Terms Which Have Disappeared

[MissMittens]

How about "Pipe down"?

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Another one my father would use when I was trying to spin a tale was "If stands stiff on fifty-fifth". I could never quite figure out his point. Sixty years later, I still can't.

My father's "if" aphorism had to do with a small dog, chasing a rabbit, and defecation. Not suitable for a roomful of strangers.

 

[hatguy1]

Reading a Philip Marlowe novel right now and the dialogue keeps using the term "flash gambling" as in "providing flash gambling for flash people." A Google search of the term just pops up with page after page of links to online gambling games.

Is this a term that meant a certain type of gambling gaming that is still available or is that a 1940s or whatever term that's kind of fallen out of use as time has moved on?

 

[Nobert]

Reading a Philip Marlowe novel right now and the dialogue keeps using the term "flash gambling" as in "providing flash gambling for flash people." A Google search of the term just pops up with page after page of links to online gambling games.

Is this a term that meant a certain type of gambling gaming that is still available or is that a 1940s or whatever term that's kind of fallen out of use as time has moved on?

Hard to be sure with Raymond Chandler. It almost seems as though he made up his own language.

Best I could find: Flash is an alternate name for an Asian card game called Teenpati.
Also a New Zealand slang word for fancy, stunning or anything that looks extraordinarily good.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

... the term "flash gambling" as in "providing flash gambling for flash people." ...
Is this a term that meant a certain type of gambling gaming that is still available or is that a 1940s or whatever term that's kind of fallen out of use as time has moved on?

Flash, adj., looking expensive in a way that attracts attention

 

[Stanley Doble]

Flash as in flashy, gaudy, ostentatious. It sounds like someone was running a gambling house for the Hollywood or Broadway crowd. People who had money to throw around and wanted to be seen doing it. People who thought they knew all about gambling and didn't.

Sort of like Las Vegas high rollers in the fifties.

What book and can you give me a little more context?

 

[hatguy1]

Flash as in flashy, gaudy, ostentatious. It sounds like someone was running a gambling house for the Hollywood or Broadway crowd. People who had money to throw around and wanted to be seen doing it. People who thought they knew all about gambling and didn't. Sort of like Las Vegas high rollers in the fifties.

What book and can you give me a little more context?

It's "The Big Sleep" and Eddie Mars (character in the story) runs a "Flash gambling place for flash people in L.A." and apparently - according to Marlowe's accusation - needs some corrupt protection from the system (city govt) to keep it running.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

How about "the real McCoy"?

 

[hatguy1]

How about "the real McCoy"?

That guy's unreal.

 

[Stanley Doble]

That is funny, I watched The Big Sleep last night. Did you know there were 2 versions, the first 1945 version that was never released, and the one the public saw which was recut to include new scenes, made to capitalize on the Bogart-Bacall romance?

If you saw the movie, I believe they nailed it. Think early Las Vegas with a Western theme. Guests dressed up in Hollywood fashion, cigarette girls in revealing costumes, Bacall winning $14,000 on one spin of the roulette wheel.

For my money the 1945 cut is a better movie. It tells the story, which is complicated enough, in a way you can follow. The 1946 cut butchers the story.

Speaking of the story. It doesn't make any sense unless you understand the official attitude towards blackmail cases. The authorities would do anything they could to protect the victim from exposure. Especially a rich family like the Sternwoods. This is why Bernie Ohs recommended Spade, because a private detective could keep things off the police blotter and handle things more discreetly. It also explains why Spade concealed evidence and got in trouble with the police - he was trying to do his job and protect his client. This is brought out better in the 1945 movie.

Gambling was illegal in Los Angeles and the surrounding area but so were a lot of things that were tolerated by the authorities. Especially outside Los Angeles city limits. Police and politics were notoriously corrupt if you were big enough to pay off the right people. For the little guy the cops could be plenty tough.

Card games were legal in Gardena up to a point. Bill Harrah started out with a card room in Gardena but moved to Reno, where gambling was legal, when the payoffs and official hassles became too onerous.

 

[hatguy1]

That is funny, I watched The Big Sleep last night. Did you know there were 2 versions, the first 1945 version that was never released, and the one the public saw which was recut to include new scenes, made to capitalize on the Bogart-Bacall romance?

If you saw the movie, I believe they nailed it. Think early Las Vegas with a Western theme. Guests dressed up in Hollywood fashion, cigarette girls in revealing costumes, Bacall winning $14,000 on one spin of the roulette wheel.

