Cards and dice… the devil’s books and the devil’s bones
(1676)
There’s no shortage of enjoyable activities for those who would rather not brave our famously awful weather. Even the simplest-seeming have a complex terminology worth getting to know:
murgatroyd a badly manufactured tiddlywink, flat on both sides
squopped of a free tiddlywink that lands on another wink
blitz an attempt to pot all six winks of your own colour early in the game
crud a forceful shot whose purpose is to destroy a pile of winks completely
lunch to pot a squopped wink (usually belonging to an opponent)
boondock to send an opponent’s tiddlywink a long way away, preferably off the table
The number of nicknames for marbles indicates what a popular game this is too (and still so in the age of the Game Boy® and the computer). In the dialect of the north-east of England, for example, marbles have been known as alleys, boodies, glassies, liggies, marvels, muggles, penkers, parpers and scudders. That’s just the start of it:
flirt (Yorkshire) to flick a marble with finger and thumb
fullock (Shropshire) to shoot a marble in an irregular way by jerking the fist forward instead of hitting it off by the force of the thumb only
deegle (Cheshire) a stolen marble
neggy-lag (Yorkshire) the penultimate shot
hawk (Newfoundland) to win all an opponent’s marbles
smuggings! (UK teen slang mid 19C) mine! (the exclamation used at the end of a game of marbles or spinning tops when the child who shouted first was allowed to keep the toy in question)
When you get a little older, it becomes more interesting to throw objects with a more challenging set of possibilities:
snake eyes (North American slang 1929) getting double ones, the lowest score (supposedly resembling a snake’s stare)
box cars (underworld slang 1937) double 6 (from their similarity to the wheels of freight cars)
gate to stop the dice moving before they have actually come to rest
Many grown-up indoor games are found in that fine old British institution, the pub. One pastime in particular speaks of generations of players with fine imaginations and plenty of time on their hands:
monger a person who deliberately scores many more points than needed to win the game
Robin Hood when a dart sticks into a previous dart
married man’s side the left-hand side of a dart board (numbers 12, 9, 14, 11, 8 and 16) that would get a reasonable score (the rationale being a married man should always play safe)
right church, wrong pew hitting a double but the wrong number
slop darts that score, but not where you wanted them
masonry darts darts thrown so that they miss the board entirely and hit the wall instead
spray ’n’ pray darts thrown by an irate and less talented player, rather quickly
bunting the art of throwing while on your knees
And that’s just a fraction of the jargon. All the scores in darts have their own names too. Remember, when playing darts you’re counting down, not up, starting from a set 301 or 501 and trying to end up with exactly zero, a process which is known as doubling out:
madhouse double 1 (i.e. what you’re left in until you finish the game by achieving it)
fevvers a score of 33 (from the 19C Cockney tongue twister: ‘thirty-three feathers on a thrush’s throat’)
scroat a dart that is aimed for treble 20, but ends up in double 20
fish and globe a score of 45 (when competing on a fairground darts stall, 45 was a score that traditionally would win the customer a small paper bag of peanuts which later became the offer of a jar (globe) and a goldfish)
Lord Nelson a score of 111 (as he had one eye, one arm, one leg)
A cool head and an expressionless face will serve you well in a game that otherwise relies on luck – unless of course you have other tricks up your sleeve:
runt a poker hand worth less than a pair
motown a poker hand consisting of ‘jacks-on-fives’
vole the winning by one player of all the tricks of a deal; a grand-slam
pone the player who cuts the cards
hop a secret move made after the cut which puts the cards back in the original position and negates that cut for the cheat’s benefit
crimp to bend one or more cards so that a cheat will be able to cut the deck as he wishes, or to know that an innocent player will be cutting the deck at that same desired card
there’s work down the announcement by one player that someone somehow is cheating
The king of card games requires not just luck, but skill of the highest level:
chicane (1886) the condition in a game of bridge of holding no trumps
bumble-puppy (1936) a game played at random (of people who play no conventions)
yarborough (19C) a bridge or whist hand with no card higher than a 9 (from a certain Earl of Yarborough who used to bet 1000 to 1 against the occurrence of such a hand; the actual odds are 1827 to 1)
flag-flying (1917) to make an overbid that will almost inevitably fail, just to liven up the game
huddle (US 1934) a period of thought in which a player considers his next move
For those habitués of the pack, there’s a fine range of nicknames for individual cards:
devil’s bed-post (c.1835) the four of clubs, held to be unlucky
grace-card (Irish mid 19C) the six of hearts in cards
curse of Scotland (early 18C) the nine of diamonds (diamonds imply royalty and traditionally every ninth king of Scotland has been considered a tyrant and a curse to that country)
blankets (1915) the tens in a pack of cards (from the rolling of blankets in the military in tens for the convenience of transport)
noddy (Gloucestershire) the knave
suicide king the king of hearts (as the fifteenth-century French picture shows him about to impale himself on his sword)
the boy with the boots (Anglo-Irish late 19C) the joker in the pack of cards
When you start to bring money into the picture, of course, both dice and cards can easily lose their innocence:
shill a decoy player, allied to the promoters of the game, who pretends to bet, and is allowed to ‘win’ in street games of three-card monte; his successes are intended to lure the public into laying down their money
tattogey (underworld slang 1753) one who uses loaded dice to cheat
langret (mid 16C) a die so loaded that it shows 3 or 4 more often than any other number
For some unfortunates, the impulse to win can stop being a game and become more a part of their lives. As the Aussies say, there are some people who would bet on two flies walking up the wall:
martingale to continue doubling one’s stake after losing in the hope of eventual recovery
ring in one’s nose to be losing and betting heavily and impetuously in an attempt to get even (like a bull)
fishing remaining in a card game in the hope of a vital card
bird dog a small time or novice gambler who hangs around experienced professional gamblers to pick up tips
nut the living expenses and other overheads that a gambler must meet from his winnings
For people like this, home games are soon no longer enough; a professional arena for their habit beckons; and there, of course, under the patina of respectability, pretty much anything goes:
ladder man a casino employee who sits on a high chair and watches for any errors or cheating by players or croupiers
booster a bit player in a casino who entices genuine players to bet (and usually lose) their money
top-hatting in roulette, the surreptitious placing of more casino chips on top of existing ones after the outcome has been decided
Better to switch to a sociable game often favoured by the older woman, which comes with its own inimitable terminology. Two fat ladies (88) and legs eleven are well-known but there are many other traditional coinages:
1 buttered scone
6 Tom Mix (more modern: chopsticks)
7 Gawd’s in ’eaven
12 monkey’s cousin (from rhyming slang for dozen)
23 a duck and a flea (from the shape of the figures)
50 half-way house (1940s) (since there are 100 numbers available to the caller)
76 was she worf it? (from 7/6d the old price of a marriage licence)
77 two little crutches (from the shape of the figures)
80 Gandhi’s breakfast (as he ‘ate nothing’)
Or else give it up entirely and settle on a worthwhile and productive hobby:
notaphily (1970) the collecting of paper currency as a hobby
deltiologist (1959) a collector of picture postcards
cartophily (1936) the hobby of collecting cigarette cards
arctophile (1970s) a person who loves or collects teddy bears
cruciverbalist (US slang 1970s) a crossword puzzle addict
bowerbird (Australian slang) a person who collects an astonishing array of sometimes useless objects