British "geezer" = American "gangster"?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 2/12/07, Jonathon Green <slang at abecedary.net> wrote:
>
> Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >
> > Some support for the "gangster" sense:
> >
> > On this evening's Biography channel repeat of the Midsomer Murders'
> > episode "A Tale of Two Hamlets", the first (so far) murder victim, an
> > actor, was known for a role in a film or series about East End
> > gangsters called  "The Diamond Geezers".
>
> I'm sorry, but the title 'diamond geezers' offers no support whatsoever
> for the geezer = gangster hypothesis. It is, on the other hand, no more
> than a pun - I assume diamond smuggling or some such plot lies behind it
> - for the popular, cliched even, phrase 'diamond geezer' in which
> 'geezer' means, as usual 'bloke' and 'diamond' is used adjectivally to
> mean ' first-rate', 'excellent' or, to use something more East End,
> 'top'. It does _not_ mean, as I assume you are suggesting, a gangster
> involved with diamonds. So I doubt very much that it is an 'inside
> joke', merely, as I say, a pun on a cliche.

As this cliche is entirely unknown on this side of the Pond, it
carries with it the potential for much confusion. Mark Liberman was
perplexed by it in a 2004 Language Log post when it was singled out as
an "over-used phrase" by the Plain English Campaign. Various UK
readers eventually explicated the meaning.

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000642.html


--Ben Zimmer

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