I was describing a card sharp in my current WIP (work-in-progress, aka Book 7 of the Silver Rush series), when I stopped, wondering if I had ever addressed the term card sharp or its alternative card shark in my slang-o-rama postings.
After a quick search, I discovered I hadn't! An oversight on my part.
Soooooo here we go.
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The Phrase Finder has a nice post about card sharp and card shark, offering the following definition:
Someone who is skillful at playing or manipulating cards, or one who makes a living by cheating at cards.(You can see why I am surprised that I haven't addressed this bit of slang before.)
Phrase Finder goes on to say that both terms appeared first in the U.S., and offers up the following:
...the earliest known citations of 'card-sharp' and 'card-shark' come from the USA. The first of these is in the New York Correspondence column of the Kansas newspaper Freedom’s Champion, from September 1859:
"Few of your men of the ‘Far West’ have any idea of the ups and downs of a stock speculator. It is true you may occasionally have the example of a card sharp who yesterday drove his tandem and only to-day is obliged to go afoot…"'Card-shark' comes a few years later as in this example from Wisconsin newspaper The Daily Northwestern, October 1893:
Online Etymology notes that, in this general context, the term sharp or sharper comes from older stock, to wit:"A few days ago Charles Petrie opened a gambling house, which was promptly raided by the city police. Then Petrie got angry and swore out warrants for all the other keepers until every card shark in the city was taken in."
But in any case, to be true to my fictional times (the 1880s), I suppose I'd better go with the sharp(er) image.sharp (n.) "a cheat at games," 1797, short for sharper (1680s) in this sense. This leaves me scratching my head re: the Caravaggio painting below, which dates from 1595...
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| Clearly he's not scratching an itch on his back! The Cardsharps, circa 1595, by Caravaggio [Public domain] |
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7 comments:
Goodness. Innez did know a card sharp or two.
"Card shark" was a term I heard often growing up; there was a regular poker game going on in our flat. The sharks were all my aunts, uncles, and neighbors. No police were involved!
I was called a "pool shark" after I beat my college professor. She was not happy!
Hi Liz! Yes... she did... and she will be meeting more. ;-)
Hi Camille! So, your relatives played poker regularly? I love it! Were you able to hang around and watch or did they "shoo" you away? :-)
My mother played bridge regularly with her women friends. I associate those gatherings with the smell of coffee and cigarettes, and the sight of lipstick on the rims of the coffee cups.
Hi Carole! I can just imagine you "reeling in" the poor folk who thought they were going to have just a nice, friendly, casual game. ;-)
Hi Ann.
With apologies. Someday I shall learn to spell.
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