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COWBOY LINGO
Around Montana ranch country, cowboys & cowgirls use phrases and expressions that probably seem like a foreign language to other folks.
Horses : Around here horses are called "hay burners" and no one gets bucked off, instead "You lost the saddle" or "got tossed". A bad horse is a "hammer head", "don't know whoa", or "would be shot if it wouldn't waste a bullet". A horse that runs with his head up is called a "star gazer". A good horse is "smarter than a cow", and sometimes turns so fast it leaves you "ridin' air"
Women: The highest praise a ranch woman can expect is: "She can out think a cow", or is "a real hand". If she isn't quite that good she: "may be dumber than a post hole but decorative", "a bit of fluff", "will never make a hand" or "don't know bull from steer". A woman is never pregnant, instead she's "wearing a hatching jacket", or "has one in the chute". A baby isn't born. Instead it's "popped", "dropped" or hatched".
Children: Children are called "curtain crawlers", "crumb snatchers" or "fuzz pickers". Parents end up with a "filly", "heifer", or a "free ranch hand" instead of a girl or boy.
Stupidity: "So dumb he couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the sole", "wouldn't know horse manure if he stepped in it", "is three bales short of a load", "is half a bubble outta plumb".
The understatement : Ranch folks are masters at understatement. When it's 40 below outside it's "A bit nippy out." The wind is just "brisk" when half the roof just blew off.
Here are a few other phrases and expressions that were and are used by cowboys here in the west.
A Fork Saddle - A saddle with the front end looking like an "A," no swells
Above Snakes - Above ground. Said of a man who's still alive.
All full of hisself - Egotistical
App (or Appy) - Appaloosa horse
Arbuckle's Coffee - The Arbuckle brothers of Pittsburgh were the first wholesalers to ship roasted coffee in sacks, a staple of cowhand meals. The Arbuckles also had a large horse ranch near Cheyenne, Wyoming. Their roasted coffee beans in one-pound brightly colored bags was such a success, it was said the range cow business should have honored the Arbuckle brothers by erecting a monument to them somewhere on the High Plains.
Bach - To bachelor it. For men to keep house without a woman's help. Pronounced, and sometimes spelled, "batch".
Brand - Distinctive design burned into a cow / horses hide to show ownership.
Benzinery - A low-grade drinking place. Cheap whiskey was sometimes called benzene.
Berdache - An Indian male who dressed and lived entirely as a woman, fulfiling that cultural role within the tribe. Sometimes called in Indian languages a "would be woman" and sometimes thought of as a third sex. Common among the tribes of the Americas, these men-women had social and religious powers. They might be givers of sacred names; first to strike the sun-dance pole; leaders of scalp dances; good luck to war parties; visionaries and predictors of the future; matchmakers; excellent artisans in beadwork, quillwork, hide-tanning and making clothing; creators and singers of songs. Understood as following a vision by most Indians, they were not tolerated by whites. They persist today, discreetly.
Bug Juice - Booze, firewater
Butt Log - In logging, the section of tree nearest the stump; the biggest log. Also butt cut, the length of log just above the stump.
Bull Nurse - Ranch representative who accompanies shipped cattle to market
Calf Crop - Percentage of newborn calves
Calf Slobber - Meringue pie topping.
Canned Cow - Evaporated milk.
Cowboys were fond of quoting a verse about canned milk:
No teats to pull, no hay to pitch.
Jes' punch a hole in the sonofabitch.Cookie - The camp cook. (Also called bean master, belly cheater, dough wrangler, gut robber.) The trail cook was undisputed master of the 60-foot area surrounding the chuck wagon and was noted for being surly and ill-tempered. Although his working conditions may have given him many reasons for grumbling, he was proud of his work and usually faithful to the outfit. One of the old west adages was "Never argue with a skunk, a mule or a wagon cook."
Cow Grease - Butter.
Chaparral - Dense thicket
Chaps - Protective leather coverings for the legs of cowboys
Chinks - Short chaps, usually fringed & stopping just below the knee
Chinook - Warm, dry wind that originates on the leeward slopes of mountains
Chips - Dried cow or buffalo manure used to fuel a fire in the absence of wood
Sheltered young women from the east homesteading on the plains often had trouble with the cowchip aspect of frontier living. At first they picked up the chips with two sticks. Then they gravitated to using a rag. Eventually they could be out of the bread dough, into the chips, and back to the bread dough without so much as a dust of the hands. An example of familiarity breeding contempt, or perhaps just realism.
Code of the West - Gentleman's agreement to certain rules of conduct for survival
Cow - The dumbest animal God created
Cow Horse - horse who has the ability to anticipate the behavior of cattle
Crow Hop - Stiff legged jumps by a horse that doesn't know how to buck
Dally - Wrap taken around the saddle horn with the tail end of a lariat rope
Dough gods - Blobs of sourdough fried in hot grease.
