Twists, Slugs and Roscoes:
A Glossary of Hardboiled Slang

Compiled by William Denton, buff@pobox.com
Copyright © 1993 - 1999

Edition 3.9. Version 4.0, corrected and with some minor updates, will be out soon. Originally published as a pamphlet by Miskatonic University Press, 1993.

This glossary may not be reproduced on the World Wide Web in any form. You can link to it using this URL: http://www.miskatonic.org/slang.html. This glossary may be reproduced for public consumption as long as it is copied as is and in its entirety, a copy is given to me, and no extra charge beyond copying or printing costs is made. Other arrangements may be made by contacting me.

Suggestions, additions, corrections and comments should be directed to William Denton (buff@pobox.com).

Thanks to adria@u.washington.edu, anbaumes@aol.com, eluki@aol.com, johnsf@info-wave.com, jtr@gis.net, kijee@aol.com, LoisAna@aol.com, zeromostel@aol.com, Alan Andersen, Bill Balint, Oskar Back, Dan Beekman, Fabio Blanco, Eddie Bradford, J.W. Carter, Clayton Clark, Ed Cobb, Jim Cort, Dantalion, Jerome Dehnert, Bob Di Sebastian, Joseph M. Erhardt, Michael Ericksen, Paris Flammonde, Linda Franic, Bob Fritsch, Luke Garvey, Jan Haluska, Katherine Harper, Sandra Hess, Chris Hobbs, N.S. Hurt, Jennifer, Jevex, Kristopher John, J. Russell Jones, Kevin, Andrew G. Lehr, Erick Lundin, Lucas McCarthy, Douglas McCarty, Dan McClure, Mark D. McHugh, Lise McClendon, Henry Mazel, Margaret P. Mickelson, Kelly Moffatt, Alberto Abete Montoya, Nadine, Max Nordstrom, Gonzalo Quesada, Scott Radtke, William Ritter, Steven Rubio, William J. Rusen, Michele Salles, Paul Sarkis, Matt Stevens, Darren T, Mark Taylor, Chris Todd, Laura Toops, Eric Tublin, Marc Visconte and Sam Waas for their additions and suggestions.

If you've ever read a hardboiled detective story, you may have come across a sentence like,

"I jammed the roscoe in his button and said, 'Close your yap, bo, or I squirt metal.'"

Something like this isn't too hard to decipher. But what if you encounter,

"The flim-flammer jumped in the flivver and faded."

"You dumb mug, get your mitts off the marbles before I stuff that mud-pipe down your mush - and tell your moll to hand over the mazuma."

"The sucker with the schnozzle poured a slug but before he could scram out two shamuses showed him the shiv and said they could send him over."

You may need to translate this into normal English just to be able to follow the plot.

Or maybe you want to seem tougher. Why get in a car when you can hop in a boiler? Why tell someone to shut up when you can tell them to close their head? Why threaten to discharge a firearm when you can say, "Dust, pal, or I pump lead!"

This is the language spoken by Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Mike Hammer and the Continental Op. When Cagney, Bogart, Robinson and Raft got in a turf war, this is how they talked.

Now, with the help of this glossary, you too can speak it like a native!

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Z

Bibliography

Key: Full Title (year of first publication) by Author (Publisher and year of publication for the copy I used)

(* = not as yet analyzed for slang, ss = short stories collected years after first publication)

I intend to go through the remaining works of Chandler and Hammett looking for more slang terms, and then move on to other hardboiled authors. Interestingly, some of the toughest of the hardboiled writers (like Mickey Spillane) don't use that much slang, but occasionally words do crop up that aren't used by anyone else.

William Denton mailto:buff@pobox.com
Last modified: Sun Mar 7 22:38:02 EST 1999