Graffiti slang in two books (1982, 2001)

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THE GRAFFITI SUBCULTURE:
YOUTH, MASCULINITY AND IDENTITY
IN LONDON AND NEW YORK
by Nancy Macdonald
Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave
2001
...
Pg. XI:
GLOSSARY
Active: A writer who currently paints.
All city: A writer whose work can be found in many different locations.
Bad: SOmething which is great or fantastic.
Battle: A competition between writers using pieces or tags.
Bite: To copy another writer's work.
Black book: A sketchbook containing writers' graffiti designs.
Bomb, cane, destroy, kill: To completely cover something in graffiti.
Buff: To chemically clean graffiti from the surface of a train.
Bumpkin: A writer who does not live in London.
Burn: To paint exceptionally well.
Burner: A well-executed piece.
Cap; fat or skinny: Spray can nozzles which make the spray width wide or narrow.
Catch tags: To tag one's name here and there.
Cheap fame: A profile that has not been earnt through hard work.
Crew: A group of affiliated writers.
Cross out, dog out, line out: To put a line through another writer or crew's name.
Cross out war: A dispute between writers who are lining out each others' names.
Diss, cuss: To disrespect or insult another writer.
Down: A writer who is part of a crew or highly respected.
Drop: To paint a piece.
Dry, lame, wak: SOmething which is bad or of substandard quality.
Dub: A quick outline of a writer's name with a silver or gold painted interior.
End to end: A piece covering the entire length of a train carriage.
Fanatic, hardcore: A highly active or reckless writer.
Fill-in: The interior shade of a piece, throwup or dub.
Freights, BR's: Overland trains which travel across the country.
Give props: To give a writer credit.
Go over: To write over another writer's name with your own.
Grass: A police informant.
Hall of fame: A legal or semi-legal walled painting site.
Hot: A risky yard or area which is being monitored by the police.
Pg. XII:
Inactive: A writer who has temporarily stopped painting.
Jock: A sycophant or wannabe.
King: The most accomplished or prolific writer.
Line: A line on the underground or subway.
Mission: An illegal painting trip.
New jack: A new or recent writer.
New school: A newer generation of writers.
Old school: An older generation of writers.
On tour: A trip abroad to do graffiti and/or steal paint.
Outline: THe line solhouetting a piece, throwup or dub.
Pay one's dues: To show one's dedication through a full and active illegal career.
Piece: A painting, short for masterpiece. To paint a word or image with more than two colours.
Props: A writer's credits.
Rack: To steal.
Rads: Police.
Rep: A writer's reputation.
Retire: To give up painting graffiti on a regular basis.
Safe: Something which is "good" or without risk.
Scar: Graffiti that is still faintly visible after having been chemically cleaned.
Sell out: A writer who renounces illegal work and works commercially for money.
Shout out: To thank or acknowledge someone.
Tag: A writer's name or signature.
Tagging, hitting, getting up: Writing one's name or signature.
Third rail: The electrified rail on a train track.
Three-stroke: A throwup with the first letter of a writer's name.
Throw down: To put a writer in a crew.
Throwup: A quick outline of a writer's name with a black or white painted interior.
Top to bottom: A piece reaching from the top of a train carriage to the bottom.
Toy: A young, inexperience or artistically incompetent writer.
Train jam: An organized group graffiti attack on the underground system.
Up: A prolific writer.
Whole car: A piece covering the entire surface of a train carriage.
Whole train, worm: A piece or series of pieces extending the entire length of a train.
Pg. XIII:
Wildstyle: A complex writing style characterized by its angular interlocking letters.
Window down: A piece painted below the windows of a train carriage.
Writer: Someone who writes graffiti. A member of the subculture.
Yard, depot, lay up: A place where trains are berthed.
...
...
...
GETTING UP:
SUBWAY GRAFFITI IN NEW YORK:
by Craig Castleman
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press
1982
...
(Foreword)
New York City teenagers have been "getting up"--marking and painting their names on subway trains--since the late 1960s.
