"tarrel" in Hammett?

[Eric Nielsen]

Barrel would make sense in context. There is a type of lock called a "barrel
lock".

Eric




On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 7:37 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "tarrel" in Hammett?
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> Maybe a typo for "barrel."
>
> Stephen Goranson
> http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
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> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jesse
> Sheidlower [jester at PANIX.COM]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 6:25 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: [ADS-L] "tarrel" in Hammett?
>
> In Dashiell Hammett's 1924 story "The Golden Horseshoe," first
> published in _Black Mask_, a character (an Englishman) says:
>
>  The hotel-sneak used to be my lay... I was rather good at it.
>  I had the proper manner--the front. I could do the gentleman
>  without sweating over it, you know.... I had a rather
>  successful tour on my first American voyage. I visited most of
>  the better hotels between New York and Seattle, and profited
>  nicely. Then, one night in a Seattle hotel, I worked the
>  tarrel and put myself into a room on the fourth floor. I had
>  hardly closed the door behind me before another key was
>  rattling in it....
>
> Perhaps I'm missing an obvious dialect spelling or something,
> but what is _tarrel_ in this passage? I can't find another
> example of it anywhere, and it's not in the notes of the
> Library of America edition of Hammett's stories.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED
>
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