Cowboy Lingo
"The cowboy was not a highly educated man as a rule," says Ramon F. Adams in his introduction toCowboy Lingo, "but he never lacked for expression." After years of keeping his own notes on the "terse, crisp, clear-cut language of the range," Adams decided that it would be "selfish" not to pass them along. Thus was bornCowboy Lingo, which was first published by Houghton Mifflin in 1936 and appears now after being long out of print. Adams's book is arranged thematically--with chapters on ropes, cattle, brands, the trail, outlaws, and the like--telling as much about the life of the cowboy (orcow-puncherorbuckarooorranahanorsaddle-slickerorwaddie) as about his language. As might be expected from a pioneer of the western range, the cowboy "respected neither the dictionary nor usage," says Adams, "but employed his words in the manner that best suited him." And perhaps no other group has come up with a better collection of insults. A bad tracker "couldn't find a calf with a bell on in a corral"; a worthless person's "family tree was a scrub"; and an ignorant person "couldn't drive nails in a snow bank." Great fodder for word mavens, writers of Western fiction, and Wild West enthusiasts alike.--Jane Steinberg