this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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[–] rbn@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If I understood it correctly, this slang's dictionary was filled by searching a two word rhyme to any word you want to translate. Once you found that, you'd cross out the second word (the one that rhymed) and just use the first one as the translation.

E.g. for 'Lemmy' you might come up with 'golden penny'. Once you cross out the second word, you end up with just 'golden' as your translation.

But I completely agree that this is more of a one-way, non-deterministic encryption than a slang. As you could pick a huge variety of first words (rusty penny, tiny penny, old penny, dirty penny, ...) only people that were given or taught the 'dictionary' are able to understand it.

I guess that's at least one explanation why this way of speaking was used by...

the criminal underworld of the West Coast between 1880 and 1920

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Ohhhh! Awesome. Thanks :)