For my money the 1945 cut is a better movie. It tells the story, which is complicated enough, in a way you can follow. The 1946 cut butchers the story.

Speaking of the story. It doesn't make any sense unless you understand the official attitude towards blackmail cases. The authorities would do anything they could to protect the victim from exposure. Especially a rich family like the Sternwoods. This is why Bernie Ohs recommended Spade, because a private detective could keep things off the police blotter and handle things more discreetly. It also explains why Spade concealed evidence and got in trouble with the police - he was trying to do his job and protect his client. This is brought out better in the 1945 movie.

Gambling was illegal in Los Angeles and the surrounding area but so were a lot of things that were tolerated by the authorities. Especially outside Los Angeles city limits. Police and politics were notoriously corrupt if you were big enough to pay off the right people. For the little guy the cops could be plenty tough.

Card games were legal in Gardena up to a point. Bill Harrah started out with a card room in Gardena but moved to Reno, where gambling was legal, when the payoffs and official hassles became too onerous.

Hey, that explains a lot. Thanks so much for the information. :eusa_clap

 

[skydog757]

I miss the old terms "Yardbird" or "Jailbird" or even "Convict". Now everyone's an inmate.

I don't miss "Turnkey" (guard) or "Matron" (female guard). I always found them derogatory to a profession - like "Sawbones" for a surgeon or "Greasemonkey" for a mechanic.

As you might have guessed, I work as a Corrections Officer and, no; I have never been called a "lousy screw".

 

[Bugguy]

I heard one today that is apparently UK'ish... goes like they're "all fur coat and no knickers". Never heard it before, but was told it means you've got a high end look, but are plain underneath. Is this still in use?

 

[Stanley Doble]

I think the Texas equivalent would be "all hat and no cattle".

A similar phrase heard in Australia in 1950. "Two bob, one suit, and no manners".

 

[vitanola]

I miss the old terms "Yardbird"...

IN the Golden Era "Yardbird" was a southernism for "chicken" (as in the tasty feathered creature). It's use as a synonym for "Convict" well post-dates the Second World War.

 

[LizzieMaine]

IN the Golden Era "Yardbird" was a southernism for "chicken" (as in the tasty feathered creature). It's use as a synonym for "Convict" well post-dates the Second World War.

It was also popular as a WW2 term for a loafing, work-dodging Army trainee, due almost entirely to its use in the "Barney Google" comic strip. Cartoonist Billy DeBeck was a fountainhead of popular slang from the twenties into the forties, and "yardbird" was one of his last contributions.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Dollar-a-year man

In 1917, the size of the Federal workforce was very small. In the effort to organize the industrial and transportation sectors of the U.S. economy to meet the production and logistical challenges of "The Great War", a number of wealthy industrialists accepted leading positions in the Federal government for the token salary of $1 per year.

I don't know anything about the individuals who were dollar-a-year men, but I'm confident that if such a person were appointed today, he or she would be excoriated in the media and subjected to microscopic investigation as to his or her motives and investments.

 

[HudsonHawk]

IN the Golden Era "Yardbird" was a southernism for "chicken" (as in the tasty feathered creature). It's use as a synonym for "Convict" well post-dates the Second World War.

I was gonna say..."yardbird" was what you ate after Sunday meetin'.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I think the Texas equivalent would be "all hat and no cattle".

A similar phrase heard in Australia in 1950. "Two bob, one suit, and no manners".

"All hat, no cattle" would mean that you dress the part only, you don't live the life. Similar to being called a "drugstore cowboy".

 

[Fading Fast]

Dollar-a-year man

In 1917, the size of the Federal workforce was very small. In the effort to organize the industrial and transportation sectors of the U.S. economy to meet the production and logistical challenges of "The Great War", a number of wealthy industrialists accepted leading positions in the Federal government for the token salary of $1 per year.

I don't know anything about the individuals who were dollar-a-year men, but I'm confident that if such a person were appointed today, he or she would be excoriated in the media and subjected to microscopic investigation as to his or her motives and investments.

There is a movie "The Solid Gold Cadillac" from 1956 in which Paul Douglas plays a CEO who takes a job managing some big project or group in the Pentagon for, if memory serves (and I might be wrong on this), $1 a year. Since that was 1956 (albeit a Hollywood movie), I wonder if dollar-a-year men were part of the WWII effort. My money is on LizzieMaine having some insight into this one.