An acquaintance of mine recently made reference to "the hot box" while relating the story of a local man's arrest and subsequent imprisonment. "The hot box" was her unique way of referring to the jail in which the fellow had been detained. What are some other colorful (and not so colorful) terms/phrases that people use in this regard? Please include the provenance, if known.
Jug
Quod
Clink
Pokey
Chokey
Inside
In stir
Porridge
yadda, yadda
Clink came from a prison of that name.
The rest - I could google 'em, but so can you!
I heard that clink came originally from the sound of the prisoners chains clinking.
clink2 (klngk)
n. Slang
A prison or a prison cell; a jail: spent the night in the clink.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[After Clink, a district of London famous for its prison.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition
Copyright © 1996, 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
[After Clink, a district of London famous for its prison.]
and you can still visit it in Southwark, on the South bank, near the Globe theatre, Borough market, and next door to Vinopolis the wine tasting experience. My son has a flat (ok apartment) nr Tower Bridge and we walk past it often enough.
It surprises me that the prison was called after the area, not the other way round. The area is Southwark (Sutherk) and the prison was attached to the Bishop's palace.
Rod
(Sutherk)Thanks. You anticipated my question.
In NY you get "sent up the river" (to Sing sing-- but if you want more about Sing sing-- look for a thread about places with double names...)
you get taken there in a "paddy wagon"-- (an ethic slur name for police wagons-- named come from the 1860-- when there was a large influx of Irish-- and to many got to drunk for local tastes-- they got hauled away in a police wagon that was soon nicknamed a ~.
Locally-- the "holding area" is the "Tombs"-- as in "I got arrested protesting and spent in the Tombs..."
Is Triangle still used in UK for a prison guard? Here the guards are often called "screws"
Slammer or pretentious), durance vile.
In the Navy,small offence = the brig, big one Portsmouth. In the Army, small offence = guardhouse, big one Leavenworth.
BTW, the phrase "The Tombs" originated because of the fantastic Egyptian Revival architecture of the NYC "Halls of Justice" (originally a courthouse, converted into a prison). The nickname has hung around even though the building is long gone. I'm looking online for a photo of the old building and will post a link if I find one. Egyptian Revival is a great style, but there are few good surviving examples aside from cemetery gates.
Is Triangle still used in UK for a prison guard? Here the guards are often called "screws""screws" here as well. I haven't heard "Triangle" as a UK prison guard, but it brings back 40 year old memories of a prison (I think)folk song with the line "The old triangle keeps on calling" which I think referred to the metal triangle used to call the prisoners to roll-call and meals and generally rule their day. I am going to have to google. and found (3 cheers for google)
http://www.acronet.net/~robokopp/eire/oldtrian.htmRod
Yes-- that is exactly where i knew it from-- I have gone on NY style pub crawls-- to McSorley-- and sat down and had a drink where Lincoln sat down after the Lincoln /Douglas debate-- and then went cross town-- and sat down and had a drink at the White Horse-- where Brendan B-- was known to sit and hoist a few.. and then down to the Ear-- an other historic bar--Done right-- you pass the whole thing off as a Historic walking tour..that just happened to involve a number of bars.(there are lots of other bars/pubs/drinking establishments to choose from). There are many bars in NY that never closed during prohibition.. they just laid low.. and keep working-- the Ear used to just be the Bar-- they just painted over the front of the B-- and said "Its a restaurant".
Yes-- Brendan was thrown into prison for possesing an alarm clock...
hoosegow (from Sp. juzgado)
I always liked the phrase 'up the river' which is from 'up the river without a paddle' I suppose.
Here are some others not quite so exotic as tsuwm's:
lockup
reformatory
the joint
pen (from penitentiary right?)
penal facility
... this list could get long
I've always known it as up the creek , which is interesting as I seem to remember from somewhere that creek is actually a North American coinage.
Bingley
> up the creek
I guess both work. In Australia they say 'up sh.. creek without a paddle'. The gaol sense is always 'up the river' though; it comes from England, does it not?
I don't think I've heard up the river as a term for prison before. Up the creek just means in trouble without any obvious way out.
Bingley
The gaol sense is always 'up the river' though; it comes from England, does it not?
BY, if I parse of Troy correctly, the term "up the river" comes from New York, where city prisoners-to-be were sent up the Hudson River to Sing-Sing.
thanks-- AS-- but the credit for confirming that to go (or be sent) Up the river goes to NY is fromFaldage-- who actually looked it up in the thread about double named places (poga poga/walla walla/sing sing, etc.)
Not from NY -- is "The big house" which refers to some federal penatentury-- but i don't know which one.. a google search gave some hints, but several sites refused to open... (some how, i think it is Ft Levenworth-- but what ever reasons i have for thinking this are too vague to refer to.)
Excellent. Now I know what Sing-Sing is. You see, I was listening to a CD from Cap. Kiwi's vast Hip-Hop collection today (Wu Tang - Forever), and one bloke says:
I sing a song from Sing-Sing, sippin on ginseng
I wondered what Sing-Sing might be, now I know!
As for the 'up the river' biz.. well, my guess was based on the fact that I learnt it from a real Cockney bloke.
BTW. a friend of mine comes from Baden-Baden.
somewhere that creek is actually a North American coinage
creek from Middle English crike, creke, from Old Norse -kriki bend
Rod
In Australia they say 'up sh.. creek without a paddle'.
Here we just say "up shit creek" when we mean in trouble. As for jail, I can't think of any that haven't been mentioned. Unless you count calling them by name.
