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Monthly Archives: May 2011

Special Announcement: A New Book by Anthony Vaver Will Be Published By Pickpocket Publishing

My new book, Bound with an Iron Chain: The Untold Story of How the British Transported 50,000 Convicts to Colonial America will be published by Pickpocket Publishing in the early summer of 2011. In the 18th century, thousands of British convicts were separated from their families, chained together in the hold of a ship, and […]

The American Malefactor’s Dictionary: bone

bone – 1. to take, steal, as in the way a dog runs off with a bone; 2. to be arrested, carried off, taken into custody; 3. to beg, to ask for. Sources London Antiquary, A [Hotten, John Camden]. A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words. 2nd ed. London: John Camden Hotten, 1860. […]

The American Malefactor’s Dictionary: boat

boat – 1. transport; 2. transport a prisoner; 3. to go in with, as in “to boat with another”: “to be his partner in the same boat—in the same scrape”; 4. to go to sea. Sources Barrère, Albert and Charles G. Leland. A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant. [London]: The Ballantyne Press, 1889. Matsell, […]

The American Malefactor’s Dictionary: boarding-house and boarding-school

boarding-house – city prison, the Tombs (New York City prison). boarding-school – penitentiary. Sources Barrère, Albert and Charles G. Leland. A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant. [London]: The Ballantyne Press, 1889. Farmer, John S. and W. E. Henley. A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English. Abridged from Slang and Its Analogues. London: George Routledge […]