Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Carny lingo

Here are some examples of carnival lingo from those in the know:

  •  BABY NEEDS MILK - When carnies see another carny flirting with the townies, they will often go by and say this just to mess up their buddies 'score'.
  •  BLOW YOUR PIPES - Carnies often get hoarse and raspy-voiced from screaming at 'marks' all day long. This is called 'blowing your pipes'.
  •  BOZO - Agent in the water tank or "drop joint", usually has persona of obnoxious clown.
  •  CLEM - Another name for 'mark', probably came from Red Skelton's dumb guy, Clem Kadiddlehopper.
  •  G-Note - $1,000 bill.
  •  KEY TO THE MIDWAY - A non-existant thing that carnies amuse themselves with as in sending pesky kids that are asking too many questions to go get the 'key to the midway' or 'lightbulb grease' or a 'left-handed monkey wrench'. Any number of amusing non existant things, they will often send the kid to a specific carny just to bug them, too.
  •  POSSUM BELLY - Racks built underneath the semi-trailers that are used to haul excess cargo.
  •  POSSUM BELLY QUEEN - Derogatory term for ladies that sleep around with all the carnys, yep, sometimes in the possum belly.

The complete list is here.

via Look at this

No comments: