as in "show front", "talking the front", etc). A "200-foot front" means the entrance and banner line of your show stretches along 200 feet of the midway. Locations on the midway are usually paid for by the number of front feet the concession occupies (in addition to many other dings). A center joint is sometimes charged for two sides, sometimes all four. 2. The place on the midway, closer to the gate, that has games and concessions, since the large rides and shows are generally located at the farthest part of the midway and are called " the Back End". Front: A legitimate business or person used to cover illegal dealings. G Note: Thousand-dollar bill. Gadget (Carny): Girl-show slang for a "g-string." Gadget Show (Carny): A midway attraction featuring mechanical novelties, like a miniature animated village or circus parade, usually housed in a trailer. Gaff (Carny): The mechanism by which a game is secretly controlled or 'faked'. "The game is gaffed" is more frequently expressed as "the game is Id". Along with "gimmick," this term is still used by magicians to indicate the secret apparatus by which a magic trick works. A gaff may also refer to a fake freak exhibit, like a "pygmy mummy" made of rubber and cotton in someone's kitchen. Gaff Banner (Carny): A very attractive banner promising a world of wonders and a plethora of famous attractions with cleverly-worded bullets like "Past and Present" indicating that few (or none) of the attractions was actually there in the flesh. Photographs and other "museum" exhibits might show and tell you all about famous freaks. Gaff: A device used for cheating. Garbage (Carny): Cheap souvenirs sold on the midway (pennants, balloons, hats, etc.) Gasoline Bill Baker (Carny): House name for the editor of Billboard's pitchmen's department. Gazoonie (Carny): The lowest form of carny, the itinerant day laborers who come and go at the drop of a hat. Also refers to a very young and inexperienced worker (who probably won't be able to take the hard work and will be gone in a few days.) Gee: A thief or con man. Short for gun (see below). Common in Australia (ca. 1900) according to M.P. Adams. Also, a grand ($1000). Geek (Carny): An unskilled performer whose performance consists of shocking, repulsive and repugnant acts. This "lowest of the low" member of the carny trade would commonly bite the head off a living chicken or snake. Some distinguish between "ordinary geeks" who pretend to be wild men or drug burnouts, and "glomming geeks" who actually bite the heads off live chickens and the like. See the 1949 movie "Nightmare Alley" for a good geek story (and for an excellent depiction of the mentalists technique of "cold reading"). In later years the geek show turned into a "see the pitiful victim of drug abuse" show. "Geek" as a verb ("he geeked") is one of several terms in use among wrestlers meaning to intentionally cut oneself to draw blood. Genny (pronounced "jenny") (Carny): The generator truck. (See "Light Plant"). 24

Giant Rat (Carny): The sideshow's "giant rat," often billed as "giant killer rats from the Amazon," usually capybaras, gentle animals but very highmaintenance. They produce incredible amounts of waste and require constant care. Showmen found that capys drew good crowds, but if they delegated the animal care they soon had a dead animal, and if they did it themselves it would eat up their time. Most operators switched to using nutrias. "These killer rats feasted on the flesh of dead American soldiers in Vietnam!" Gibtown (Carny): Gibsonton, Florida, near Tampa. Many show people flocked to Gibtown as a retirement spot or winter quarters. In addition to the agreeable winter climate, Gibsonton had unique zoning laws that allowed residents to keep elephants, circus trailers and other show paraphernalia on their residential property. Pioneered by Jeannie (the "half-girl") and Al Tomaini (the giant), a married couple who retired from show business to open "Giant's Camp" fishing camp there. Gig (Carny): To take all of a player's money in one short session instead of leading him to increasing losses on the belief that hell probably win in just one more try. Considered crude by more skilled carnies. Gig Artist (Carny): An agent who lacks the skill to remove all of a mark's money without causing a beef, generally because he gets it all too quickly. Girl in Fish Bowl ("Living Mermaid") (Carny): An illusion show: the viewer looks into the "fish bowl" to see a tiny girl, often with a fish tail, apparently living underwater. Girl Show (Carny): A show in which pretty women are the primary attraction. These could range from the "review" (such as a "Broadway Revue" with fully-clothed performers) to the racier "kootch" or "hootchie-kootchie" show (a strip show, and hey! Did you see what she did with [uh that part of her body]?) Often, these shows are designed to play either "strong" (nude, and to varying degrees of raunchiness) or partly or fully clothed. A girl show couldn't play without a "patch" or "fixer" on the lot, and demand was sometimes so strong that a large carnival might have as many as eight girl shows. In such an abundance, the shows might try to stand out by adopting a theme: "Oriental" (belly dancers, or at least belly-dance-themed), "Hawaiian" (sexy hula dancers), or "Rhumba Shows" (Latin themed), and of course in the days of segregation there might also be a black girl show ("Jig Show," q.v.). Girl-to-Gorilla Show (Carny): An all-time moneymaker, this illusion show features a girl being changed (magically or "scientifically") into a savage gorilla, which then "breaks out of its cage" frightening the crowd away. It uses a halfsilvered mirror ("one-way mirrors" are not really one way, they just show whichever side is more brightly lit). There are variations on the theme, like skeleton-to-vampire or in older times, "Galatea" (referring to the myth of Pygmalion the sculptor and Galatea, the statue he brought to life). Simple upkeep and a little showmanship can make this show really frightening, but I have never seen it done with even the minimal care needed to arouse anything but disappointment. "Zambora, the ape girl, the ape girl, she's alive! Only the brave are invited to see the ape girl! She is locked in a solid steel cage for your protection, and under bright lights you'll see the change begin: her forehead will begin to recede, her eyebrows will protrude, fangs will begin to grow in her mouth, 25

and her clothes will fall away from her body! A heavy coat of hair will grow from every square inch of her skin, the long straggly hair of a gorilla!" Glass Bender (Carny): A midway joint craftsman who manufactures knicknacks (little unicorns and the like) from glass rods using a propane torch. Often seen these days at booths in shopping malls. Glass House (Carny): a Hall of Mirrors attraction. Go Wrong (Carny): When an agent loses money despite his skill at keeping the game from being won. Going South (Carny): Stealing money (sometimes you put it into the apron to be counted, other times you 'go south' with it.) Goon Squad: 1. (Carny) On some shows, a gang of the tougher guys who act as 'enforcers,' beating up a carny because he's cheating the office or his boss, for instance. 2. The hired muscle used when the scam goes sour. Got his nose open: Losing money, as in "He's got his nose open." Grab Joint or Grease Joint (Carny): An eating concession in which the customer takes away food served directly over the counter. Grafters (Carny): Pitchmen. Grease (Carny): Any salve being pitched. Green Help (Carny): New, inexperienced workers. Sometimes you just gotta have a warm body to work, but they rarely come with brains and either can't (or won't) do the job, or make expensive mistakes. Grift 1. To con. 2. A group of con artists. "He was a member of a grift" Grifter: A criminal who lives by his wits rather than violence. Grifters (Carny): The crooked game operators, short change artists, and clothesline robbers, shoplifters ("merchandise boosters"), pickpockets and all other types of criminals associated with some carnivals. Grind (Carny): In the "outside talkers" spiel from a show front, the compelling and rhythmic verbal conclusion meant to move the patrons into the show. It differs from the opening bally, which is meant to get the attention of midway strollers and "build a tip", or sell them on the show they can see. Also means to stay in the joint and work even though there's almost no business. Grind Show (Carny): A show or attraction the customer can walk through and see at any time without being guided through. It has no bally, no beginning or end time; the front men and ticket sellers just "grind away" all day. Most of the shows on carnival midways today are grind shows, the grind blaring over the midway from an audiotape loop and sound system. Grind Store (Carny): Usually a small game that needs a lot of action to make a profit, generally one that operates on pennies, nickels, or dimes. Grinder, Grind Man (Carny): Before the days of endless tapes luring people into grind shows, the "grind man," usually the ticket seller, would give a rhythmic and continuous spiel. Considered a less-skilled job than "outside talker," since the grind man's chant was much less complex than a full bally. Grocery Wheel, Ham & Bacon Wheel (Carny): A "wheel of fortune" joint in which lucky winners won grocery items. A relic of older days, still popular at charity events outside the working carnival setting. Ground Score (Carny): Money or other goodies found while "reading the midway." 26

GTFM (Carny): You've found the carny's reason for being: "Get The Fuckin' Money". G-Top (Carny): The "G" is for "gambling." An "after-hours club" open only to carnies. A combined convenience store, bar, snack stand and casino. The gambling might be just a friendly (but wary) game of poker, or it might be organized and more elaborate. When the lights go out on the wheel, signaling that the lot is closed for the night, the G-top starts filling up. One former carny said, "You haven't played games unless you've played with people who do it all day for a living! I've seen people lose a whole week's pay in 10 minutes (Carny): cars they worked a year for, the money they were going to eat on tomorrow. That's how you learn the "tricks of the trade", in the G-Top." Gun moll. A thief-girl, especially a female pickpocket. Has nothing to do with guns, but comes from the Yiddish word gonif-a thief. Gun. A thief or con man. From the Yiddish word gonif-a thief. Gunner (Carny): A confederate who helps run a Six Cat. Guyman: A con artist who engages in the Nigerian Letter Scam. G-Wheel (Carny): A rigged wheel of fortune (Carny): 'g' stands for 'gaff'. Half-and-Half (Carny): A hermaphrodite, a very valuable blowoff attraction often forbidden by local authorities. Some were real freaks, others were "made" by (at the least) shaving and making up one side of the body, or by the use of hormones to grow breasts so a performer born male could also display his upper "female" half. "Now folks, behind this curtain you are going to see the most bizarre attraction you have ever seen (Carny): and I'm going to introduce her to you all right now. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Albert-Alberta. This beautiful lady is our star attraction, but she is so unusual we are banned from advertising her on the outside. And since she is not advertised on the outside, she is not included in your general admission ticket, there is an extra charge for what you are about to see. We make no apology for this policy, because when Albert-Alberta goes behind this curtain, and you go with her, you are going to view her entire body, and you will plainly see that she is, in fact, a hermaphrodite. You've heard your neighbors talking about the half man/half woman, but Albert-Alberta is not half man/half woman she is all man and all woman. You will see her body in its entirety, as bare as my right hand that you see before you right here. Now you must be between 18 and 80 years old to enter, because if you're under 18 you wouldn't understand it, and if you're over 80 you couldn't stand it. When you enter I want you to go right up to the edge of the stage. Get as close as you can so that you can see Albert-Alberta's body in every detail as she displays herself to you, unadorned, unashamed, unlike anything you have ever seen before. The fee for this attraction is 25 cents, it's time to go in right now. And those of you who are under 18 years of age, please step down to the other end of the tent where you will be entertained by our magician on the main stage." Handle (Carny): How a game is rigged. Also used in the "CB radio" sense to mean the nickname you go by. Handler: The leader of a group of con artists. Same as stick handler (see below)-he directs the betting of the shills. Hankie Switch: Switching a victim's money for worthless paper, often in a hankie. 27

