Cant

That isn't an typo; no apostrophe is needed in this "cant." I came across the term while researching the Celtic root of another word. It comes from caint, old Gaelic for word. Cant is slang used by certain groups, so outsiders won't know what is being said.

It's no surprise that I am fascinated by language.  Slang represents the most colorful and creative use of verbal communication. Often employed by the more disreputable members of society, cant flourished among thieves, musicians and the drug subculture.

My attraction to the criminal element began with a love of film noir. Those movies led to novels by
Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and others. The slang in these books paint images more striking and lurid than the King's English can. Compare the difference:
I figured the canary for a good egg, but was conned by her gams and warble. She cheesed me vamoosing with my butter and egg man along with all the cabbage. Now I'm on the lam with nothin' but a roscoe and a ducat for a rattler outta this burg.
Translation:
I thought the female singer was a nice person, but was fooled by her legs and voice. She robbed me, leaving with my money man along with all the cash. Now I'm on the run with nothing but a gun and a ticket for a train out of town.

Prohibition not only gave impetus to organized crime, but forged a relationship between criminals and musicians. Making liquor illegal created the need for speakeasys. Musicians will play where ever they can. The illegal clubs in the urban areas became the greenhouses for nascent jazz. The more rural juke joints provided
the same for blues music. Both styles thrived during prohibition.

Early jazz musicians took gangster slang added their unique twist giving birth to jive. Singer/bandleader, Cab Calloway, wrote his own Jive Dictionary. Phrases flourished: teeth became crumb crushers, a guitar was a gitfiddle, fine drapes were good-looking clothes and so on.

American youth took to jive. They enjoyed having entire conversations that parents and other L7's could not comprehend.  (Make an L with the index finger and thumb of your left hand. Make the same shape with your right hand and put the thumb of the right hand on tip of the left index finger and the index finger of the right hand on the tip of the left thumb. It's a square - get it daddio - an L7.)

Along with illegal hooch, musicians experienced drugs in the speakeasys and juke joints. To keep the authorities and the non-hip patrons off guard, drug users created their own cant. A great source to learn about early jazz and the developing drug scene is Mezz Mezzrow's, Really the Blues.

Milton Mezzrow, born in Chicago in 1899, fell in love with the musicians and lifestyle of the jazz age.  He professionally played the clarinet, but his fame came from the potent marijuana he sold. In fact the word mezz became cant for marijuana. Later calling anything the mezz meant it was the best. Really the Blues has an entire chapter in jive about selling drugs on the streets of New York. The succeeding chapter translates the jive into standard English.

Slang shows the beauty, creativity and fluidity of language. It also shows our adaptability as a species as we try to hep the straights about the righteous racket to be had during this interplanetary killer-diller. As ever - BB

"He took her down to Chinatown and showed her how to kick the gong around" - Cab Calloway's Minnie the Moocher  - Kick the gong around was jive for smoking opium. The rest of the song about the dream of the King of Sweden, platinum car with a diamond wheel, etc. are all parts of Minnie's opium fantasy.