Re: Cants

Tristan McLeay wrote:


> * Meat pies are a specific kind of pies. Basically, they take the meat
>   that's left over after they've made the sausages, mince mean, dogfood
>   etc., mix it in with something they pass off as gravy, and shove it into
>   a pie. They serve one person.
That's ghastly. Same thing here in Michigan-- they're attributed to the
Cornish, and called pasties ['p&stiz]. Very ho-hum.  Get acquainted with
Argentine empanadas, the same idea but no gravy:  fry up chopped beef,
onion, garlic, chopped olives and raisins (yes!! the best part); some add
chopped egg and diced potato (non-authentic).  Bake in a pie-pastry (small,
for one).  Yum. (The same mixture is equally good in a pita-pocket, if you
can't make decent pie dough).

>   I have nothing against a pie whose main ingredient happens to be mince
>   meat.
In the US, that's a dessert (though Vermonters may eat it for breakfast, as
I've done too)-- chopped apples, pears? raisins, citron, a little chopped
beef and, traditionally, suet, all marinated I think in vinegar/sugar/spices
and brandy or rum. Yum2.  Appropriate to this time of year, Thankgiving and
Christmas dinners.

Back to Peter Bleakley's topic!!
>
> > I've also heard of Polari, which I believe is generally along
> > the lines of "How bona it is to gander your eek!"
If you google for Polari you'll come up with some interesting websites.
There was some amusing discussion of it 2-3 years back, when "Chollie"
(Charles Haberl or Haeberl, if I've got the spelling right) was with us.  I
seem to recall, it began as sailors' jargon, then somehow ^_^ passed into
the gay world.
>
> Well, there's always pig latin (or igpay atinlay), where you take the
> first letter of the word (or consonant cluster perhaps), shove it at the
> end, and add ay. Something funny happens with words that begins with
> vowels too.
>
In Buenos Aires, the underworld developed something called "Lunfardo", I
think a mix of Italian, some Spanish Gypsy, word-play etc.  It pops up in
some of the older tango lyrics, and still in some slang. BTW Pablo Flores'
website has or used to have a nice list of circa anno 2000 Argentine slang
(not "cant", strictly speaking).

llotivenco [Zoti'BeNko] -- tenement house (crowded urban multiple dwelling)
(< conventillo)
feca con chele -- café con leche
These are exs. of "vesre" (< revés 'backwards') which Borges pooh-poohed as
mainly the province of "alumnos del cuarto grado"  I gather it's the Span.
equivalent of pig-latin.

I think two Span. vesre words found their way into Tagalog-- kosing "a five
centavo coin" (cinco), and komang 'crippled, lame' (manco).  Can't imagine
why just those two, but I haven't found any others in the dictionary.
Probably nowadays they play with English words.

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