Hanky-Pank (Carny): A game where every player wins a prize every time. The charge per play more than equals the cost of the prize, so an agent can lose all day and still make a profit. A 5 prize dispensed for every 50 play adds up to big profits! A mark who wins once can win a tiny plush, and then have an incentive to play more and trade in his small prizes for one larger prize. Hard Cash (Carny): Refers to all change, nickels, dimes, quarters, fifty-cent pieces, even the occasional silver dollar (more common in the past than now) or loonie (Canadian dollar coin.) Hawker (Carny): A strolling refreshment or souvenir merchant, peddler of lemonade, candy, pretzels and other edibles (more often called a "butcher") Headless Illusion (Carny): Illusion show where a living 'headless' person is displayed. Its a simple illusion done with mirrors, using the same principle (but achieving exactly the opposite effect) as the "Spidora" illusion. Usually pitched as a 'medical miracle' following a tragic accident. Heat (Carny): Problems, arguments or battles between the show, or its people, and townspeople. Most heat was caused by the show conducting illegal activities, but sometimes an outfit "burning the lot" ahead of your perfectly fair "Sunday School" operation could leave a lot of heat for you. Heat Merchant (Carny): A carny whose personality and actions arouse so many complaints from the patrons that local authorities harass the entire carnival. Heat Score (Carny): A sum of money extracted from a mark at the cost of some heat ("Looks like I pushed this guy too far.") Heavy Racket. Criminal activity involving violence or threat of violence. Heel Grifter. Cheap, small-time grifter. Implication is that he is poor and travels on foot. Hell Drivers (Carny): Fairground automobile thrill show involving extreme stunts like jumps, crashes through flaming walls, and more. Some shows featured motorcycle riders speeding around and up the vertical walls of water-tank-like structures, held up by centrifugal force. Hep or Hip: "With it"--wise to what is happening. According to David Maurer in The American Confidence Man, it came from a misunderstanding of the original usage, which came from the name of an 1890's Chicago saloon owner, Joe Hep. His place was a grifter hangout, but he didn't know it. Evidently, he thought all his customers were just businessmen and salesmen. The story goes that when a musician or other stranger was brought over to a con man table, the question "Who's your friend?" was answered, "Oh, he's Joe Hep." This meant the guy didn't have a clue and it was all right to talk around him using grifter's slang. The "friend" usually misunderstood, and taking it as a compliment, thought that "Hep" meant "with it" or "cool," and that is how the term gravitated into the musician's lingo. Herald (Carny): Advertisement printed in immense quantities on newsprint (usually 9"x20"), intended to be handed to individuals or left on car windshields, left at the front doors of houses, etc. Hey Rube! (Carny): In the 'old days,' a call for help when a carny encountered more trouble with outsiders than he can handle alone. These days, 'hey rube' still works, but it's more likely to be "It's a clem!" or "wrang!" or simply "fight!" High Grass (Carny): Slang for a particularly out-of-the-way rural area. 28

High Pitch (Carny): A sales pitch (generally for medicine) delivered from a raised platform. High Striker (Carny): Classic carnival game: A bell atop a high (sometimes 30-foot) support lined with lights and graded from "wimp" at the bottom to "heman" near the top. Use a heavy maul to strike the lever at the bottom, and see if you are strong enough to send the "follower" up the wire to ring the bell. Often the operator could, by leaning against a guy wire, slacken the wire leading to the bell, preventing the follower from traveling all the way to the top. Hold Out, "H.O." (Carny): To steal from the boss by "forgetting" to give him part of the cash. It's often assumed that you'd better do it to him, because he's certainly going to do it to you. Hole (Carny): A place on the lot to put your joint, particularly (but not exclusively) if you have a center joint and need an open area. You would go to the lot man and say "I have a 20x20 center joint, do you have a hole?" Also used to mean a non-competing vacancy for your type of concession (there might not be a hole for you if there were enough of your type of concessions already on the lot.) If you are an agent looking for a job you show up on the lot and say "I'm looking for a hole." How many holes a joint occupies is based on its frontage. A 16' joint usually takes four 'holes'. Hook: An apparent advantage for the victim to encourage them to take part in the scam. Hoop-La (Carny): A game in which prizes are displayed atop wooden blocks, and won by throwing a wooden hoop entirely over the block so that the hoop rests on the tabletop. The blocks are shaped to be larger than they appear, making a winning throw difficult or even impossible. Hot Snake (Carny): A term (also used in zoos) for a poisonous snake. Huckleberry. (From 1800's US--The West) 1. small amount. 2. "one's huckleberry," the very person for the job. 3. bad or disparaging treatment: "the huckleberry" is similar to "the raspberry." 4. a foolish, inept or inconsequential fellow. There is a related phrase (also from the south often quoted in regards to courage as "a huckleberry over the persimmon") Also "above one's huckleberry" is to be just beyond one's abilities. Htchenspieler: The German for The Shell Game Human Pincushion (Carny): An act in which the performer sticks sharp objects into his flesh. Also known as "Fakirs," from the Indian term. The secret to this act (like the secret to many sideshow acts) is that there is no secret. Puncturing one's flesh is painful, but less so than the audience thinks; you can learn to tolerate the pain. Human Skeleton (Carny): Human oddity who is extremely emaciated from a disease or muscular disorder. Human Torso or Half-Man (Carny): Human oddity born without legs, or without arms or legs. Hungarian Monte: A version of three-card monte using three metal disks, one of which has a red dot painted on it. Dates back to before communist takeover of Hungary. Hustler: Any kind of gambling cheat.

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Hype. (1) In three-card monte, a false throw in which the unexpected of two cards held in one hand is placed or dropped to the table. Also, overthrow. (2) A highly skilled short-change racket. Also, the flop, laying the note, the sting. Ice: A bribe or payment. e.g. police, city officials Ikey Heyman Axle (Carny): A gaff for a wheel of fortune; a secret friction brake on the axle stops the wheel wherever the agent wants. Illusion Show (Carny): A show consisting solely of illusions, like Headless Girl, Spidora, Mermaid, Snake Girl, etc. The attraction appears to be something remarkable, but is actually a magic illusion. Independent Midway (Carny): On some engagements a single carnival owner, who has booked and approved rides, games, shows and food concessions to travel with the carnival for the season, may not contractually control the entire lot (fence to fence). Then the sponsors can rent spaces to others: booths for the Girl Scouts to sell cookies, hot dog stands run by the Lions, as well as rides, games and shows who play only independent stands. These independent operators may be as honest as the Girl Scouts or they may, unbeknownst to the sponsor, be crooked. Either way, they operate entirely free from the supervision of the major carnival (which has a reputation to protect). The independent area is usually fenced off from the carnival and may not even charge admission, but the public doesn't know about the business arrangement; they just know that a game on that lot cheated them, and they blame the big show. Additionally, independent operators draw business away from the big show and its concessions and attractions. Inside Man (Carny): The agent operating a game that depends on an "outside man" to build up business. Inside Man: The con man who actually operates the swindle. Jackpots (Carny): Troupers tall tales (regular folks might say "war stories") of their former exploits. "Cutting up jackpots" is the expression given to swapping these stories. Jake (Carny): One of the stock medicine show characters: a comic blackface character. Jam (Carny): A small-time confidence game, or high-pressure selling by pitchmen. Jam Auction (Carny): A scam in which giveaways of slum merchandise are used to excite and confuse the audience into purchasing inferior goods at inflated prices. The technique involves giving away small but useful slum items to everyone at the beginning, under the pretense that the auctioneer is distributing valuable items as an advertising promotion by the manufacturer. The agent exacts a token payment, just pennies, and promises that much more will be forthcoming. Then the agent alternates giveaways of slightly more valuable items with sales of them for almost nothing, confusing the marks as to whether, at any given time, they are putting up money "as a good faith gesture" that they will get back, or whether they are tendering payment. When the audience is thoroughly confused the agents add the final wrinkle: the sale of almost worthless (but apparently valuable) merchandise for what seem like "bargain" prices. (A much more detailed description is contained in my ON THE MIDWAY e-book) Jamaican Switch: Switching a victim's money for worthless paper, often in a hankie. 30

Jenny (Carny): A merry-go-round. Jig Show (Carny): Black girl show, from "jigaboo", a very uncouth epithet for black people. John Robinson (Carny): To give an abbreviated performance, or to set all the tops on the back end end-to-end to increase the midway's apparent size. Joing (Carny): To "jo" a game is to rig it so that it cannot be won. Joint (Carny): Any carnival midway concession. Described by their layout for placement purposes; line-up joints fit with others in a row, center joints attract customers to all four sides and need to be in the middle of an open area. You could have a stick joint (built of wood and situated on the ground) or a trailer joint. Joint: The venue for a scam. e.g. the tent that a carnival game is played in. Jointee or Jointy (Carny): An agent, a person working a game. There is a fairly firm social division between jointees and showmen. Juice (Carny): Another term for bribes paid to local police. Juice Man (Carny): The carnival electrician and operator of generators that can fill an entire 18-wheeler. Collects fees from each operator for "cut in" to the power supply. Jump (Carny): The move to the next engagement. Junction Box (Carny): Wooden boxes protecting connections between electrical cables, set at various points around the midway. The show electrician uses the wires and plugs inside these boxes to "cut in" each ride or concession, supplying power from the generator. Kayfabe (Carny): A wrestling term, occasionally heard on the carnival lot. Inside information about the business, not to be disclosed to the public (Carny): "the straight dope." Sometimes used as a signal to stop talking too frankly because outsiders, or the authorities, might overhear: "Kayfabe, guys! Have you met my good friend Officer Jones?" To let something slip out because you just won't shut your mouth is to "break kayfabe." To "kayfabe someone" is to withhold information from them. KB (Carny): When an operator has to give a disgruntled and complaining customer his money back. Keister (Carny): A portable display case for the pitchman's wares, or a circus wardrobe trunk, or any luggage. You set up you keister on top of your (tripes/tripe): a small tabletop supported by 3 wooden legs configured as a collapsible tripod. Later, and in modern day recreations, a light collapsible waiters' table serves the purpose. Also used to refer to a circus wardrobe trunk, or any luggage. Key Girl (Carny): A swindle in which an agent sells keys to the room of a woman working in the carnival to players who believe she will dispense sexual favors. The foolish victims might find anything from an empty room (the carnival having moved out while the victim went for his "reward). In a variation more commonly known as a "badger game", the girls angry "boyfriend" shakes the victim down for more money under threat of violence or exposure. Key to the Midway (Carny): One of many pranks to play on "green help". In this case, a non-existent thing that you might send your victim off to locate for you. "Hey, kid, you seem like a smart fellow, so go down to the other end of the lot, find Big Sam, and get the key to the midway for me." Or "lightbulb grease" or 31

