Clews & Curios · NYC Stories
Irish Gambler’s Argot
The coded language of the 1890s gambling dens — and the Gaelic roots beneath “poker,” “faro,” and the rest.
The gambling dens and saloons of 1890s New York were rich with their own private language — a coded argot that kept outsiders confused and insiders connected. Many of the terms that Joe Phenix and his fellow detectives would have encountered on the streets had roots in the Irish language, brought across the Atlantic by waves of immigrants who shaped the city’s underworld as surely as its commerce.
An eye-opening article from CounterPunch traces the Gaelic origins of poker, faro, and other gambling terminology, revealing a hidden linguistic heritage beneath the smoke-filled card tables of the Gilded Age. Words we use every day — from “poker” itself to the slang of the betting parlour — carry echoes of an Irish past that most Americans have forgotten.
A 19th-century gambling parlour — the kind of place where Irish slang would have shaped American card-table English.
For anyone fascinated by the language and culture of 19th-century New York, this article is essential reading. The world of Dark Lantern Tales is built on exactly these kinds of revelations: the hidden histories embedded in everyday speech.
Read at CounterPunch
The Sanas — Irish Etymology of Faro, Poker, and the Secret Flash Words →
“Language is the road map of a culture.”
— Rita Mae Brown