Transl. & English-speaking prisoners

[Edward M Dumanis]

I does not seem that "shake down" will be a nice fit for "shmon."
"Shmon" is just a slang substitution for "obysk," i.e. any thorough police
search of any room, house, vehicle, or person. There is no hint in the
meaning of this word on whether it is brutal or not, or whether any
extortion was involved.

Sincerely,

Edward Dumanis <dumanis at buffalo.edu>



On Fri, 15 Jul 2005, Timothy D. Sergay wrote:

> 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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