Definition: All But Homeless

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I am sometimes guilty of using my own sub-language, or jargon. I think most writers do at one time or another. Its hard to get a new word or term defined and accepted but the Germans, or those who speak the Germanic languages do not care. They create and use compound words with speed and facility.

Sidewalk, rocketship, doorknob, jailbait, idiot-sh*t-for-brains, etc.

I have needed a term for someone who is essentially but not quite homeless for quite a while.

If “homeless” refers to someone who is chronically unemployed and does not have the money, or for some reason the capability, to have a place to sleep, to take a shower, to keep their stuff, and to cook a meal, we call that person homeless.

I define “all-but-homeless” as someone who would be homeless, except that their friends or family is putting them up somewhere.

This might be “couch surfing”, but couch surfing has a different feeling to it. “Couch surfing” suggests someone who is 20 something and who is able to mooch on a friend for a week or a month while they are looking for work. It has a healthy, youthful feel to it. It does not suggest the helplessness of homelessness.

An “all-but-homeless” person is someone who has tried for years to make a living, who has learned new skills, worked hard, is older than is trendy, but still cant figure out how to pay the rent. He or she is now a burden on their friends or family or both but doesnt want to be and is somewhat ashamed of it.

They are certainly better off than a “homeless” person but they are far from living a healthy, actualized life. They can not travel, can not afford medical care, can not afford new clothes, can not afford to go to conferences or go on vacation. They are in a prison of poverty and can not work their way out. Maybe they are a victim of their own decisions, maybe they have a disability whether acknowledged or unacknowledged, maybe they are a victim of government policies, maybe they are just unlucky, or maybe it is a combination of some of these or something else entirely. They are certainly better off than someone who is homeless, but that is about all you can say about it.

Early 18th Century British Underworld Slang

The Thieves Cant (or language) is a work written sometime between 1690 and 1720 by one B.E. Gent in London. It purports to be a dictionary of terms of art of the various "underworld" groups of the time: thieves, gypsies, beggars and so forth.

Its full title is:

A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient & Modern of the Canting Crew, in its several tribes, gypsies, beggars, thieves, cheats, &c.

In other words, this is underworld slang from what historians call the Early Modern Period in England..

The term "canting crew" is itself completely obscure to me, but it may refer to beggars, and their "cant", or speech, or possibly their begging rap.

When looking up the meaning of "canting crew", I came across the following review in The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/article/161410/canting-crew#

It is the case that subgroups of this type, e.g. outsiders, have always had their own "language", usually a vocabulary used by members of this group and the people they interact with. We have them all the time to this day, particularly with various groups of outcasts from polite society such as economists, philosophers, astrophysicists and so-called visual effects practitioners, who must disguise their anti-social and disagreeable beliefs behind a cloud of mysterious jargon known only to the elect.

Exactly how correctly this work describes the actual language used by these groups is not clear to me. But it is amusing in its own right whatever its historical accuracy.

Entry in online library:

http://archive.org/details/newdictionaryoft00begeuoft

Scan of The Thieves Cant in PDF form:

http://ia600504.us.archive.org/7/items/newdictionaryoft00begeuoft/newdictionaryoft00begeuoft.pdf

Text of The Thieves Cant

http://archive.org/stream/newdictionaryoft00begeuoft/newdictionaryoft00begeuoft_djvu.txt

Schadenfreude! Schadenfreude!

Schadenfreude (pronounced:  shah-den-freud) is that amazing word from German that refers to the pleasure one gets from the misfortune of others.

The recent event at the Hollywood Bowl where 18,000 people sang along with the Sound of Music has inspired me to document a poem/song that I wrote in NY after some particularly spectacular and bloody incident between senior vice presidents at Viacom in the mid-1990s.

It is to the tune of Edelweiss from The Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Schadenfreude!  Schadenfreude!
Its a pleasure to beat you.

          Black and blue,
          I told you

Its a pleasure to hurt you!

(with feeling)

Down the toilet your career will go!
          Career will go!
          Forever!

(slowly and with wistfulness)

Schadenfreude, Schadenfreude.
Its a pleasure to hurt you.

(c) MW 1995 all rights reserved

A picture of Christopher Plummer as Captain George Ritter von Trapp singing Edelweiss.

The post about the "Sing-A-Long Sound of Music":
http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com/2012/09/sing-long-sound-of-music.html