a "left-handed monkey wrench" or a "board stretcher," maybe some "red lightbulb paint." Maybe send them somewhere to see if they have a "Long Weight." You might send them looking for the donniker foreman, or send them to a specific carny just to bug that guy, too. Kick (Carny): The pocket (or wherever) a carny keeps his personal money. Kid Show (Carny): Circus term for a sideshow. Knife Rack (Carny): A game in which knives are won by throwing a hoop over the knife and the (deceptively shaped) block the knife is sticking vertically in. Game is also played with watches as prizes, or by mounting the prizes on soup cans. Knock: For an outsider to convince a victim that he is being swindled. Kootch Show (Carny): The raunchy version of the "girl show" no revue, no "posing," and definitely no clothes, just a close-up view of what men want to see. According to stripper Ann Groff, quoted in Lewis' Carnival, "Only a few peddle their asses. A girl has to be pretty hungry or pretty drunk to lay a mark it just isn't done." Kunstkammer (Carny): German for "Art Chamber" (see Wunderkammer), a "Chamber of Wonders". Larry (Carny): Describes something broken or damaged, be it merchandise or anything worn out, or even a person who's a loser (however affable) - "He's just a larry." Lay Bear (Carny): "Well hey, little darlin', you wanna win one of these big bears? Come on, you get five balls to knock these milk bottles off the shelf, you can do it wait a minute, you know, we're closing now, but there's one of these bears I got put away special for you in my trailer, would you like to see it? You would? Just come with me how old did you say you was? Fifteen I mean, you said 18, right? You're just gonna love this bear is that your sister? She can come too, I might just have two bears" Laying Dead (Carny): When you have no booking for your joint, ride or show at some point during the season. Laying it Down (Carny): When the agent describes how the game is played. Layout Man (Carny): See "Lot Man." Layout Pin (Carny): Stake used by the lot manager (sometimes called the "layout man") to mark where your joint is supposed to go on the lot. You may desperately want to move one of these while the lot manager's not looking but if you do, the lot manager's going to take that stake and whack you upside your head without any doubt. Leak: To fail to hide a cheating move, as when a palmed card is spotted. Can also refer to a weakness in a person's play of a game, like poker. Lebanese Loop: The piece of equipment inserted into ATMS to steal cards. Lecture Store (Carny): A storefront rented temporarily by a pitchman. Lecturer (Carny): An individual who talks inside the show, lecturing on the various acts. Often, acts (especially human oddities) lecture on themselves. Left Hand Side (Carny): In relation to the entrance or main ticket booth, the left side is considered a poorer location for concessions than the right side. Most people tend to enter and turn to their right, and many have spent all their money when they come around to the left hand side. Newcomers to the amusement 32

business and people who don't make the lot man happy end up on the left hand side. Light Plant (Carny): The "genny," the huge 18-wheel-trailer containing massive diesel-powered generators supplying electricity to the lot. Notorious for being an added expense ("ding") charged to carnies along with their rent, even more notorious for being shut down immediately when the lot closes for the night, leaving tired carnies to trudge back to their trailers in the dark. Lineup (Carny): The row of concessions side-by-side along the side of the midway. Line-up Joint (Carny): A joint in a row of joints, as opposed to a "center joint" in the central axis of the carnival, or "four-way joint" that stands alone and can attract business on all four sides. Lobster Man (Carny): Human oddity with any of what are now called "limb reduction disorders," a birth defect giving their arms and/or legs the appearance of a lobster's claws. Loc (or 'loke') (Carny): Your location on the lot. A loc near the major rides or on the right-hand side is usually pretty good, but a loc near the kiddie rides is a less favorable position. Long Con: A scam that takes a longer time to commit and targets one person for extended periods. Lookie-Lou (Carny): More a regionalism than strictly a carny term. Same as "lot lice," they'll walk around and see what they can see, but they won't part with a dime. Lop-eared: Stupid. Usually a mark who is too stupid to see his advantage in a con game. So stupid he can not be trimmed. Lot (Carny): The show grounds. Lot Call (Carny): Lot Call is the time you are expected to show up on the lot each morning (usually after working until midnight). Ride operators use this time clean and maintain the rides and to meet with local ride inspectors, concessionaires bring in supplies, and everyone else has their duties to perform. Lot Lice (Carny): Locals who arrive early to gawk and stay late to browse and don't spend anything. Lot Lizard (Carny): A prostitute who works truck stops or rest-area parking lots. Not terribly important on the show grounds, but fairly familiar between stands. Lot Man, or Lot Manager, Lot Marker or Layout Man (Carny): The guy you need to be very nice to, and pay (sometimes as much as 10% of your gross) because he decides where your joint is placed on the lot. Can make thousands of dollars in one large engagement like a State Fair. Pay him well and stay on his good side and you get a good location; cross him and you won't make a dime. Low Pitch (Carny): A sales pitch delivered from ground level, or from not much more than an apple box to stand on. Lugen (Carny): An unbelievably dumb, easy mark. Lustig, Victor: A con artist famous for selling the Eiffel tower and fake money making machines. Maghas: Nigerian internet scammer slang for sucker. It is from a Yoruba word meaning fool, and refers to gullible white people. Nigerian Letters 33

Major Ride (Carny): A spectacular ride for adults, often owned by the carnival. Maltooler: A bus or train pickpocket. Mark: 1. (Carny) A townsperson you focus on as a victim. When a carny spotted a towny with a big bankroll, he would give him a friendly slap on the back leaving a chalk mark so other carnies would know that this customer had lots of money. Often the ticket seller would mark the 'mark.' The booth would have a high counter, above the average person's eyesight, and the ticket seller would short-change the customer, leaving the change on the counter. If the customer didn't notice or didn't count his change, the ticket seller would lean over to give him some "friendly" advice about the best attractions, putting his hand on the customer's shoulder to point him toward the show he simply must see, simultaneously dusting his back with chalk from a hidden supply. If the customer instead complained about the wrong change, the ticket seller could always push the remaining change to him and say "I told you to take it." And what do you do when you spot a mark? You "play" him - that's right, just like you play a fish. But a carny truism is, "Always leave the mark a dollar for gas." With gas money he can go home (you don't want him stuck there growing angrier with you every minute). 2. A sucker or intended victim. From the chalk mark carnival grifters placed on the back shoulder of a potential "easy victim." Not just an easy victim, a mark would also be put on someone known to be carrying a lot of cash. Also: vic, Bates, John Bates, Mr. Bates, Winchell, chump. Marker Stake (Carny): The lot man places marker stakes to define your joint's space on the lot. Get caught moving one and you might get hit with one. Martingale System: A gambling system where a gambler doubles his bet every time he loses. It doesn't work. Mechanic: An expert card cheat - particularly skilled at sleight of hand. Mender (Carny): A patch or lawyer who travels with the carnival. Mentalist (Carny): Magician, often working with an assistant, whose act consists of 'reading the minds' of the patrons. Merchandise Wheel (Carny): A "wheel of fortune" that distributes as prizes blankets, dolls, novelties, groceries or any kind of merchandise. A classic "hanky pank" in which the prize (won on every play) always costs far less than the fee for a single play. That means the wheels are making a profit and everyone is satisfied. Many carnies and townies alike preferred this arrangement, because both the "games of skill" and games certified to have an element of chance both often ended in disappointment, but merchandise games always sent you home with something and drew large crowds. Merry-Go-Round (Carny): Carousel (q.v.) Michigan Bankroll (Carny): A bankroll with a few genuine dollar bills on the outside, and just paper on the inside. Or a bankroll with a high note outside and $1 bills inside. Midway (Carny): There's no "midway" on a carnival, but the term is still used to refer to the entire public area of the lot. When games and sideshows were attached to a circus, the midway was the game and sideshow area between the main ticket booth and the entrance to the big top, literally "midway" between the two. You would often hear sideshow ballys claiming that "the big show [circus] 34

doesn't start for 45 minutes, there's plenty of time to see this entire exhibit." A carnival is really just a midway without an accompanying circus. Military Payday (Carny): Oh, lordy, everybody's gonna get well today! Payday at a big military base: just think of all those lonely men with all that money in their pockets! "Step right up, boys, the first ball's free and the girl show's right over there! You look like a healthy young man, private these girls can do things they just don't do back in Missouri! So you think you're a good shot, soldier? Try to shoot the red star entirely off this little card!" Mirror Maze (Carny): a walk-through attraction consisting of angled mirrors alternating with clear glass panels and open spaces, confusing fun to try to find your way through. Missing Link (Carny): A person, ape-like in appearance (either faked or real), supposedly the legendary "missing evolutionary link" between prehistoric and modern man. Mitt Camp (Carny): A fortune telling booth (from "mitt," slang for "hand," read by a palmist.) Being alone with a fortune-teller makes a number of scams possible, from "Your money is cursed, wrap it in this cloth so I can bless it" (you'll never see it again) to "My daughter say he touch her breast, she just 14." Mitt: A hand, either a human hand or hand of cards. Same as duke. Mitting In: Getting a mark to involved by getting him to play for a shill, or a shill makes a bet for him. Same as duking in. Mob: A group of con artists or criminals (Victorian England) Mobsman: A pickpocket or con artist Money Card. The winning card in a monte game. Money Laundering: Running the proceeds of crime through a legitimate business to hide it's source. Money Store (Carny): A game that pays off with cash instead of prizes. Monkey Girl or Boy (Carny): Human oddity afflicted with hirsutism. Such individuals might also be called Wolf Boys, Dog Boys, etc. The amount of excess hair might be as little as a moderate beard on a woman, or a coat of hair as thick all over the body as it is on the normal person's scalp. Monkey Paw: A device for removing money from slot/poker machines. Monte Store: A fake store, back room, or saloon that fronts for a three-card monte game. See closed monte, dollar store. Monte Tickets: The cards used to play three-card monte. In nineteenth century these were manufactured specifically for the purpose and usually featured an old woman, a man, and a boy with a hoop. Monte: Usually three-card monte. Sometimes referring to the Mexican card game, Monte which was very popular in Mexico and the South-West in the first half of the nineteenth century. Mooch (Carny): An especially easy mark. Mosqueta: The Shell Game in some Spanish speaking countries. Moss-Haired Girl (Carny): A "made" human oddity from the 19th century, also known as a "Circassian girl" (the Circassians are a Caucasian people living in the Caucasus but not speaking an Indo-European language). A white woman would stiffen and bush her hair in an 'Afro' hairdo. The bally involved kidnapping by 'Arabs' and being forced into harem life, followed by a harrowing escape culminating in refuge there in the show. 35

