Thieve's Cant

[ThadiusTheGrey]

Heres a great site for thieves cant
http://www.thievesguild.cc/cant/english2cant.php

[UnholyWon]

Heres a great site for thieves cant
http://www.thievesguild.cc/cant/english2cant.php

When I played thieves I did my best to try and use the site above and twist somewhat to relate to the setting.

I can remember numerous conversations with MrGrendel and Flea's player at Worn's Ole time Stew where we used a simple version of thieves cant.

It was fun to use but generally lead to confusion and lots of tells to clarify what was said.

[Helge]

It was fun to use but generally lead to confusion and lots of tells to clarify what was said.

That's the point. RL thieves use the cant to confuse non-thieves.

[UnholyWon]

That's the point. RL thieves use the cant to confuse non-thieves.

We were all thieves... yep.

[Calavera]

Yup, "thieves cant" or to "speak easy" is used all the time, even in modern times. It is constantly evolving and hugely tied to culture and current events. It is also evolved directly out of personal relationships and jokes or experiences the speakers might have shared. So that certain phrases would only be known be certain cliques of people.

For example, if the two speakers  know of a person they killed together, and when they killed him they used a chair to bash his head in, they might say to each other, "Give the man a seat, he looks tired." And what they would be saying is that they should kill him.

The term 'speak easy' for the drinking establishments in prohibition America was the same thing. To speak easy was to not use the glaring words that might get you in trouble. It is to use innuendo and "inside jokes" or private references. You couldn't come out and say you were going to have a drink with your friends, but you could say you would go down and get haircuts together at the 'barbershop' which might have had a back room with a bar.

When I lived in a certain college town, for some reason everyone got to calling pot "George". It was weird and I am not sure how it started, but if you wanted to get a bag of weed, you would call your friend and ask if he had seen George lately. Surely at some point the cops who were supposedly tapping all these phones (yeah right) would get to know the word, and it would have to change.

This is key: a thieves cant must always change and evolve to stay hidden or else outsiders could learn it. To be able to shift and evolve so rapidly, it must be tied to innuendo and obscure references.

imo