David Maurer

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David Warren Maurer (1906-1981) was a professor of linguistics at the University of Louisville from 1937-1972, and an author of numerous studies of the language of the American underworld. He received a doctorate from Ohio State University in Comparative Literature in 1935 and spent much of his academic career studying the language of criminals, drug addicts, and other marginal subcultures. He died on his farm outside of Louisville in 1981 at the age of 75 from a self-inflected gunshot wound.

Maurer spent his career recording the argot of moonshiners and pickpockets, but The Big Con [1] is his masterwork. Rife with such Runyon-esque personages as the Sanctimonious Kid, Ocean-Liner Al, and Limehouse Chappie, The Big Con reeks of 10,000 conversations in poolrooms and Pullman cars; its sentences ring with the raffish patois of '20s and '30s Americans on the move. "I'd sooner be a lamster any day than be tied up to a lop-eared mark," grouses one sharpie stuck with simpleminded prey.

While working on his magnum opus, Maurer won the trust of hundreds of swindlers, who let him in on not simply their language, but their folk-ways and the astonishing complex and elaborate schemes whereby unsuspecting marks, hooked by their own greed and dishonesty, were "taken off" - i.e. cheated - of thousands upon thousands of dollars. The products of amazing ingenuity, crack timing, and attention to every last detail, these "big cons" richly deserve Maurer's description as "the most effective swindling device which man has ever invented.". The Big Con is a treasure trove of American lingo (the write, the rag, the payoff, ropers, shills, the cold poke, the convincer, to put on the send) and indelible characters (Yellow Kid Weil, Barney the Patch, the Seldom Seen Kid, Limehouse Chappie, Larry the Lug). It served as the source for the Oscar-winning film The Sting and will delight fans of such writers as David Mamet, Jim Thompson, Elmore Leonard, and William Burroughs for its droll, utterly authoritative look at the timeless pursuit of relieving one's fellow man on his surplus cash.

In Kentucky Moonshine, David W. Maurer provides a realistic look at the craft and craftsmanship of the moonshiner. From discussions of infiltrating "dry" counties to law enforcement and insider's terminology, Maurer presents a fascinating study of this taboo, but popular, profession.

He also wrote Whiz Mob, a study of pickpockets, and Language of the Underworld.