Motordrome (Carny): Generally billed as "The Wall of Death" or "Thrill Arena", this is a daredevil show in which motorcycles race around inside a cylindrical enclosure, driving up the side of the cylinder's vertical wall by means of centrifugal force and good traction. The performance progresses from simply driving around the wall, then adds stunts like having a second rider standing unsupported behind the driver. Early versions used small racing cars, and variations have included spherical cages used as tracks, driving with a lion in a sidecar, or having monkeys drive. Mug Board (Carny): The painted board with a head-high hole that you stick your face through to get your picture taken at a mug joint, making you look like you're in a funny setting. Mug Joint (Carny): Photographer offering quick-developed portraits, in the old days usually 1.5"x2" or 2.5"x3.5". Carried a selection of "mug boards" (see above) and novelty mounts (like funny postcards to insert the small picture into). Automatic cameras with a developing mechanism inside were offered to showmen in "Amusement Business" Mug: Face as in "mug shot." Also, a nobody-a "face in the crowd." Mugger (Carny): Operator of a "mug joint". Mugu: A victim of the Nigerian Letter Scam. (Also- Maga, mahi, magha, mahee, mayi, mayee) Museum Show (Carny): A show in which the exhibits are not alive. The show might contain preserved, stuffed, or mummified freak animals, or other exotic items of interest, such as the weapons or cars used by famous murderers. Also called a still show. A very easy grind show to work, it could still be truthfully billed with the claim "$1,000 reward if not absolutely real (Carny): please do not touch or feed the animals on exhibit". Alternatively, a talker could promise "the world's most bizarre freaks past and present" and actually deliver photographs or mannequins of the freaks. Nail Store (Carny): The object of this game is to drive a nail all the way up to its head into a thick board with a single stroke of the hammer. It appeals to "he-men" and "do-it-yourself experts," but it can easily be gaffed the agent has regular nails in one pocket of his apron to demonstrate, and in the other pocket he has nails weakened so that they will bend instead of driving true. But it requires good "people skills," because you don't want an angry mark with a claw hammer in his hand at your store, either. Nanty (Carny): Nothing. (Compare the British circus use.) Nautch Show (Carny): A girl show, usually one with particularly raunchy acts. From "nautch," the word for a professional dancing girl in India. Nelson (Carny): A nelson (or "full nelson") is a full day's work on the lot, to be paid in cash at the end. Watch out for a "red light job" when you go to collect your pay! (I have not been told whether there is a "half nelson," a half-day's work also known as a "quickie.") Both versions derive from the name of a wrestling hold. New (Carny): Carnies are hard workers whose job is often hazardous. They value experienced and trustworthy co-workers. "New" is an accusation of inexperience or poor judgment in instances where a carnival worker should know better, with the insulter asking "What are you, new?" 36

Nigerian Letter: An internet scam based loosely on the Spanish Prisoner con. Its popularity among young internet con artists in Nigeria gave the scam its name. See also: "maghas" above. Notch Joint (Carny): (probably from 'nautch') After hours, an empty wagon or joint may be a temporary place of business where local prostitutes with extra energy service carnies with extra cash. Novelty Act (Carny): Wrestling term, a "freakish" performer hired to appear in wrestling events as a special attraction. Might be a giant wrestler, midget, "hillbilly," hairy beast, grotesque or deformed person, or a trained animal (such as "Man vs. Chimpanzee" matches). Nudist Colony (Carny): A sideshow attraction that enjoyed considerable popularity over the years. The prospect of seeing naked flesh was a strong lure, but the show on the inside featured girls in skin-colored tights. Nut (Carny): The "overhead," or operating expenses of a show or a joint (still used in the movie theater business as "the house nut"). Supposedly from the idea of creditors removing the nuts from wagon wheels and not returning them until paid. A show always seeks to 'make the nut' and begin making a profit above expenses. A show that hadn't yet 'made the nut' was said to be 'on the nut' and one that had was said to be 'off the nut'. It was good if you could count on your show to always 'carry the nut.' Also "burr". Nut Mob (Carny): Three-shell (shell and pea) game, especially when operated with shills. Oakus: Wallet. Octopus (Carny): A flat store set up as a center joint: four counters, each with an agent (four man trap), called an octopus because it has eight arms (four men) to grab money with. Office (Carny): The administrative office wagon. Also used as a signal that a confidence game is in progress and you'd better not say anything to queer the operation or clue the mark to his peril. Office Joint or Office Ride (Carny): A ride or concession owned and operated by the show management, rather than by an independent. Oga: The boss of the Nigerian Letter Scam Old Army Game: A slang term for Fast and Loose, Three Card Monte and The Shell Game On the Barrelhead: A version of Fast and Loose played with a loop of string or chain. Name comes from 19th Century when it was commonly played for sailors on barrels along the wharves. Sometimes heard in a sentence, "Put your money on the barrelhead". This would mean show the money now. On the Wall: The lookout who watches for police for an open monte game is "on the wall." Open Front Show (Carny): A show arranged so that the entire front of the tent is open, prompting passersby to look in, but the attraction in the center of the is hidden from sight except from within the tent. Open Monte. Monte game played outside or in the open for all comers. The game itself draws the suckers, as opposed to having a sucker qualified and steered to the game by an outside man. Opening (Carny): See "bally" 37

Orders (Carny): Restrictions set on the operators by the carnival owner, allowing or disallowing the girl show to work hard, or games to cheat. Outcount (Carny): In an add-up game, to count faster than the mark can count up his score, letting you count inaccurately (either to send him away too confused to see that he won, or to count in his favor to induce him to stay so you can build him up.) Outdoor Amusement Business Association (Carny): The largest trade association for the carnival industry, with almost 500 member carnivals. Outside Man (Carny): A shill used to promote a game by making bets to raise the payoff. Overcall (Carny): To call marks when they are in someone else's frontage, considered unethical unless you have established eye contact with the mark. Stretching this too far too often might get you a visit from the goon squad. Owner: The con artist who found or started a scam, even if others take over. Used in the Nigerian Letter Scam P.C. (Carny): A "percentage game", a gambling game like a "Wheel of Fortune" in which the odds can be depended on to deliver most of the money to the house. In this case, there is no "gimmick" or rigged play. P.O.P. (Carny): "Pay one price," the admission plan allowing the customer to ride all he wishes and see every show for a single admission fee. Not good financially for show operators. Panorama (Carny): An popular early exhibition using a very long canvas, painted with various scenes, often depicting the exotic sights seen on the lecturer's travels to exotic lands. The canvas would be rolled from spool to spool across the stage as the sights were described. Later lecturers successfully used motion pictures taken on their travels to exactly the same effect. Paper (Carny): Posters, handbills or advertisements for a carnival. Paper Hanging: Presenting fake or bad checks. Paste (Carny): Pitchman's term for razor-strop dressing. Also, cheap prizes (possibly from "paste" imitation jewelry). Patch (Carny): Carnival employee who handles payoffs to local police and settles customer complaints arising from rigged games. Patch Money (Carny): Money used by the patch to induce police officers to turn a blind eye. Each agent working a rigged game pays some amount every night so the patch can take care of problems that money can take care of. PC Game (Carny): "Percentage" game, a game which pays off in cash, essentially a gambling game. Peek his Poke (Carny): To surreptitiously view how much money a mark has. Both to play them for as much as you can, and because you should "always leave them with gas money" so they're more likely to go away instead of staying, penniless, to raise a beef. Peeking (peek joint) (Carny): A game in which the operator looks at the number hidden under a customer-selected game piece to determine the score. This arrangement allows the agent to miscall a known score using either speed or sleight of hand. For instance, "that tickets not a 6, its a 9", or obscuring part or all of a number with a finger (Carny): for instance, changing 138 to 38 by placing a finger over the "1". 38

Penny and Dime Scam: 1. Pretending rolls of pennies are actually rolls of dimes. 2. A very small scam with a small take. Pepito Paga Dobla: The Shell Game in Chile. Spanish for "Little Peter Pays Double" Percentage (Carny): The agent or dealer takes as his earnings a set percentage of the gross. An agent always works on points only. Theme parks hire some kid at a low wage to be a game operator (Carny): if you offered a real agent a wage he would laugh at you. Pharming: Stealing a victim's personal information via spyware Phishing: In computing, phishing (also known as carding and spoofing) is a scam to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in an apparently official electronic communication, such as an email or an instant message. The term phishing arises from the use of increasingly sophisticated lures to "fish" for users' financial information and passwords. Physic Opera (Carny): A medicine show. Picket: English grifter's term for the shill that acts as a lookout for the police. Pickled Punks (Carny): A carny term, never used in front of the general public, describing deformed fetuses preserved in formaldehyde. These were prime attractions, often presented as the deformed offspring of crazed degenerate drug addicts. Real punks were sometimes seized by authorities, since possessing human remains is illegal in most jurisdictions. Fake punks, called "bouncers," are now more often exhibited, floating in jars of weak tea (the color hides the artificial look). Bouncers are also popular with showmen because they can be crafted with especially grotesque features. Pickup Guy: A "wise" outsider who hangs around the monte or shell game hoping to beat the operators at their own game. Picture Gallery (Carny): A tattooed man. Pig Iron (Carny): Rides disassembled for transport. What do you do with pig iron? You haul it, move it, bolt it, and then you block and level it. Hauling a major ride may take three 18-wheel vehicles, and setting it up may take two to three days, a hundred 18-inch sections of railroad tie, and a dozen men. Pigeon Drop: A short-con routine with many variations-often involving a found purse, a winning lottery ticket, a stake for a bet, etc. and a promise to share the proceeds with the sucker if he puts up 'earnest' money. A variation of Advance Fee Fraud. Pigpen (Carny): The area where you congregate the turned tip before admitting them to the main tent. Pinhead (Carny): Human oddity afflicted with microcephaly, the head coming to a point, a fact which was often further emphasized by leaving a top knot of hair to emphasize the head shape. Pit Show (Carny): Show in which the attraction is displayed in a pit, like an alligator, snakes, sometimes a geek. The "pit" would generally not be an actual hole in the ground, but might be an area of the tent sectioned off by a low canvas divider, or a ground-level area viewed from above by the audience filing through on a raised walkway, or a wooden box serving as a cage open only at the top. Pitch (Carny): To sell merchandise by lecturing and demonstrating, once common on carnival lots and city street corners, now almost exclusively found on 39

