Transl. & English-speaking prisoners

[Timothy D. Sergay]

I wasn't aware that "shake down" also applied to searches of a prisoner's 
person, which the prisonwall.org dictionary (very useful!) confirms. That 
makes "shake down" a nice fit for shmon: each term applies to both premises 
and persons. There's a chance for misunderstanding, of course, because the 
likeliest association for most speakers of English will be "extort money 
from," but what can you do? "Shake down" is authentic, polysemous slang. 
Thank you, Joshua.



>I think I'll agree with an earlier post here - "strip
> search" is quite formal.  In slang, it is usually
> "shake down" as in "he got the shake down" or even "he
> been shook down" in the colloquial speech of black
> prisoners.
>
> A good resource on this in English is:
> http://dictionary.prisonwall.org/.
>
> JW
>

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