Rats, Cops, and Punks: Criminal Slang From 1908 Lives On
The popularity of these terms in American English is due, in part, to an obscure Boston lawyer who, perhaps as a lark, published a slim dictionary of criminal slang in 1908.
Joseph M. Sullivan’s dictionary plays an important role in American criminal slang. Sullivan is also cited in scholarly papers as well as the popular media, including a 2013 Boston Globe article entitled “How to Talk Like Whitey Bulger: Mobster lingo gets its day in court.” I recently published Annotated Edition of the 1908 Dictionary of the Vernacular of the Underworld to illustrate Sullivan’s influence on modern language.
American English underwent an upheaval during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. All active languages change, but American English adopted a flood of new words, word usages, and word blends during this time. Many of these additions were tied to slang, which is defined as:
1: language peculiar to a particular group: such as a: argot, b: jargon, or
2: an informal nonstandard vocabulary composed typically of coinages, arbitrarily changed words, and extravagant, forced, or facetious figures of speech.
Slang has no doubt existed as long as language itself, and examples of it pepper English writing at least as far back as Shakespeare. Informal use of words goes far back into American colonial history; there are, for example, written accounts from 1709 of “flourish” used to mean “sexual intercourse engaged in hastily.”
Use of slang in America began to accelerate around 1860 with the rise of mass media. Newspapers, in particular, exploited popular fascination with non-standard language. Coverage clustered at two poles: admiration for the cheekiness of slang and condemnation for its decadence. Many journalists found that lingo punched up their copy, while language purists harrumphed about its degenerative impact on “good language,” which was seen as lowering the social standing (and morals) of those who used it. The net effect was a steep increase in public exposure to argot.
Slang also mushroomed along with the growth of urban areas. The city spawned distinct subcultures that in turn adapted language to their own interests, as noted by Luc Sante and David Maurer relate in their 2010 study, The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man. Slang was also an excellent way for a group to set itself apart from — and express contempt for — mainstream society. Criminals were especially prolific in generating new language, and their slang proved to be great fodder for popular publications.
Interest in criminal slang led to publication of a limited number of glossaries and dictionaries in America. Such publications, while perhaps falling short of skilled lexicography, are invaluable for tracing the use and development of non-standard language. An early example is George Washington Matsell’s Vocabulum: Or, The Rogue’s Lexicon, published in 1859. Alfred Trumble issued his Slang Dictionary of New York, London and Paris in 1880. Later publications include Josiah Flynt Willard’s Tramping with Tramps in 1899, followed by The World of Graft in 1901. In 1904, “№1500” published Life in Sing Sing, which included a “Dictionary of Thieves’ and Convicts’ Slang.’” The latter is, in particular, a source for many of Sullivan’s terms and definitions.
Sullivan provided no description about how he compiled or defined his terms. It seems he drew equally from his professional life and from existing written sources. His focus is upon words relating to burglary, safe-cracking, pick-pocketing, and law enforcement overall. Other terms relate to cheating “gulls,” “rubes,” “suckers,” and “hoosiers.” This reflects the mixture of contempt and avarice that urban criminals felt toward those regarded as less sophisticated, particularly people recently arrived from the countryside. The texts also include Irish and British slang terms that may have been particular to the Boston criminal fraternity. In terms of lexicography, Sullivan was decidedly amateur and his work reflects a casual approach.
But unlike many highbrow language guardians, Sullivan recognized the durability and significance of criminal slang. He choose many of his terms well, as they tracked with a massive surge in use during the early 1900s and, in many cases, continuing through to the present day. Two examples of the explosive growth of his terms in American English, “booze” and “dope,”are charted below.
Little is known about Sullivan himself. A brief 1912 biography states he graduated from the law department of Boston University in 1893 and served as bail commissioner for Suffolk County, MA. “He is well known in the field of prison reform …. and is considered by competent Judges to be one of the best informed men on the habits and characteristics of thieves in the United States.” A December 24, 1918, obituary in the Boston Daily Globe notes the death of Joseph M. Sullivan, “a well known Boston Attorney.” It is possible he died of complications of the Spanish influenza outbreak.
With so little known about Sullivan, we cannot say that he was a swell mouthpiece, much less if he enjoyed an occasional nip of coffin varnish. But he clearly had a good ear for criminal vernacular, likely honed while considering bail requests from inhabitants of the Charlie Adams and other Boston jails.