...
Pg. 19: Style, form, and methodology, major concerns of most writers, are secondary in signifance to the prime directive in graffiti: "getting up." The term has been used by writers since the mid-1970s. Before that time other terms, including _getting around_, _getting over_, and _getting the name out_, were used to signify the same idea.
...
Pg. 21: "Taggers" on the other hand, according to Keno, Son I, and other full-time devotees of the form, have to write their names at least a thousand times before they can expect to be noticed by the other writers.
(...)
Many writers also spend a great deal of time sitting in subway stations watching and criticizing the pieces that go by, passing around their sketches, and "autographing" each other's "black books" (hardbound sketch pads that almost all writers carry with them). Many writers put a great deal of care into these autographs, and a writer who does an exceptionally fine drawing in one of them is said to have "burned the book." A "burner" in an autograph book reflects well on both the artist and the owner of the book.
...
Pg. 25:
Among the strongest of these terms are "nasty," "the death," "vicious," "bad," and "dirty." Other terms of approval include "the joint," "juicy," "down," "down with the crew," "burner," "on," and "snap."
(...)
...and "wild style," a name used to describe almost any "unreadable" style. There is substantial disagreement among writers as to who first coined the term _wild style_. One writer stated that "it was some guy who lived 'way up in the Bronx who thought it up first. He went crazy later on. I think he's dead now."
...
Pg. 29:
There is, however, a widely recognized and honored title, "king of the insides," which is granted to the person who does the most tagging on a particular line.
...
Pg. 31:
The term _throw-up_ is also used to refer to writing done in other forms that is lacking in style. When used to describe anything but an intentional throw-up, the term has the same meaning as _bad style_.
_Pieces_
Pieces, short for "masterpieces," are the names, usually consisting of four or more letters, that are painted on the outsides of subway trains. (...)
_Top-To-Bottoms_
Generally referred to as _T-to-Bs_, these are names, often accompanied by drawings and other backgrounds and decorations, that extend from the bottom of a subway ar to its top but not the full length of the car.
...
Pg. 35:
_End-to-Ends_
...E-to-E...
..."rack up" (steal)...
...
Pg. 36:
On two occasion, however, groups of writers have managed to paint entire trains from top to bottom and end to end. These gigantic works are known as whole trains or "worms."
...
Pg. 43:
..."I'm the Love Sick Bomber [meaning master writer] Just surviving in New York City."
(...)
_Backgrounding_
Since the early days of subway graffiti there has been a code among the writers banning them from "backgrounding" (also called "going over" or "crossing out") each other's pieces.
...
Pg. 46:
_Racking Up_
It is a tradition among the most graffiti writers that all materials used in writing be stolen. The process of acquiring such material is called "racking up." Racking up is like any other sort of shoplifting: the thief takes an object, hides it on his person, (Pg. 47-ed.) and gets out of the store as quickly and unobtrusively as possible.
(...)
If more paint is needed during the summer, the most popular method of acquiring it is to "rack up in your socks," hiding the cans under a pair of baggy-legged trousers.
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Pg. 48:
There have also been a few cases of "mass racking," in which a large group of writers have entered a store, grabbed paint, and then run out.
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Pg. 49:
The older cars (writers call them "coalminers") have a surface that is much harder to clean than that of the newer stainless-steel cars (called "ding dongs" or "rocket trains") that are used on the IND and BMT lines.
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Pg. 61:
At first he painted only his name once or twice on each car he encountered, but then he started "bombing" the trains, covering whole cars with what he referred to as "my throw-ups."
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Pg. 76:
_Toys_
The word _toy_ is used by writers to refer to anything insignifcant. Small pens are called "toy markers"; short-run trains, like the Times Square-Grand Central shuttle, are "toy trains"; and especially, _toys_ is used to describe inferior or inexperienced writers.
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Pg. 107:
..."DTs" (yard detectives)...
...
Pg. 172:
...were beakies or shooflies [MTA inspectors]...