Glossary
STORIES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE reflect the words and expressions used in the 1930s and 1940s, adding unique flavor and authenticity to the tales. While a character’s speech may often reflect regional origins, it also can convey attitudes common in the day. So that readers can better grasp such cultural and historical terms, uncommon words or expressions of the era, the following glossary has been provided.
alum: a colorless crystalline compound used as an astringent, causing contraction. Used figuratively. [return to text]
brakie: brakeman; railroad man in charge of the brakes. [return to text]
bulls: cops; police officers. [return to text]
bumptious: crudely or loudly assertive. [return to text]
bunko: a swindle in which a person is cheated at gambling, persuaded to buy a nonexistent, unsalable, or worthless object, or otherwise victimized. [return to text]
burg: city or town. [return to text]
camion: a low flat four-wheeled truck. [return to text]
chumps: suckers; people who are gullible and easy to take advantage of. [return to text]
cinders: incombustible residue of something burnt, especially small fragments left by burning coal. The cinders and ashes from a steam locomotive would often be cleaned out of the furnace and dropped onto the ground on and around the train track. [return to text]
collar advertisement: collar and shirt advertisements by J.C. Leyendecker (1874–1951), an illustrator and entrepreneur who defined an era of fashion in the early twentieth century. He painted strong, athletic men and created long-running characters for the Arrow collar man ads (Arrow was a brand of shirt), as well as many others. [return to text]
consumption: wasting disease; progressive wasting of the body; tuberculosis. [return to text]
cordovan: burgundy in color. [return to text]
de facto: exercising power or serving a function without being legally or officially established. [return to text]
deuce, what the: what the devil; expressing surprise. [return to text]
dick: a detective. [return to text]
dummy-chucker: chucking the dummy; a type of beggar who gets money by pretending to have a seizure. [return to text]
El: elevated railway. [return to text]
fifty-leven: an expression used to describe a huge number. [return to text]
Friday, woman: girl Friday; an efficient and faithful woman aide or employee. [return to text]
ginks: fellows. [return to text]
G-men: government men; agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. [return to text]
goldbrickin’: goldbricking; faking; posing; pretending to be something one is not. [return to text]
governor: the head of the show. [return to text]
hard lines: that’s tough; something that one says in order to express sympathy for someone. [return to text]
jake: satisfactory; okay; fine. [return to text]
jig time, in: rapidly; in no time at all. [return to text]
Ladies’ Aid Societies: groups of women whose purposes included helping their local church and community. Often such groups conducted fundraising activities for their church and to aid impoverished members of the community. [return to text]
Leavenworth: Fort Leavenworth; the site of a federal penitentiary in Kansas. [return to text]
lucre: money, wealth or profit. [return to text]
Mick: term for a person of Irish birth or descent. [return to text]
mitt reader: palmist; palm reader. [return to text]
Model T Ford: an automobile produced by Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Company from 1908 through 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that “put America on wheels.”[return to text]
nuts: 1. a source of joy and pleasure. 2. an exclamation of disgust or disappointment. [return to text]
OD: (military) olive drab. [return to text]
O Gay-Pay-Oo: a Soviet secret police agency originally called the GPU (pronounced Gay-Pay-Oo), which stood for “State Political Administration” and was later changed to OGPU when the Russian word for consolidated or unified was added to the name. [return to text]
pince-nez: a pair of glasses held on the face by a spring that grips the nose. [return to text]
Podunk: any small and insignificant or inaccessible town or village. [return to text]
pogroms: organized, often officially encouraged massacres or persecutions of minority groups. [return to text]
punk-water: the water that stands in rotten, decayed cavities of old trees. Called “spunk-water” by Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn. [return to text]
qui vive, on the: on the alert; vigilant. [return to text]
razorback: circus day laborer; man who loads and unloads railroad cars in a circus. [return to text]
right guy: good guy. [return to text]
ringmaster: the circus Master of Ceremonies and main announcer. Originally, he stood in the center of the ring and paced the horses for the riding acts, keeping the horses running smoothly while performers did their tricks on the horses’ backs. [return to text]
Rochambeau: statue of the American Revolutionary War hero, General Comte de Rochambeau, in Lafayette Park, Washington, DC. As a French aristocrat, Rochambeau equipped a ship at his own expense and joined the Americans’ fight for liberty and after the war he returned to France as a national hero. The statue was presented as a gift from France to the US in 1902 as a reaffirmation of Franco-American relations in the first years of the twentieth century. [return to text]
rods: a portion of the undercarriage of a train, especially the coupler under a freight car. [return to text]
scareheads: headlines in exceptionally large type. [return to text]
Scheherazade: the female narrator of The Arabian Nights, who during one thousand and one adventurous nights saved her life by entertaining her husband, the king, with stories. [return to text]
set her cap for me: pursue someone romantically; to try to win the favor of a man with a view to marriage. [return to text]
slouch hat: a wide-brimmed felt hat with a chinstrap. [return to text]
snipes: cigarette butts. [return to text]
stateroom: a private room or compartment on a train, ship, etc. [return to text]
Tommy gun: Thompson submachine gun; a light portable automatic machine gun. [return to text]
took to his heels: ran away. [return to text]
uppers, on my: on one’s uppers; poor; in reduced circumstances; first recorded in 1886, this term alludes to having worn out the soles of one’s shoes so badly that only the top portions remain. [return to text]
Waldorf: The Waldorf=Astoria; a famous hotel in New York City known for its high standards and as a social center for the city. [return to text]
whippersnapper: an impertinent young person, usually a young man, who lacks proper respect for the older generation; a youngster with an excess of both ambition and impertinence. [return to text]