Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1883-09-27
No. 45.
APT NAMES FOR BAD WORKMEN.
What Skilled Tradesmen Call Inferior
Hands.

Strikes Jring out the technical slang of
the trades, and particularly the opprobious
epithets with which the different classes of
wOrkmen distinguish the unskilled opera
tives who labor at the same trades. In most
cases it will be found that these slang terms
originate in some technicality of the trade.
Thus the telegraphers call poor operator a
plug" after the little metal implement
which divides the switches on the key
board, inasmuch as the plug or key" is a
comparatively unimportant part of the ma
chinery. Printers designate an unskilled
type setter shoemaker" or a blacksmith"
The derivation of the former appellation is
from the fact that compositor who makes
errors is obliged to correct them after the
type is set up by taking out the misplaced
letters and ''pegging" the proper ones into
their places. Tailors also use the word
shoemaker" to distinguish poor workman,
as an unskilled hand takes his stitches too
far apart, and is therefore better adapted to
sew leather where he can punch the holes
with an awl before putting his needle
through. The appellation BLACKSMITH" is
applied to printer whose fingers are clumsy,
and jeweler also terms an unskilled work
man at his trade blacksmith for the same
reason. A term of opprobrium, which was
oSSu Ny olN A>C" AOAA plldtC1o " uCSlSudCC
an unskilled compositor, was the word
"boarder," from the fact that poor hand
was generally drinking man and spent his
time loafng and boarding" in liquor
saloons. All striking trade-workers in COM
mon use the generic word "scab," to distin-
gush workmen who take the places of
strikers. The derivation is obviously from
the fact that the scab is morbid growth,
and lives only at the expense of the we'll
being OF the rest Of the body. Shakespeare
uses the word scab as term of opprobrium,
and Webster defines scab as "a mean, dirty,
paltry fellow" which may have suggested
the original application of the word to its
present use The printers and telegraphers,
two of the most intelligent classes of work
men, are the only tradesmen who have in
vented names to particularize the scabs of
their respective professions. Thus compost
tors call scab rat" in contemptuous al
lusiOn to the rodents who infest printing
offices. The telegraphers have only recently
invented term for scab operators. They
call them COMMUNISTS" though the applica-
ton is not of technical derivation, but is
probably an attempt to manufacture word
from the Latin contumae, the root of con-
tumacious, to describe stubborn and OBJ
stinate person.
The various names actors give to the un-
skilled members of their profession are
familiar to most of the reading world. A
poor actor is termed variously ''stick,"
"fakir," statue" or dummy" A stick" or
dummy" is, naturally enough, an actor who
is awkward or stiff on the stage. The word
dummy" is derived from the fact that when
a travelling company has not enough mem
bers in the troupe to fill up large stage
men and women are employed to stand in
the back with choruses or supernumeraries
and take no other part. They are called
dummies" "Fakir" is generic term, and
those actors who lack talent and
depend upon other resources. For instance,
a comedian who makes faces is called "a
"mugger," and tragedian who bellows
is ''ranter," and both are "fakirs." The
professors Of the manly art are also apt in
this style Of nomenclature. They call
cowardly fighter 'dutfer." and weak or
unskilled boxer a "sand-bag" or '.stifs," the
latter terms being derived from the con-
trivance upon which the pugilist does his