late-night TV infomercials (which would, in the old days, be called a "gadget pitch.") Many pitches included promises that valuable prize coupons would be found in certain boxes. Medicine pitches had a life of their own. Medicine pitchmen would travel rural areas, carrying entire crews of entertainers/salespeople, offering free entertainment and repeated opportunities to buy the sponsor's "medicine", usually a type of liniment. Pitch Cards (Carny): Cards containing photos and biographical information, sold for extra income by human oddities in a ten-in-one. The example pictured here was sold by Grace McDaniel, "The Mule-Faced Girl." She was a famous human oddity, much in demand for her genuinely freakish appearance as well as her intelligence and professionalism. From a "Fat Lady" on the Strates Show in 1941: "I know you folks in here would like to see me walking around. And while I'm walking around I have a few little souvenirs that I'll pass out to the men and the men only. Something you boys can have fun with and you'll get more laughs out of than anything you've ever seen before. You can show them to the girlfriends or the wives, it's perfectly alright. Now as I said before I pass them out to the men and the men only for 10 each. If you'd like to have one now I'm going to start on one end of the show and pass them around here just one time." Plant or Power Plant (Carny): Generator. Plant Show (Carny): A minstrel show or "plantation show". Plaster (Carny): Cheap prizes made of plaster that appears more valuable than they are, currently used today to denote any cheap prize (although "slum" is a more common term). In collector's circles, "chalkware." Platform (Carny): The raised stage where acts perform. It can refer to platforms inside the show or the bally platform on the front of the show. Playing a Mark (Carny): Stringing along a player at your joint to get the most you can get of his money. Playing the Bank: Playing the game of Faro. Plush (Carny): Stuffed animals or other stuffed figures used as prizes (the term is in common use today in many industries). Points (Carny): Similar to usage in real-estate: an extra fee, figured as a percentage of the gross, paid (in addition to footage charges and the various dings) to the owner, who usually splits it with the concession manager. Poke (Carny): A carny's or mark's "stash" of money. It might be big, after a really good stand, or empty after a poor week or large expenses. In medieval times, a 'poke' was a pouch or bag (hence the expression 'buying a pig in a poke'). Ponzi Scheme: Paying off old investors in a scheme with money from new investors. Popeye (Carny): A "working freak" who could literally pop his eyeballs out of their sockets. Popper (Carny): Popcorn wagon, usually also selling floss and candy apples, sometimes drinks. Posing Show (Carny): A girl show (ostensibly "artistic" and "educational" to get around objections on the grounds of nudity) in which female 'models' pose nude in imitation of famous works of art. The 1939 New York World's Fair had a posing show called "Jack Sheridan's Living Magazine Covers," in which barebreasted models posed in depictions of magazine illustrations. (See inside this show and others on video here). Fredric Brown, in his novel The Dead Ringer, had 40

something revealing to say: "if youre a carny you stay out of the posing show. The models dont mind posing in practically nothing at all for the marks, the suckers. They dont count; theyre outsiders; you might almost say they arent human beings. Its strictly impersonal. But it would be indecent for someone who knows them to go in and watch. Itd be as much Peeping Tom stuff as looking in trailer windows or over hotel-room transoms." Possum Belly (Carny): Storage box built into the underside of a work wagon to carry cable, stakes, rigging, etc. At times a place for a quick nap by a worker, and at times the temporary home of an unauthorized "traveling girlfriend" (a "possum belly queen"). Why do these girls leave the crowd of locals in their hometowns? For the most part, the key word is "leave." A few nights of sex with a carny (who's probably no worse than the local high-school dropouts who've been trying to get her) might just be her ticket out of wherever she grew up. Poster Joint (Carny): Any game in which the prize is a flashy (but really quite inexpensive) poster. Prat Boy (Carny): (British) Crude term for a paid hand who does odd jobs for the joints like cleaning and cutting vegetables, getting stock from the trailer, cleaning up, etc. "Prat" in British usage meant "rump" (as in "pratfall", a comic fall on the butt). Runaways or kids yet too young to work a joint or make a pitch usually took the role. Different (but not much) from "green help," they may not be new workers but they are not skilled workers, and are not likely to become skilled workers. Pricking the Garter. Elizabethan English term for "fast and loose" played with a belt. See The Strap. Privilege (Carny): Rent paid to operate any joint, ride, show or concession. Professor (Carny): Title often assumed by any showman who wished to appear to be an "expert" who might demonstrate in the name of education exhibits or acts that might be open to objections under the simple guise of entertainment. Proposition (Carny): The business deal offered to an independent to book with a certain carnival. If there's no "hole" (q.v.) for your type of joint, you might not get a proposition at all; if the owner needs something good on the "back end" to attract customers past all the joints, and you've got something like a girl show that he needs, the proposition might be very favorable. Propositional Bet: Another name for a Bar Bet. Punch and Judy (Carny): A traditional children's puppet show, unchanged in form and content for centuries, more familiar in its original form in Britain. The standard plot pits the shrill, violent Punch against his shrewish wife Judy, with an array of beatings and murder that would be wholly unacceptable to many modern adult sensibilities. In America the term might refer to any puppet show, in ignorance of its origin. The show often appeared in old-time sideshows as entertainment for the children while their parents viewed stronger attractions. The "swazzle," the in-mouth whistle used to create the Punch puppet's voice, was sometimes sold as a pitch item. My e-book "ON THE MIDWAY" has an extensive list of punchman's lingo and history. Punk (Carny): A child. Also a stuffed animal on a 'knock 'em over' game. See also "Pickled Punk". 41

Punk Day (Carny): The promotion offering one day when children are admitted to the fair free. Punk Joint (Carny): A game that appeals mostly to kids (usually a hanky pank). Punk Ride (Carny): Kiddie ride. Punk Robber (Carny): An agent who runs a joint with a rigged kiddie game (like 'duck pond' in its gaffed form), or a flat joint aimed at children. Put on the Send: Sending a mark off to get more money from his home, bank, or ATM. Put the Mark Up: For a roper, or a roper's agent working on commission, to locate a good prospective mark. "Mason Long put the mark up for Canada Bill and Dutch Charley." Put-n-Take (Carny): A rigged game played for money (escalating costs and money prizes are always signs you'll be taken, and badly). Played with a small top which has the letters P and T on its several flat sides. Players spin the top and if it shows a P when it stops, the player has to put more money into the pot of cash if the letter is a T, the player takes the pot. The top is rigged mechanically to spin honestly or to land on the letter of the agent's choice. Putting In The Fix: Stopping a victim calling the police. e.g. making the victim feel guilty. Pyramid Scheme: A sales scheme where old victims must find new victims to join in order to make money. Queer: 1. Fake or counterfeit. 2. To expose or ruin. "That cop just queered our pitch" 3. Counterfeit money. Question Mark Show (Carny): The banner may merely say "?" or "What Is It?" It's a show you can frame for almost nothing, displaying some badly-lit messed-up bouncer (q.v.) with absolutely nothing in the way of explanation, or any strange and ultimately unidentifiable thing. Ray Bradbury takes this idea and plays it for all it's worth in his short story "The Jar." Quickie (Carny): A half-day's work on the lot, to be paid in cash at the end. Watch out for a "red light job" when accepting such work! Racket (Carny): Any operation that depends on deception for success. Racket Show (Carny): A carnival that derives most of its revenue from fixed games. Rag or Slum (Carny): A tiny prize, usually kept out of sight under the counter, leading customers to believe that the smallest of the prizes on open display above is the smallest prize they stand to win. Rag: A stock market scam Raghead (Carny): Derogatory epithet for "gypsy." Although the carnival lot is a place where your background doesn't count against you, your ethnicity might. Ads can be found in Billboard looking for help, but specifying something like "no drinkers, woman-chasers or ragheads." Rain Tip (Carny): The type of crowd you get in the exhibit tents when it rains. They only want to get out of the rain. They don't spend a dime, and they exit in favor of rides and games as soon as the rain stops. Rangy or wrangy (rhymes with "tangy") (Carny): Worked up, usually in a vulgar sense (possibly a variant of 'randy'). A show could be rangy (a really 'strong' kootch show), or the patrons might be in a rangy mood (a very hot 42

Saturday night, or being able to afford too much beer 'cause it's payday) or a patron may be rangy or ranged up (drunken, disorderly, disruptive, spoiling for a fight.) "He's wrangin' the joint" would mean the customer is giving the jointee a very hard time. May also apply to an aggressive animal. Raree Show (Carny): 19th-century term harking back to the museum's sideshow origins. The term meant "a peepshow" or an exhibition of curiosities. Razzle or Razzle Dazzle (Carny): Usually dressed up as a "football" game in which the player must scores a specific number of "yards". Played by spilling 8 marbles from a cup onto a game board with about 120 numbered holes. The numbers are added up to a total which the jointee compares to a conversion chart to determine the number of "yards" scored. The numbers most likely to come up are worthless or only indicate that the player must add to, or even double, his cash bet. The chart is incomprehensible to the player, who must believe the flattie's constant patter claiming that a win is almost within reach with just one or two more bets. The cost per game builds up exponentially and the winning score is claimed to almost within reach for a big payoff. This game can empty a mark's pockets quickly and completely, and some marks might even get 'put on the send' (q.v.) to come back with more money. A definite swindle covered in the "Games" chapter of my book "On the Midway". Reader (Carny): A license to do business. Also, a phony driver's license (an indispensible item in a business where agents might require a sudden change of identity.) Reading the Midway (Carny): Walking down the midway with your head down, looking for lost change or other valuables. Red Light Job (Carny): You are the victim of a red light job when you undertake some work on the lot and, when you go to collect your pay, all you see are the red taillights of the employer's car receding in the distance. Red One (Carny): A profitable engagement. Opposite: "blue one" or "black one", probably from the usual colors of the winning numbers on a game layout. Rehash (Carny): To give a customer a free replay, or (very profitable but very unethical) to resell used ride tickets. Reloading: Scamming a victim for a second time. Revue (Carny): A girl show that features more entertainment than bare skin. Ride Jock, Ride Monkey, Ride Boy (Carny): Carnival employee who runs a ride. Susan Adcock, in her carnival blog "Cliffhanger," says "A good ride jock can make you scream with delight. He can also, given the right ride, empty your pockets and make you throw up on yourself and your friends. Be nice to him. He's usually a pretty good guy." Right Hand Side (Carny): The right side, after entering a midway through the main ticket booth, is the most desirable location, since most midways are designed to induce the crowd to turn to their right upon entry. By the time they get around to the left-hand side, most of their money will be gone. Rides and games for children are usually found on the right-hand side. R-Key (Carny): A cotter pin, much used in assembling rides. Roadsiding (Carny): A flat joint without a carnival, often the incredibly larcenous 'razzle' game (see above),k seeking its marks at the roadside. The flattie goes to a gas station and offers to give free games to all their customers, to promote their gas station. They have a duker stay out by the pumps to give out 43

