Virtually every profession and hobby has its own unique set of colloquialisms and glossary of terms. A surefire way to know you've found your way into the core of a fandom or trade is how liberally you use the words and phrases associated with the field. I spent many hours importing pro wrestling's lexicon of terms in my early teen years. Phrases like heel, babyface, hard way and broadway still permeate my vocabulary daily.
A smattering of those terms made it into the mainstream. While reading an article from Variety the other day, I stood in awe as the author sprinkled in wrestler speak—such as heel turn—into his writing. Even though wrestling was unreasonably popular in the late 90s, I never imagined its vernacular would seep into our language as contemporary slang.
Maybe you haven't heard of any of these terms. Or, maybe you have heard of them, but the speaker sandwiched them so stealthily between other words, you didn't notice. It's also possible you use these terms yourself and want to know where they came from. In any event, the video above, featuring wrestling legend and historian Jim Cornette, will shed light on one of the last surviving carnival languages.
