new (or unfamiliar to me) words from undergraduates

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:45 PM -0500 12/30/03, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>>_gank_ 'filch', as in "I'm gonna gank some of your fries"  [origin?]
>
>I believe it's probably an abbreviated form of "gangster" (transitive
>verb), which of course is often pronounced "gankster".
>
>"Gangster" basically = "take by intimidation", I suppose (picture the
>gangsters swaggering in and eating all the fries ... nobody's got the nerve
>to object), or more generally just "take"/"grab".
>
>Here is this transitive verb "gangster" on the Web:
>
><<"When we lost in Los Angeles in seven games in 1988, Bill Laimbeer and I
>went into the Lakers' locker room and gangstered a bottle of their
>champagne and we sat in our shower and bawled our eyes out, because we
>thought we were the better team and should have won. And we vowed to each
>other the next year we were going to win it.">>
>
>http://www.hoophall.com/features/isiah_thomas.htm
>

Thanks--that certainly makes sense.  Nice quote from the Piston Bad
Boys too, and of course by the next year they did get the champagne
without needing to gank it.  Curiously, no "gangster" verb appears in
RHHDAS (any more than "gank"), although there are noun meanings for
'enemy aircraft' and 'marijuana/joint' ("some good gangster").

larry