American Circus Lingo
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| Hide the alfalfa! |
Brodie — An accidental fall (but one which has an element of stupidity or clumsiness, rather than disaster). From the name of Steve Brodie, who in 1886 claimed to have survived a jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Bunce — Profits.
Butcher — Strolling vendor selling refreshments or souvenirs.
Carpet Clown — A clown who works either among the audience or on arena floor.
Cattle Guard — A set of low seats placed in front of the general admission seats to accommodate overflow audiences.
Chinese — Extra jobs done by circus personnel without additional pay.
Circus Candy — Very cheap confections with deceptively impressive packaging.
Cirky — Circus counterpart to the word "carny;" a circus employee.
Clem — A fight.
Clown Alley — The clowns' dressing and prop area.
Donniker — A rest room or toilet.
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| Poli tick |
Garbage Joint — The souvenir or novelty stand.
Gilly — Anyone not connected with the circus, an outsider or towner.
Hey Rube! — Traditional battle cry of circus people in fights with townspeople.
Horse — One thousand dollars.
Horse Feed — Poor returns from poor business.
Jackpots — Tall tales about one's exploits on the circus ('war stories'.)
John Robinson — A signal to cut or shorten an act, or to give a very short show altogether. If you were headed out to the ring, someone would say "John Robinson" to call for an abbreviated performance, or in the middle of an act if the ringmaster made the announcement "Would John Robinson please come to the rear entrance," the performer should go right into his last trick.
Jump — The distance between performances in different towns.
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| "John Robinson!" |
Lot Lice — Local townspeople who arrive early to watch the unloading of the circus and stay late. Maybe they leave money behind, but they sure get in the way.
Night Riders — Bill posters for competing circuses, who posted paper for their employers in a gentlemanly fashion by day, and tore down or covered up the bills for their competition by night.
Picture Gallery — A tattooed man.
Pie Car Jr. — On the modern Ringling show, a trailer or wagon that provides meals on the back lot of the arena. What movie companies call "craft services" and rock concerts call "catering."
Punk Pusher — Supervisor of the work crew.
Rat Sheets — Advance posters or handbills with negative claims about the opposition.
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| Poli ticks |
(to) See the Elephant — The circus origin of this phrase is obvious. It passed into general popular usage about 1835 meaning "to have seen everything there is to see in the world," and shortly thereafter it took on the added meaning "to lose your innocence and learn a humbling or embarrassing lesson." Among the military it has come to mean "to experience combat for the first time." Even Tolkien's Lord of the Rings makes a sly reference to it, as Sam Gamgee, out in the wide world among amazing things, remarks on finally having seen an "oliphaunt."
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| Rat sheets workin'. Avoid a Brodie! |
Tack Spitter — Banner man or bill poster.
Toby News — Circus-lot gossip, from the european/gypsy "tober," meaning campsite.
Windy Van Hooten's — Name of the mythical "perfect circus" imagined by performers and crew, where everything is wonderful and everyone gets the money, respect and working conditions they deserve, plus some.
31 comments:
Interesting lesson on politi-jargon. You know, objectification of human beings, i.e. equating them to bugs to be squashed, is the same thing the Nazis did to the Jews. I think you know better and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, bvt.
Lighten up, 2:53. And don't be ridiculous.
I believe we have a winner for most stupid comment of the year!
Then why not show the poster child for biggest blood sucker of them all? Barry Sotoro, ya know that the phony, imposter, skinny, ghetto-crack-head looking metro sexual man-child of a “president,” aka Obama. All I see here are Republicans.
It will be the Republicans only, who save our republic from the blood-sucking imposter president. He's now trying to sneak in another debt celling increase, another 1.3 trillion. If that ain't blood sucking, please explain what is?
Our callow troll has decided to display his, um, intellect. Let us be joyful to be provided with so perfect a series of unconscious self-refutations!
Do you think Mr. Troll will explain the disastrous war his people started, to the tune of a trillion and counting? And that benefitted Haliburton, whose former chief exec was--hmm--I seem to have forgotten. Anyone?
Oh, and who voted against the war when he was a senator? Who was that guy again?
One trillion over 9 years is not the same as 1.3 T in one year. Who else would you have hired? Only Haliburton had the technology. You guys are such pussies.
Oh, and many dems voted for that war including your Hillery Cliton, and you know it. So go choke yer chicken.
Ah, the sophisticates are among us again! If we play our cards right, they'll entertain us further! "Pussies." "Chicken choking." Marvelous!
Well, BvT, I was anticipating some abject stupidity and subject changing, as well as a complete avoidance of the issues, but those two responses are each little gifts of complete and utter dimwittedness. (Hillary Clinton! Haliburton as a model of efficiency in providing military lunches!)
Imagine the mind that phrases such thoughts!
Haliburton's technology in putting out oil well fires.
I agree with Mitt's son: Obama should release all his grades (ya know that education we all paid for!) And his REAL birth certificate!
They should also offer rewards for O's ex girlfriends to come forward.
Do try to stay on point, folks.
How about a minimal IQ requirement for posting here? Some standards, please!
I deleted 12:09's infantile post.
