Crabtown slang (1932)

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    Lighter's HDAS does not cite this article.
    It is notable that "meat or gravy sauces" are "bug juice."  The "red eye"
for ketchup was also useful.


   17 September 1932, SHEBOYGAN PRESS (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), pg. 8?, col. 3:

      _The Patois of  Annapolis_
   Like students the world over, the middies have developed among themselves
a "patois" of slang that, although highly descriptive when understood, forces
an outasider to seek an interpreter.  Some of the code, which characterizes
drinking fountains as "scuttle butts," underwear as "seagoing lingerie" or
"skivvies," and walls, ceilings, doors, windows, and stairways as "bulkheads,
overheads, decks, ports and ladders," respectively, smacks of the sea, of course.
   Peculiar to the academy itself is "Crabtown," by which Annapolis is known
to the middies.  "Gray Legs" is the name applied to West Pointers, and the
academy band, composed of veteran enlisted men of the navy, is referred to as
"the ancient mariners."
   A bugler, who rates no higher in the esteem of the middies, apparently,
than he does in the army, goes under the name of "hell cat," and the chaplain,
our of his presence, is always spoken of as "Holy Joe."
   The social functions arranged for midshipmen in "Crabtown" are "hops," and
when a middy takes his "O-A-O"--the one and only girl--to the "hop," he is
"dragging a girl."  All girls, incidentally, are "drags."  In the same
connection, a middy working out a punishment for some infraction of the rules carries a
rifle as part of the extra duty and is said to be "dragging Daisy
Springfield."
   One "caulks off" rather than "goes to sleep" at the academy.  If a middy
shares his room with a comrade, the latter is known as the "wife," while if the
room is shared with several all are known as "bigamists."  The miserly
comrade is dubbed "cozy," and the eccentric or odd one is said to be "in a hop."
   In the mess hall, spinach, when served, and it is served often, comes out
as "seaweed," and "sea gull" does for chicken, turkey, or any other kind of
fowl.  Potatoes are "spuds," as they are familiarly known elsewhere, but ketchup
is "red eye," and meat or gravy sauces are "bug juice."  Water is "sky
juice," and "java" means coffee, of course, while a cigaret is a "skag."
   The zero in anything is "swabo," among the middies, while anything above
the margin and unexpected is "velvet."  Anything easy of accomplishment is
"fruit," and anything hard to explain is a "gadget."  Loose ends are known as
"Irish pennants," and the $3, $5, $8, or $12 which a middy draws monthly,
according to his years in the academy, are universally referred to as the "monthly
insults."