American Speech: A Caddy's Compendium (1937)

American Speech: A Caddys Compendium (1937)

October 26, 2010 2:00 pm

October 26, 2010 2:00 pm
by Margaret Erskine Cahill

This is the second in a series of extracts from the archive

of American Speech a quarterly of linguistic usage
published on behalf of theAmerican Dialect Society.

Many of the terms a [golf] caddy employs are rich in imagery and, as may be seen from the accompanying
interpretations of the caddies terminology, caddies are not an unread lot. Their imagination is quickened along
with their wits, which many of them live by.

When a caddy says the house of pain, he is referring to the caddy house. Its inmates are variously known as
horrors, who are outside caddies, not regularly employed at this particular course; as bag rats, a caddys term of
affection for one another; or as loopers from the fact that a loop is one eighteen-hole round.A walk in the park is
their facetious way of referring to a nine-hole round.

A sack corresponds to a bag of clubs. A chirp is a cheap player, a nontipper. Wood butchers are dubs or poor
players. A bag snatcher is an over-aggressive caddy. A shop rat is a caddy who hangs around a professional,
ingratiating himself by running errands, etc., in order to get more work.

Three turns is synonymous to a good days work, it consists of caddying fty-four holes. A poorly kept course is
referred to as a prairie. A creep is a slow round. A sh and a Q is equivalent to a dollar and a quarter, the nominal
caddy fee. Pills are golf balls. A prince is a generous tipper. A shovel is used interchangeably with niblick

The jungle means the rough. While a day in the clouds is used to describe working on a hilly course. The
Scotchman is the appellation bestowed upon professionals, regardless of country. Big house is the club house.
Matinee loopers are so stigmatized because of their habit of reporting for duty late or in the afternoon.

Ice cream caddies are schoolboys who earn spending money through caddying, but who do not depend upon it for
a living. A looping fool is a caddy who holds the record for doing the most caddying per day, per week or per
season at any particular course. Toting doubles means carrying two bags.

Tiger steak is hamburger, which is a popular item in the caddys bill of fare. Youll eat grass tonight informs
another caddy that business is poor. A hole in the wall is a furnished room to a caddy. Loopers itch is another
name for Athletes Foot.

When forced to accept a call which is personally distasteful to him, a caddy is wont to speak of it as a turn in a
daze or the mechanical mile.

Send me out or send me home, see me walk, Mr. Caddymaster, or Aint seen the course for a week are their
plaints when work is scarce.

A few of these terms may be regional in their usage, but most of them are understood generally, whether heard on
a Southern, Western or Eastern course.

American Speech, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1937), pp. 155-156

The American Dialect Society
See:www.dukeupress.edu/americanspeech
Reproduced with permission.