In the Old West

WESTERN WORDS -- Ramon F. Adams --Universify of Oklahoma Press ($3).

When an oldtime cowboy wanted to tell how drunk he had been, he said he was so drunk he couldn't hit the ground with his hat in three throws. The cowboy liked his coffee strong. If a horseshoe would sink in it, he said, it wasn't ready. He called all coffee Arbuckle, after the brand commonly used on the range.

Western Words is a dictionary of 3,000 expressions, many still current, "of the range, cowcamp and trail." It begins with ace in the hole, meaning either a shoulder holster or a hideout, and it ends with zorrillas, cattle of the early longhorn breed.

One of the liveliest and most informal dictionaries since Dr. Johnson's, it is also one of the easiest to read. It gives a vivid characterization of cowboys and their life.

The oldtime cowboy was extremely ceremonious and intensely democratic. In the presence of ladies, he referred to a bull as an animal. He referred contemptuously to fistfights as dogfights. Oldtimers in the cattle country were said to be alkalied when "they knowed all the lizards by their first names, except the younger set." A young fellow, or a small man, was said to be fryin' size. When the cowboy got drunk he liked to have everyone know it -- he said he cut his wolf loose. Once four young cowpunchers rode their horses into a New Mexico saloon where an Eastern drummer was having a drink. When the drummer complained to the bartender that the horses jostled him, the bartender snorted, "What the hell y'u doin' in here afoot, anyhow?" When two friendly riders met on the trail, they stopped and sooner or later swung off their horses, squatted on their bootheels, began scratching in the dirt with broomweed stalks. "A cowhand kin jes' talk better when he's a-scratchin' in the sand like a hen in a dung heap." This was known as cow geography, from the pictures they drew on the ground.

Westerners carried five beans in the wheel -- five cartridges in their guns. Some -- mighty unpopular -- "were so tough they'd growed horns and was haired over." Their gun battles were called corpse and cartridge occasions', the aftermath "looked like beef day at an Injun agency." A bad man was a curly wolf, a bandido, cat-eyed, or just a plain killer. Sometimes a curly wolf could stay on the dodge, among the willows, or lookin' over his shoulder for quite a spell. But once caught, his fate was sealed. With a rope around his neck he was hung up to dry, or exalted.

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