"Dipe" in "Dipe-ducat" (subway ticket) in 1922 "Flappers' Dictionary

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>In a Sept. 27, 2003 ads-l message, Barry Popik presented a Flappers'
>Dictionary (14 Sept. 1922 _Edwardsville Intelligencer_ (Edwardsville,
>Illinois).
>Several items call for attention, but none so much as "Dipe" in
>"Dipe-ducat -- a subway ticket." I checked the microfilm. The spelling
>really is "Dipe."
>
>    But what does this word mean?

I cannot find it elsewhere (except in the same piece printed in another
newspaper of the time).

The only word "dipe" which I find immediately is a casual contraction of
"diaper".

When there is only a single known instance of a word, of course there is
always a significant possibility of plain error. So maybe there never was
such a word at all: maybe it's a typo, for example; although the same
spelling appears in the other paper, probably they came from the same
printed source.

"Ducat" means "ticket", that's well known. So "dipe" might mean "subway".
Maybe "dipe" is an error for "pipe", which might be used [and in fact has
been used] for "subway" (cf. "tube"). Just one possibility.

-- Doug Wilson