duckets and send the marks into the game. They make the kind of money only a flat joint can make, give the manager a generous tip, and leave before the heat gets back to them. Robin Marx (Carny): Sort of a "utility name" when a carny wants to give a false name for himself or anyone else on the show. That's "robbin' marks" get it? Sort of like calling yourself "Don E. Kerr" (donniker). Roll Down (Carny): Any type of game in which the player rolls balls down an incline to land in slots or holes or cups at the bottom. Often operated as a "count store" (q.v.) Roper: Outside man. The con man who locates a mark and gains his confidence, and then brings him to the inside man to be taken. Roughy (Carny): A carnival employee who may be assigned to handle any number of duties, from relieving an agent who needs a break to enforcing management rules, from hiring help to "checking up" the agents' money and dispensing percentages at the end of the day. Sort of "middle management" on the lot. Round: To cause someone to turn around so that he won't see a cheating move by a partner. Rounding Board (Carny): The carousel's "crown", a ring of about 16 panels called "rounding boards" are mounted around the top of a carousel's structure. These highly-decorated boards provide a lot of "flash" with their painted scenes, lights, mirrors, etc. The rounding boards also hide the carousel's upper mechanism from the crowd's view. Rube (Carny): A scornful term for the outsider to show business; also "Elmer," "towner," "townie," "sucker," "yokel," "hayseed" or "chump". From the name "Reuben"; the term is in wide usage today. Modern carny usage includes "Clem". Viz. the old adage "never give a sucker an even break or wisen up a chump." Rube Act. A script for short-con games in which the inside man plays the part of a nave country bumpkin, of whom the sucker and the outside man conspire to take advantage. Use in three-card monte credited to Canada Bill Jones. From the ancient dodge from 15th century Spain known as "playing the peasant." Run: An illegal activity. Used in the Nigerian Letter Scam. Sawbuck or Saw. Ten-dollar bill. Score (Carny): To separate a mark from a significant amount of cash. Screw Pool (Carny): A game in which the player must shoot a pool ball, knocking over a golf tee inverted amid a triangle of three pool balls. The balls touch each other with the tee in the small space between the three balls. If the tee is placed against the back of the first ball it will fall (making it possible to demonstrate "how easy it is to win." But if the tee is placed farther back, in the true center of the three balls, you cant win the balls will absorb the energy from the cue ball and will all move away from the tee without knocking it over. The game (which may be advertised under any title) was called 'screw pool' because an inverted screw used to be the object to knock over. Set Up (Carny): What you do after a jump: take it all off the truck and turn it into a carnival. Shade: Misdirection to perform a scam 44

Shake Machine (Carny): Any ride that naturally (or by skilful operation of the clutch) tends to shake change loose from riders' pockets. These rides tend to produce plenty of vomit as well. The operator can "keep his shakes." Sharpies, Sharpers (Carny): Players who have practiced a carnival game to the point where they can easily win. Shell Game (shell-and-pea game, three-shell game) (Carny): One of the 'big three' dishonest street games sometimes played on the long-ago carnival lot (the others are 'fast and loose' and 'three-card monte'). Played, like the other two, on a small portable tabletop. Three hollow half-walnut-shells are mixed around rapidly on the tabletop, and the bettor (victim) attempts to keep track of and guess which one hides a little dried pea. But with simple sleight of hand, the grifter can easily control (both while the shells are being mixed and after the guess is made) whether the pea appears under any pea he likes. This enables a skilled operator to put on a performance that attracts swiftly-escalating bets and walk away with big money every time. Shill (Carny): Also "outside man," "stick," "capper," "front-worker" or "timber." Employee who poses as a customer, playing a game (and being secretly allowed to win) or buying a ticket, in order to motivate other customers to do likewise. If the agent needs to attract business, seeing him win "proves" to potential customers that the game can be won, and sometimes allowing the shill to win prevents a potentially costly win by a townie. Without a good shill, an entire tip may stay perfectly still after a bally, all with cash in their hands, and not one of them will go for the ticket boxes, unless some brave soul leads the way. Sometimes a shill might rush up to the ticket box, buy a ticket and move toward the show entrance, then go around and do it again. At medicine shows, shills were often the first to "buy" a bottle, breaking the public's reluctance to be the first to speak up. A good stick knew how to stand in a position that would block the progress of the passing crowd, slowing them enough to pay attention to a bally and subtly herding the tip closer. Alternatively, the shill might keep a tip from building when a flattie wished to avoid interruption while playing a particularly lucrative mark. From shillaber, of uncertain origin, which referred to disreputable folks known to associate with con men and carnival acts. From the Welsh shillaber which meant a "fellow participant in a job of work." Shiner: A reflective surface that a card cheat may use to glimpse another player's cards. Short Change (Carny): A classic con, any of several ways of confusing a mark about the honest count of the money you were exchanging. Also, many shows had the ticket box counter at eye level and gaffed with a small ridge around the edge. The ridge looks like a simple expedient for preventing loose change from rolling, but when the change was swept toward you, the ridge would catch some coins which were quickly pocketed by the ticket-seller. Shortcake: For a con man to shortchange his partners by under-reporting the take. Short-Con. Any con game that takes place in a short time, usually without a send-as opposed to the big con which could take days or weeks and usually involves a send. Show (Carny): The carnival itself. The show moves from spot to spot, but it's still the same show unless you move to a different show. 45

Show Ho' (Carny): A female who sleeps around indiscriminately with carnies. Might be a carnival employee, might be a local, but in either case this is a derogatory term. Showman (Carny): The preferred title of many proud, lifelong outdoor amusement entrepreneurs, who would be very unhappy to be called "carnies." There is a fairly firm social division between jointees and showmen. Showtime (Carny): Trade publication of the Outdoor Amusement Business Association. Side: A street-con shill whose job it is to keep a lookout for the police. Also wall man, picket. Sideshow (Carny): Any show on the circus midway (since such a show would be ancillary to the "big show" (the circus.) However, the term can refer to carnival shows other than (for instance) "girl shows", and it most commonly refers to a freak show or ten-in one. These days, "sideshow" also refers to the performance genre flowing from the old ten-in-one: from bed-of-nails and electric-chair and sword-swallowing acts to piercing and "geek" acts. Sideshow Alley (Carny): Australian synonym for 'midway'. Signal 25 (Carny): Police radio code for a fight. Replaced "Hey Rube" in some quarters. Simp Heister (Chump Heister) (Carny): Carny slang for a Ferris wheel. In widespread slang use, a "simp" is a simple or foolish person (a mark, or just a dumb townie) and "heist" in this sense is "hoist". Single-O (Carny): A show consisting of a single attraction. From the railroad slang for "single occupancy." Skill Game (Carny): Games where players with ability have a good chance to win. Skin Game: Nineteenth century term for short-con. Skin Show (Carny): A girl show featuring nudity as the main attraction. Plays very well on military paydays. Sky Grifter (Carny): A tent-revival evangelist of the more mercenary sort. Slick (Carny): To slick someone is to catch them in the act of doing something. Slide: 1. A monte lookout, whose job includes signaling when the police come, and as protectors for the dealer. 'Slide' can also be a term used by a monte lookout to warn that police are coming and the gang should disperse. Also called side, wall man. 2. Run away. If a con artist yells 'slide', his crew knows to run for it! Sliders: Look outs for the police. Slough (Carny): To tear down or leave, or get rid of something or fire somebody. Used more by jointees than by showmen. Most often pronounced to rhyme with "cow". Slugs: Fake coins. Slum (Carny): Cheap prizes, bought in bulk, by the game operator for as little as $1 per gross. Also 'hooch.' 'Slum,' 'plaster' and 'paste' were all used synonymously, though each sometimes had a more specific meaning. Oriental Trading Company, U.S. Toy, and Rhode Island Novelty are good sources. A game like the duck pond would use slum, cranes used crane stock (the small plush that fits in the bear claw and crane machines), other games used crazy ball stock 46

(about a 16" piece of plush.) Referred to by their cost: $2, $4, $6, $8, $10, $12 and $24 pieces of plush. Slum: Cheap carnival prizes. Smark (Carny): A combination of the words "smart" and "mark." Used mostly in the wrestling field, but finding its way onto the carnival lot, the term refers to people (probably) like you and me: a fan who believes he or she is "in the know" based on a certain amount of inside knowledge, but who is obviously (to those who are really "with it") a poseur who is much less informed than he thinks he is, and who is certainly not a real veteran. Smoother: English grifter's term for the shill that cools out the mark after the sting. Smurf: Someone who regularly launders money. Snake Drop (Carny): Originally by John Strong, this is a heck of a gag for a "See the Giant Snake" show: let them look at the boa for a little while, then drop a modest-size rubber snake on a string from above the pit. Scares the old crowd out while giving them double the thrill they paid for! Snipe Hunt: Sending a victim to find something that does not exist e.g. stripped paint. Snorting Pole (Carny): A pole extending from floor to tent-top in the center of a kootch show stage (q.v.) used by the strippers to pose, swing around on, and mime various acts of a sexual nature. Soap Game. A short-con game in which the grifter appears to wrap up a twenty-dollar bill with several of the cakes of soap he is selling. It is worked with a number of shills and heavy cross-fire. Invented by Old-Man Taylor, and developed into an art-form by Jeff "Soapy" Smith. Soft Lot (Carny): A wet or muddy lot. Spanish Prisoner: the original name for Advance Fee Fraud. Spectacular Ride (Carny): A super ride (Pirate Ship, Sky Wheel), usually owned by the owner of the carnival. Spidora (Carny): Illusion show giving the appearance of a giant spider with a woman's head - a mirror hides the woman's body and makes the creature appear to stand supported only by its web. Spiel (Carny): The selling phase of a bally, made on a show front by the talker to the gathering tip, convincing the onlookers that they absolutely must see this show, to be followed by the "grind" phase during which he attempts to keep up the ticket-buying momentum. Spiel the Nuts: To play the shell game under the cover of a brisk cross fire. Spieler: The front man who herds a crowd into a circus or carnival show. Also talker. Spindle (or "Chicago Set Spindle") (Carny): A classic two-way game, a spinning arrow like a "wheel of fortune" which could be operated honestly (even then your odds were not that good) or gaffed. The mechanism appears fair, but the pins ("twisted" like a drill bit, their cross-section varies at different heights/twists) are set alternately to catch or miss the pointer. If the pointer were dropped just 1/16" by the secret gaff, the operator could choose whether the pointer would stop on an odd- or even-numbered pin (good prizes or slum). Spinner: A coin which always lands on heads (or tails). 47