That reminds me. In Manitoba, when someone is acting crazy and should be sent to the nuthouse, we talk about "sending them to Selkirk" (which is where the "insane asylum" is). In Alberta, you send people "to Ponoka" instead. (I can't remember where they go in Saskatchewan.) Do people in other places talk about this in the same way, using the name of the local psychiatric hospital as a threat/joke?
Bean,
Yep. Here in Georgia we talk about sending 'em to Milledgeville.
hi F!
sending 'em to Milledgeville.
Mill'd GeVille (hard g)?
In NYC-- send them to Bellview.. (which is on the east river at about 27th street-- and while the area across the river is an industrial park-- it does still have a Bell view.)
--> Gray-bar Hotel
In Michigan, we refer to people becoming a guest of the state in Jackson. The Jackson state prison is (was?) the world's largest walled prison.
http://home.att.net/~redsmith/prison/pri1106.jpg
In the Navy,small offence = the brig, big one Portsmouth.
In the Army, small offence = guardhouse, big one Leavenworth.
Dear wwh, Portsmouth Naval Prison in Kittery Maine, was closed about 30 years ago!
And yes, it's the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and it is in Kittery, Maine. The thinking is that bases in early days of the republic were named for the nearest large city.
And as a point of interest Barracks Two for the U.S. Marine Corps is at Portsmouth N.S.
My-son-the-Major went to Command & Staff College at Fort Leavenworth which is an old post and much of it is quite beautiful. They have a Museum on post if you're in Kansas and interested militariana.
In Michigan, we refer to people becoming a guest of the state
The equivalent here has a much classier ring. To say that someone is "a guest of Her Majesty" almost sounds flattering, no?
To say that someone is "a guest of Her Majesty" almost sounds flattering, no? Yeah.
I first came across that expression last year, in
The Professor and the Madman.
sending 'em to Milledgeville.
Faldage inquires: Mill'd GeVille (hard g)?
I'll never look at Millige-ville again in the same light.
"a guest of Her Majesty"
The phrase we often hear here is "detained at her Majesty's pleasure" which sounds too much like "for Her Majesty's pleasure" to me. I suppose whether the detained would also get some pleasure out of the experience depends on how closely their specific tastes match.
Rod
You see, I was listening to a CD from Cap. Kiwi's vast Hip-Hop collection today (Wu Tang - Forever), and one bloke says
[You are entirely confusing me with someone else -e]
The phrase we often hear here is "detained at her Majesty's pleasure"
Thanks for clearing that up, Rod. Here in NZ we have a sentence called preventive detention, an indefinite sentence, allowing the authorities to incarcerate the recipient of that sentence for as long as they see fit. It is easily the harshest sentence available here, and seldom used. I had always assumed that the phrase you mentioned referred to the same sort of sentence.
"detained at her Majesty's pleasure"
Max, you are quite right. The phrase does refer to an indeterminate sentence, usually for the criminally insane.
Rod
You see, I was listening to a CD from Cap. Kiwi's vast Hip-Hop collection today (Wu Tang - Forever), and one bloke says
[You are entirely confusing me with someone else -e]which is why Mr. Capital Kiwi, sir, you posted the response to me and not the Battling Boy?
Rod
Dear Rod,
Yes, I am posting this to you, but C.K. did not, according to his quotes. 'T'aint his fault that you get notified of being clicked on... I for one still advocate clicking on whatever the last post is, most of the time. Also--I liked your term Battling Boy!
Gee, now we have GRITS, a Britboy, and a Battling Boy. What next?
==========================================================
From Encarta (note the origin):
Creek (plural Creek, Creeks) noun
1. PEOPLES member of Native N American people: a member of a Native North American people who originally occupied lands in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, and whose members now live mainly in central Oklahoma and southern Alabama. The Creek were one of the Five Civilized Nations who, under the Removal Act of 1830, were sent to live on reservations in Oklahoma.
2. LANGUAGE Creek language: the Muskogean language of the Creek people. Creek is spoken by about 50,000 people.
[Early 18th century. From creek; from the large number of creeks in their country.]
I for one still advocate clicking on whatever the last post is, most of the time
For me it depends. If it's a general extension of the thread then yes. If it's a specific response then I'll try to respond to the original poster. That way they get the answer, and any congrats or otherwise.
I had not heard of the Creek tribe, only of the Cree, who are different.
Rod
"The hot box" was her unique way of referring to the jail in which the fellow had been detained.
Re-reading this first post it hit me that "Hot Box" has a prisoner-of-war connotation, mostly WWII, where a prisoner was placed in a box, sometimes fabricated of metal, in the hot sun.
Terrible.
A Hot Box was featured in the movie "Bridge on the River Kwai" and Alec Guiness, playing the senior British officer, was placed in it to break his spirit.
The phrase does refer to an indeterminate sentence, usually for the criminally insane. Wow - you lock up your country music fans?
The sentence is used similarly here.
Would this be the opposite torture that the one suffered through in the "cooler", or was *cooler an 'endearing' name for hotbox?
I thought I heard that 'cool' became a word for 'isolated' in the underground beat generation (not the surface published version).
The cooler brings thoughts of Col.Hogan and/or Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.
Would this be the opposite torture that the one suffered through in the "cooler"
"Hot Box" in hot climes - isolation, no food/water - South Pacific Theater of War. Heat prostration, dehydration.
"Cooler" in cold climes - isolation, no food/water in cold climes - European Theater of War. Hypothermia.
Starvation resulting if isolation long term. Prisoners were already debilitated by internment.
Consider : most of the enlisted soldiers were men barely out of their teens and officers not much older.
Brave men.