memes

Education time.

Dashiell Hammett was a WW1 veteran who fought the Army for the right to join up to fight Hitler. After the war he was sent to jail for refusing to name names when the government wanted to know who was in the Communist Party.

After working as a real life detective, Hammett turned to writing crime fiction. In one of his stories he used authentic crook slang. 'The rag lay' was stealing laundry off of clothes lines. It was the kind of thing only the lowest miscreants would do. His editor censored 'the rag lay' because it sounded dirty to him. Hammett didn't raise a fuss, but in his next story he had his hero call a cheap crook a 'gunsel' and a 'punk.'

'Gunsel' and 'punk' were both slang for men who offered sex for protection in prison.