Dunn Horse - Yellowish brown colored horse, usually with black stockings, mane & tail
Earmark - Distinctive cut in a cows ear to show ownership.
Farmer's Riggin' - Bib-overalls
Gelding - Castrated stud horse
Gravel Grinders - Spurs with a long shank which drag the ground as one walks. Useful for short legged riders.
Greener - Inexperienced hand
Grulla - Mouse colored horse
Hemp - Cowboy talk for rope; in verb form to hang (someone).
Hemp fever - was a morbidly jocular term for a hanging.
Hemp party - (also string party) meant the same. A hemp committee was a group of vigilantes or a lynch mob (depending on your point of view) and a hemp necktie was the rope they did the deed with.
Hen fruit - Eggs.
Hounds - Rowdies of the gold-rush days of San Francisco.
Hooks - Spurs
Hull - Saddle
Jackpot - Dangerous situation
Jackpot (Rodeo events) - Contestants pool their money which is then awarded to the winners.
John B. - Stetson hat
Saddle Leggings - Chaps
Lineback Dunn - Dunn horse with a black line running down the spine
Makin's (or heifer dust) - Sack of tobacco, usually Bull Durham.
Man for Breakfast - A murdered body in the streets at dawn. Commonplace in the early days of Los Angeles and Denver.
On the Prod - Full of piss and vinegar and looking for trouble. Said of both people and critters.
Pecker Pole - What a logger called a small tree or sapling.
Parade Chaps - A pair of chaps strictly for show. Might be worn for the grand entry parade at a rodeo.
Pootin' Pony - Spirited horse
Pimp Sticks - Store-bought cigarettes.
Prairie Coal - Cowchips or dried cow manure, used to build cook fires in treeless areas.
Prairie Oysters - Fried calf gonads. Also known as Rocky Mountain Oysters.
Puncher - Cowhand
Ride for the Brand - Being loyal to your employer
Saddle blankets - Pancakes.
Sonofabitch Stew - A stew utilizing all parts of a beef except the beller.
No one knows who originated this concoction and origin of the name has been legendary. The stew was probably born out of necessity because when an animal was butchered the flesh would not be ready to cook for at least a day, even by cow camp standards. The various organs --- heart, tongue, sweetbreads, liver, brains --- could be cooked while the meat was still warm. To feed the entire crew, the cook combined the organs to create a hearty dish.Sow belly - Salt pork.
Spotted pup - Rice pudding with raisins.
Swamper - Cook's helper, dishwasher
Salty - Fiesty
Section - 640 acres & one square mile
Shepherd's Bible - 3 pound mail order catalog
Shotguns - Step-in chaps similar to a pair of pants
Slicker - Rain jacket
Slickfork - "A" Fork saddle
Soogan - Bedroll
Spur Track - Mark left across a saddle from a spur when the rider is bucked off
Stampede - Runaway herd
Stringin' a whizzer - Telling a tall tale
Twine Twirler - Calf or steer roper
Unshucked - Cowboy talk for naked.
An unshucked gun is one that's out of the holster.Waddy - One of the words for cowboy, especially a cowboy who drifted from ranch to ranch and helped out in busy times.
Jo Mora and Ramon Adams both suggest that the word derived from wad, something used to fill in, but this notion isn't widely accepted. Neither is the suggestion that it comes from chewing tobacco. To add to the mystery, waddy first meant "rustler", then "cowboy". Also spelled waddie.Woad (also wad) - a plant grown, mostly in England to make a blue dye consisting primarily of indigotin. It was supplanted by indigo, then later by synthetic dyes. People who worked the woad plantations in the Fens of Holland, Lincolnshire, and Cambridgeshire still call it wad, just as it was pronounced 1000 years ago. People who worked in the woad fields were called waddies, or less frequently woadmen. (From Woad in the Fens by Norman T. Wills) It likely crossed the atlantic with migrant agricultural workers (cowboys).
A Windy - A tall tale
Wish Book - Mail order catalog
Phrases used by cowboys
Cold - 'cold as a well digger's ass in Montana'.
Fat Person - 'so fat y'u'd have to throw a diamond hitch to keep him in the saddle'.
Ignorant Person - 'couldn't drive nails in a snow bank'.
Impossible Task - 'like try'n to scratch yur ear with your elbow'.
Real Ignorant Person - 'brain cavity wouldn't hold 'nuf water for a cactus plant'.
Sad - 'happy as ducks in Arizona'.
Sale Terms - 'I'll give you a little cash now and a slow note for the balance'.
Stingy Person - 'so tight if he owned a lake he wouldn't give a duck a drink of water'.
Ugly - 'uglier than a new sheared sheep'.
Useless Object - 'as useless as a twenty-two shell in a twelve gauge shotgun.'