I learned last night that the official term for a secretive language, used by criminals and such, is "cant."
It's a language not meant to be understood by outsiders. Unfortunately, outsiders eventually end up figuring it out and some of its terms even end up as popular slang. Thus, "big shot" and "to put on the spot."
Cant goes way back and is of course not restricted to English.
The most mysterious part of the article, to me, was this line: "Many escaped convicts went to California in the 1850s and a large part of their cant is still used there."
By whom? The criminal class? Hollywood? Surfers?
Does the expression, "Gnarly, dude, you totally caught that wave!" have secret underworld connotations?
Friday, September 14, 2007
"Cant"
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12 comments:
I guess that if you start to think about origins and connotations of words and expressions you'll end up being either totally crazy or totally enlightened!
Most likely the former. But going off the rails on a crazy train is so much fun!
i LOVE learning about the origins of words and phrases... i could listen to that stuff all day!
Slyde: Your icon gives the impression of someone who would rather take words and phrases and ram them with both fists down the throats of evildoers whilst bellowing with all his might.
But we should not judge a book by its cover or a Slyde by its fearsome green-ness.
Welcome to Isis.
but knarly dude just rolls off the toungue, doesn't it? so maybe thats... can...
yea I said that outloud. roflol.
thanks for enlightening me today!
beware the wisdom of the slyde. its addicting.
I have friend who always says, "Just know the 't' out of can't". So maybe that's what they left....
Hello,
Hope you don't mind that I'm addressing your question regarding FLOW here... I had posted, but when I went to preview to make sure the video was showing the video posted on the sidebar and appeared to throw the side-column out of wack! It was very bizarre, and I was afraid of ruining any settings so I deleted the post. I was going to re-post with a link. Were you actually able to view the video BENEATH my text?
Pixie Dust: I never saw the video, b/c it's blocked on this computer. I can see vids at home.
I'm not sure what to tell You in order to correctly post it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cant_%28language%29
Quite possibly!
hahaha
fascinating!!
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