Carny, also spelled carnie, is an informal term used in North America for a traveling carnival employee, and the language they use, particularly when the employee operates a game ("joint"), food stand ("grab", "popper", or "floss wagon"), or ride ("ride jock") at a carnival. The term "showie" is used synonymously in Australia, while " showman " is used in the United Kingdom. [1]
Carny is thought to have become popularized around 1931 in North America, when it was first colloquially used to describe one who works at a carnival. [2] The word carnival , originally meaning a "time of merrymaking before Lent" and referring to a time denoted by lawlessness (often ritualised under a lord of misrule figure and intended to show the consequences of social chaos), came into use around 1549.
The carny vocabulary is traditionally part of carnival cant, a secret language. It is an ever-changing form of communication, in large part designed to be impossible to understand by an outsider. [3] As words are assimilated into the culture at large, they lose their function and are replaced by more obscure or insular terms.[ citation needed ] Most carnies no longer use cant, but some owners/operators and "old-timers" ("half yarders") still use some of the classic terms.
In addition to carny jargon, some carnival workers used a special infix ("earz" or "eez" or "iz") to render regular language unintelligible to outsiders. This style eventually migrated into wrestling, hip hop, and other parts of modern culture. [4]
The British form of fairground cant is called "polari".
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Tony Hawk in Boom Boom Sabotage is a 2006 animated sports film starring Tony Hawk, produced by Mainframe Entertainment. FUNimation Entertainment distributed the film in the United States, while Alliance Atlantis distributed it in Canada. In Mainframe's earlier versions of the film, it used cel-shaded characters. Some of the early designs can still be seen on Mainframe's website.
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