New Rule: you've got to be at least 13 to post a comment on DtB.
If anything's Neanderthal, bvt, it's you for deleting posts. The person simply pointed out that the google definition is phony, probably posted by some lib who hates Santorum. So what do you do? You let the reference to a bogus definition stand. Hardly Collegiate I must say, a likening to Reeve's plagiarism in a way.
Santorum is a hatemonger, who desires to disenfranchise an entire segment of the population based on zealous religious dogma. If this is your kind of guy, then you should apologize to the Neanderthals.
It seems your brain is just too damn big for your cranium, must have also been tough on your mother's birth canal. So why don't you please explain to us, what Santorum specifically said, that makes him a "hatemonger." And please keep in mind, the left's widely misconstrued coment where he supposedly said the the word "blacks" doesn't count anymore.
4:17, here's the part of your remark that is worth repeating: "please explain to us what Santorum specifically said, that makes him a "hatemonger.""
--The rest--the stuff about somebody's big "cranium" and something the "left" allegedly does or says--is the kind of crap that makes me delete your comments sometimes. If you have a point, make it. Leave out the gradeschool stuff. Please.
Here you go, 4:17:
He said gay marriage could lead to bestiality. He blamed "radical feminism" for women going to work at the expense of children. He compared women seeking abortions unfavorably to slaveholders, saying that even they "did not have the unlimited right" to kill their slaves. It was a manner that eventually wore thin on Pennsylvania voters, who turned him out of office in 2006 with a resounding 18-point loss.
This is all verified and part of his public record.
I dunno about Santorum being a hate-monger, but I do recall that he is an idiot, which is demonstrated by one episode related in a well-documented paragraph in Wikipedia:
In June 2006, Santorum declared that weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) had been found in Iraq.[95] Santorum's declaration was based, in part, on declassified portions of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command.[96] The report stated that coalition forces had recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions that contain degraded or vacant mustard or sarin nerve agent casings. The specific weapons he referred to were chemical munitions dating back to the Iran–Iraq War that were buried in the early 1990s. The report stated that while agents had degraded to an unknown degree, they remained dangerous and possibly lethal.[95] However, officials of the Department of Defense, CIA intelligence analysts, and the White House have all explicitly stated that these expired casings were not part of the WMDs threat that the Iraq War was launched to contain.[97] (Wikipedia)
Today's Reuters article on Santorum makes clear what a sleazy politician this guy has been.
My favorite part concerns his exit from Congress:
A few weeks after he left Congress, although his law license had expired, Santorum landed a job in the Washington office of Pittsburgh-based law firm Eckert Seamans. Lawyers at the firm had given Santorum 45 political contributions totaling $24,400 while he was in Congress, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
As senator, Santorum "was a friend of the firm," said Timothy Ryan, Eckert Seamans' chief executive officer. Santorum helped make introductions and did other "relationship work," including providing Eckert Seamans' clients with business and strategy counseling, Ryan said.
Since then, thanks to his political contacts, Santorum has cobbled together a comfortable living as a political pundit, policy advocate and corporate consultant. His 2010 financial disclosure form shows that the self-described "grandson of a coal miner" earned at least $900,000 that year.
Nothing described above qualifies as "hate mongering." I think you ought to lighten up (as bvt often suggests), you're just jumping to conclusions and taking it all the wrong way. As for Santorum's record and business deals, that's not "hate mongering" and you know all politicians do this stuff. In short, see my coment on todays topic, also about Santorum.
The problem of corruption--the kind in which the candidate carries water for, say, an industry that has been supportive--is very old and much discussed, going back more than fifty years. So is the old problem of "dirty hands," the possibility that, at least for some leaders, such corruption is inevitable, if the politician is to remain viable, the system being what it is. All of this is utterly familiar ground.
But some politicians--especially the crew of Republicans that gained prominence after Bush's 2000 victory--have engaged in corruption that cannot be explained in terms of the old categories. To dismiss the corruption of a Santorum or a Gingrich based on "they all do it" reveals ignorance of political science and American history. We need to consider what kind of corruption is embraced, how much, and for what reason. And some of these people really stand out.
I must say, Republican apologists aren't what they used to be. Their arguments would be persuasive only among the Fox crowd--i.e., total ignoramuses.
I'll explain it simply and clearly for you, 1:42. Santorum has used his national presence and his position as a senator to demonize and disenfranchise a significant group of people for no other reason than religious zealotry. That encourages the nasty brutish dolts who then go out and attack said people, either in the physical sense or through legislation that denies these people basic rights that the rest of the population enjoys.
His anti abortion fanaticism also encourages more dolts to plant bombs and shoot people.
See--hatemongering! Seems obvious now, doesn't it?
2:01, I don't disagree, but you are short on specifics. Claims are not arguments.
What "specifics" would you like, 2:08?
3:24, are you kidding?
What were the acts that constitute the demonizing and disenfranchisement? What is the targeted group? What is the basis for your imputation of "religious zealotry" as Santorum's motive? You offer not specifics at all. You are not supporting your claims.
Santorum was just quoted as saying that it's better to have a father in prison than to have a same sex couple raise a child.
No more needs to be said about the fellow.
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