Sponsor (Carny): The local charitable organization that publicizes and, in the public's perception, "legitimizes" the carnival. A local sponsor is valuable. If the American Legion or Jaycees or Lions Club arranges a carnival's license and location in advance, for a percentage of the income, their prestige can often keep the police away. Moreover, their efforts to publicize the show as a fundraiser for their charity can be all the advertising the show needs. Spoof (Carny): A small trick or gaff. Spoofer (Carny): The really big plush animals displayed as a game's largest prizes. Can wholesale for $15-$20 or more. Handy to give away when a mark has been separated from a bit too much of his money without a prize. Spring: For a mark to make a wager at three-card monte. Springer: Three-card monte tosser. Also called broad-tosser, dealer, operator, store. Square (Carny): To settle a dispute without resorting either to the law or to fisticuffs. Also used by the patch to mean the process of "fixing" City Hall, including bribes and the lavish dispensing of passes to keep the police happy. Stack: To arrange playing cards into a particular order to affect the outcome of a game. e.g. every fourth card is an ace will give the con artists four of a kind in a four player game. Stake Bites (Carny): The ankle wounds inflicted by the heads of metal stakes that you trip against while crossing the lot in the dark. The worst ones are inflicted by stakes with the heads split and cracked and flattened to razorsharpness by mallets. Stand (Carny): The date, the show's run at any individual location. Steam: Same as heat. Steer: (from nineteenth century) To lead a mark to the inside man. "He used to steer against the broads for Canada Bill." Steerer: The first con artist the victim has contact with. See also "Owner" and "Outside Man" Stick Handler: Con man whose job it is to handle the activities of the shills. Stick Joint (Carny): A portable concession fashioned from rough lumber and canvas. Stick: Shill who acts the part of a bettor. Also called capper or booster. In carnival, it usually meant local shill help that was cut adrift and not paid when the show left town. Still Date (Carny): An engagement not concurrent with a fair (which would attract crowds). Still Show (Carny): Also called a "museum show," an exhibition of stuffed freak animals, sometimes even a freak show using only photographs of famous freaks. Stock (Carny): General term for prize merchandise. Stooge: A confederate of the con artist. Store (Carny): Another name for a joint, especially one that features a 'prize every time" and is essentially selling cheap prizes for expensive play. Store Show (Carny): In the off-season, especially during the depression era, a good attraction might come into a town and rent an empty storefront to squeeze out some more performance time from the year. The best location was close to a Woolworth Five-&-Dime store. The attraction would stay for a week in smaller 48

towns, six weeks to two months (or as long as business would hold up) in larger towns. String Show (Carny): A ten-in-one, possibly called a "string show" because several acts are "strung together." Others use the term to mean a show in which the audience moves through the tent (and out) along a walkway marked by rope barriers. Strom (Carny): see "Crank" Strong (Carny): Describes a successful operation ("I have a strong flat joint" or "He is a strong agent") or an aggressive quality ("Did you have to play the mark that strong?") or running a game "strong" with the gaff in use. When a girl show works strong all the clothes come off, all restrictions are gone, and the girls do the most amazing things with parts of their bodies you didnt know a woman could use for that purpose! Also 'work hot', 'work tough.' Strong-arm (Carny): To put a lot of pressure on marks to play at all or to remain to play for bigger prizes. Also, an agent skilled at earning more by such tactics. Subway Man: A card cheat who deals from the bottom of the deck instead of the top. Sucker Word: Any cheating term that is only used by non-cheats or amateurs. Sucker: Anyone who is not a member of the hustling sub-culture. Sunday-School Show (Carny): Generally, a clean show, particularly a show which can be worked strong, but is cleaned up for this venue. Also 'Boston version,' 'Sunday Schooler.' Superstitions (Carny): There are a bunch, though disagreement about them runs high. Yellow is a color often considered bad luck for an agent working a joint. Also forbidden: eating peanuts in your joint (peanuts are for animals, marks, and suckers like circus employees), or scattering peanut shells in front of your joint. Carrying pennies (pennies only attract more pennies). If you accept a $2 bill, you should tear off the bottom right corner and get rid of it as soon as you can. And don't let your fellow carnies ever hear you talking about bad weather. Sure-Thing. A term coined by Soapy Smith for a skin-game or rigged bet. Swag: Booty-ill-gotten gains. Same as in the pirate days. Swing (Carny): To steal money from your boss. T & K Operator (Carny): A traveling pitchman, referring to his "tripes and keister" (q.v., the sales display case and supporting tripod). As quoted in Arthur H. Lewis' Carnival, "A T&K man can work practically anywhere, from the back of a trailer, and sometimes out of the rumble seat of our old Hudson. That was a 'high pitch.' If he had to set the tripod on the ground, then it was called a 'low pitch.' Bob'd sell textbooks, ink eradicators, can openers, fruit juicers, medicine, rattlesnake oil, spark plugs (Carny): you name it." Tableau (Carny): A grouping of figures, the term most commonly used in wax museums and their midway counterparts, the wax shows. They were usually depictions of historical scenes, but could be literary, mythical, horrific, etc. Talker (Carny): Never "barker". The man who makes the spiel to build a tip in front of an attraction. If he talks inside the attraction, he is a "lecturer" or "inside talker". Tap out, tapioca: A term for being out of money 49

Tattooed Man (Carny): This exhibit wouldn't make a dime today, but there was a time when a person with tattoos covering their entire body was considered "bizarre". Some performers even explained their tats (and increased audience fascination) by claiming to have been tattooed head to toe against their will in strange and distant lands as captives of savages. Tear Down (Carny): To disassemble the rides, pack up the stock, and depart for the next engagement. Teaser Curtain (Carny): A short curtain positioned in the open doorway of a show, allowing patrons outside only a partial "teasing" view of the legs and feet of the customers viewing the wonders inside. Telegraph: To unwittingly signal to other players that you are about to make a cheating move through a clumsy preparatory move, or nervousness. Tell Box: A Faro dealer's crooked dealing box. Also a two-card box, or twocard shoe. The top card can be sighted, and a second card dealt. Tell: An unconscious signal or discrepancy which may be spotted by a knowledgeable observer as evidence that a cheating move has taken place. Ten-In-One (Carny): One of the two "classic" form of the midway show (the other is the "single o"). The Ten-in-One was a show featuring (approximately) ten acts or attractions, lasting a total of about 40 minutes. Similar shows had been playing circuses for decades. But in the carnival setting of the 1904 Canadian National Exhibition, ex-wrestler Walter K. Sibley took several of his existing 'single-o' attractions and packaged them together for a single admission, and the next year he expanded the show and presented it as the 'ten-in-one', where it came to wider attention as a distinct type of attraction. Features included a variable mix of acts: born freaks who would display themselves, lecture briefly and sell pitch cards or novelties, "made freaks" who would do the same, performers like magicians or sword-swallowers, and curiosities like an "electric chair act." Typically, there would be a "ding" or "blowoff" at the end for additional profit. Ten-Pointing (Carny): Covering one of the numbers on a prize slip with your thumb. Thus, if a mark darted a balloon with a winning "16" on a paper slip behind the balloon, the jointee might cover one number or the other and claim that the mark's score was a losing "1" or "6", and still be able to show inspectors that there were plenty of "16" slips on the board. Another use of this cheat is for an age-andweight guesser, with a mark probably in her mid-fifties to mid-sixties, to write "561" and cover either the 5 or the 0 when displaying the written guess, allowing him to win if she's anywhere from 54 to 63. Texas Tornado: A complicated version of closed-monte popular in Texas and the South. Also Country Boy, Texas Twist See Texas Twist Texas Twist: A complicated version of closed monte popular in Texas and the South. Also Country Boy, Texas Tornado. See: Texas Twist The Bank: Faro (See below). The Bat: The gold brick scam. The Belt: American Grifter Slang for Fast and Loose or Pricking the Garter. The Best of It: A sure thing, a cinch. A mark always thinks he can profit with some prearranged method for cheating, which offers him "the best of it." The Big Mitt: A short-con game played against a store with inside men and ropers. The victim is enticed into a poker game, and then cold-decked on his own deal. 50

The Broads: Three-card monte. The Come-On: Helpful information about, or an apparent advantage for, a street or carnival game that is offered to the sucker by the operator: "I'll mark the winning card with this paper clip." The Crow: Fake or cheap. See The Quill. The Ear: The bend put in the corner of the winning card at three-card monte as part of a play to swindle the mark. Same as the hook and the lug. The Grift: A group of criminal professions that employ skill rather than violence. The Hook: (1) The bend in the corner of the winning card in three-card monte. Also called lug and ear. (2) An apparent advantage over the operator that the sucker sees on his own or has pointed out to him by an outside man or shill. The Lug: The bent corner of the winning card in monte. Also hook or ear. The Old Army Game: This name has been applied to Three-Card Monte, The Shell Game, and The Strap. It is used as sort of a come-on, eager young recruits will of course want to be familiar with "The Old Army Game." In the same way, Monte was used as a name for the three card trick in the 19th Century, because easterners had heard of the game Spanish Monte (mountain) and when the hustler introduced the game as "Monte," the tenderfoot would want to learn "all about it." See Shell Game, The Strap, Three-Card Monte. The Quill: The genuine article. As opposed to The Crow, above. The Score: Proceeds from the con game. Also called The Joint. The Send: Stage of a swindle in which the victim is sent home or to the bank for more money. The Shiv: A short-con game played with a knife, the blades of which can be locked at will. Described in Devol's Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi in a funny story where Canada Bill Jones is mistaken by two swindlers for an easy mark. The Sting: The point in a con game where the mark's money is taken from him. The Strap: Con game using a belt-the Pricking the Garter version of Fast and Loose. See The Strap Three Card Monte (Carny): One of the 'big three' dishonest street games sometimes played on the long-ago carnival lot (the others are 'fast and loose' and the 'shell game'). Three-card monte is still seen on big-city streets. Played, like the other two, on a small portable tabletop (now more often on an upended cardboard box). The game calls for finding the one queen amid two number cards tossed in a confusing rhythmic pattern. A simple sleight allows the operator to win or lose at will (Carny): this enables a skilled operator to put on a performance that attracts swiftly-escalating bets and walk away with big money every time. The grifter might pretend to lose to a shill so the mark believes that the game can be won, or he might win from the shill lose several times when any idiot could follow the "money card", so the mark thinks he can easily spot the winning card if he bets. The shill might even mark or bend the money card (while the operator is looking away) to make the mark certain that he can spot it, but a second sleight easily switches out the marked money card and switches in a matching-marked neutral card. There is always a confederate to watch for police and act as a shill. A good team can take all of someone's money quickly. It was first known to have 51

been played in France, where it is called "bonneteau" (A "bonneteur" was a courtier who tipped his hat too much, the implication being that he was being so obsequious because had a hidden agenda.) The operator is sometimes called a "broad tosser" referring to the money card, which is almost always a queen. An entertaining line of patter and a growing tip makes the game a hypnotic attraction for the unwary. "Inky dinky finklestein, three times nine is twenty-nine You must be the luckiest man alive, pal, move your feet I want to see if you're standing on a lucky spot." There is also a gaffed "card-with-a-flap" version called "The Dutch Looper" or "English Monte", but a skilled practitioner can fool any audience by means of manual dexterity. Played to a crowd it is "open monte," and played privately to fleece a particularly wealthy mark it is "closed monte". Three Card Monte: A crooked card game played on the street. Three-Card Molly: Black grifter slang for three-card monte. Throw Stock (or Kick Stock) (Carny): To award prizes in games. The agent's profit can turn on as little a thing as a " larger or smaller star the customer has to shoot completely off a card, and the first place his profit will be reflected is in the percentage of stock he throws (percentage of cost of prizes given out to dollars taken in.) An agent may decide to loosen up his game a little and be seen to throw stock to keep his tip going, either to real customers or to shills, or he may throw stock to appear to be an un-gaffed game when the police are around. Sometimes used to mean throwing too much stock, thereby losing money. Sometimes agents refer to their job as "selling teddy bears." Throwaway (Carny): When an agent lets a member of the crowd win a large prize so the crowd can see (always accompanied by loud and excited praise), thereby stimulating business. Tiger: The game of Faro. Tip (Carny): The crowd gathered in front of an attraction to hear the outside talker's bally. They watch the free exhibition on the bally platform, and if the talker is convincing enough, he can "turn the tip", getting them to buy tickets and go in to see the show. When the entire tip has been turned by a talker's opening, it is said that he has "cleaned the midway". Tip: (From the carnival) A crowd of people. "He was a good talker, and quickly gathered a tip." To Bill (Them) In: For swindlers to induce marks to enter a swindling establishment. To Chill: For a mark to lose interest in a con game-cold feet. To Come Off: To be consummated, as in the cheating of a sucker. "The play came off just as the cops showed up." To Fall: Go to prison. Also, "to take the fall." To Turn Out: To train a grifter in some special line of work. "Old Man Taylor turned Jeff Smith out on the soap game." Torture Show (Carny): A museum show displaying implements and scenes of torture. Toss: In three-card monte, a fair throw in which the expected of two cards held in one hand is placed or dropped to the table. Tossing Broads: Another name for the game of Three Card Monte.

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Touch (Carny): The price asked (and inevitably gotten) for the major items offered toward the end of a jam auction (q.v.). A major jam pitch might move items for a $50 to $200 touch at the end. Touch: The money taken from a mark. Same as Score. Trailer (Carny): One who trails a medicine show selling refreshments. Also, a person who followed a circus or carnival but was not on the payroll, perhaps hoping to peddle goods as a concession or to wait for a job to open up. Such men were usually welcomed as a reliable source of experienced help when needed. Trailer Joint (Carny): A concession housed in a portable trailer rather than in a canvas-and-wood shack. Trile: The Shell Game in Spain Trileros: Con artists who play The Shell Game in Spain Trim: Cheat, as in to "trim a sucker." Trinidad Monte. A version of three-card monte using rubber disks, one of which has a dot underneath drawn in chalk. See also Hungarian Monte. Tripes (Carny): The folding tripod to support a "keister" (pitchman's sales display case). Trouper (Carny): A person who has spent at least one full season in the traveling amusement business. In common use in theater as well. True Believer Syndrome: The inability for victims to accept they have been scammed. Particularly prevalent in Psychics, Swamis and even Advance Fee Fraud. See also Addict. Turn the Tip (Carny): When the crowd of onlookers (the tip) watching a bally crowd up to the ticket box and start buying tickets, the talker has turned the tip. During the active ticket-buying, he stops "spieling" (the selling portion of the bally) and "grinds," keeping up the excitement with rhythmic phrases (if a talker ever actually did say "hurry, hurry, hurry!" it would be during the grind.) Twenty-Four Hour Man (Carny): An employee who plans the route to the next town and marks the way with arrows. Twist: A woman or girl connected to the underworld or involved in a racket. Two-Card Box, Two-Card Shoe: See tell box. Two-Way Joint (Carny): A game that can be run fairly or rigged. Under the Blue (Carny): To work a rigged game without a fix or patch to keep you out of trouble. Universal Ticket System (Carny): First seen in the 1970s, this admission plan requires the purchase of tickets at a central ticket booth rather than paying for each ride or show at the front of the ride or show. University Horn (Carny): One of the old indestructible, harsh-sounding, horn-shaped public-address speakers made by University Sound (also by Electro Voice and Atlas Sound), good for blasting the midway with your grind-show ballys (on an endless 8-track tape using a cheap pre-recorded tape recorded over on one of those awful 8-track home recorders). Simple PA hookups, including one or two university horns, were usually supplied by audio engineer Wally Baptist, who operated Baptist Sound in Illinois. You could frame a whole show with just Brill's Bible, the O'Henry banner catalog, and the Baptist Sound catalog. Veal Cutlet: Overcoat spread over the knees as a playing table. Vishing: Convincing a victim via the phone to give up their personal information. 53

Walk Around Show (Carny): A show set up with the entrance to the right of the ticket box and the exit out the left side of the ticket box, so patrons enter, walk around the three sides viewing the attraction, and walk out. Walk Back (Carny): Someone who actually returns after a period of time to buy your product. Walk Money (Carny): The ticket-seller needs a lot more than his/her salary to get a living wage. Some depend on short-changing. Some won't, but all of them hope for enough money from "walks", the money people walk away from the booth without remembering to pick up. "Walk money" also comes from people who don't think to take discount offers for larger purchases - "Here's $10, give me 20 50 tickets" will get them 20 tickets, but $10 might have also bought a sheet of 24 - the next guy who buys (the remaining) 4 tickets will pay $2, and that will go right into the cashier's pocket. "I only get $5 an hour but I make it up on walks." Walk Through (Carny): A show the patrons walk through at their own pace, passing the exhibits along the way. Also called a "grind show" because the bally is always grinding, calling for patrons to come in constantly rather than building a tip. Wall Man: Three-card monte lookout. See "on the wall." Wall of Death (Carny): See "Motordrome". Washer Pitching (also Washoes or Toad-in-the-Hole) (Carny): British fairground game similar to the penny pitch, with variants. Standard hardwarestore metal washers are pitched to land in holes in the ground, or in a hole on a small carpeted tabletop. Wax Show (Carny): A show featuring wax statues of famous people, often murderers or notorious criminals. Weight: Psychological persuasion used by a grifter. In pool it means a handicap given to the lesser player. Whale Show (Carny): A trailer or rail car equipped to display the frozen or preserved carcass of a whale. Wheel (Carny): The Ferris Wheel is just called "the wheel." Since it's visible from most of the lot, the wheel operator puts out the ride's lights at a signal from the office, indicating that the other rides, joints and concessions can close for the night. Whistling Gopher (Carny): A mark who departs with a whistle of disbelief after he hears the price of your ride or show or product. Wide Boy: British slang for dishonest person-usually a sucker. "Since the punter was a wide boy himself, he didn't mind that the registration was faked-just so long as he got the vehicle cheap." Wide Open (Carny): A show or carnival where "anything goes": the girl shows can play as "strong" as they want and the games can take the marks for as much as they can get. A show could never play wide open without the police turning a blind eye to the whole affair, after big payoffs by the patch. Wire: A telegraph scam where race results are delayed to allow late betting. With It (Carny): "(Im) with it" means "I work at this carnival (or at some other carnival)." Generally pronounced "widdit!" Some claim that it is not really used at all, favoring "on the show" as the actual term. A carnival term not used in the circus. If I was walking down a midway and an agent or a talker tried to call 54

me in I would say "with it," in other words "you're wasting your breath talking to me." Wobbly (Carny): A person who hangs around the food stands looking for odd jobs like peeling onions, emptying the garbage, raking up the trash, etc. They usually work for food and a couple bucks for the bar. Probably from the nickname ("Wobblies") of radical anti-capitalists the Industrial Workers of the World. Working Act (Carny): A performer whose attraction is something he does (magician, contortionist, "blockhead") (Carny): a skilled performer rather than just a human oddity. Wunderkammer (Carny): German for "Chamber of Wonders," rooms or cabinets housing private collections of art and curiosities gathered for scholarship or merely wonder. These early "Cabinets of Wonders" were precursors to the museum, dime museum and sideshow. X (Carny): A guarantee that an operator will have the e(X)clusive right to operate his type of game or ride on a particular lot, closing out competition from similar attractions. An X may be purchased, or it may be offered to sweeten the deal. If you can't work because someone else has the X, you've been "X'ed out." Yap. 1. Stupid victim. 2. A person's mouth. Zamps (Carny): Kiddie rides, many made by the Zamperla Rides company. Although Zamperla makes some coasters and other major rides, their specialty is flat rides.

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