David Warren Maurer (April 12, 1906 – June 11, 1981) was a professor of

linguistics Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...

at the

University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one o ...

from 1937 to 1972. He was the writer of numerous studies of the language of the American underworld.

Biography

Maurer received a doctorate from the

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

Comparative Literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

in 1935. He spent much of his academic career studying the language of criminals, drug addicts, and other marginal subcultures. In 1974 he filed a $10 million lawsuit charging that the movie ''

The Sting ''The Sting'' is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936, involving a complicated plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss ( Robert Shaw).'' Variety'' film review; December 12, 1973, pag ...

'' and the book of the same name had been copied from his book ''The Big Con.'' The lawsuit was settled out of court in 1976. He died on his farm outside

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Works

''The Big Con'' is Maurer's most popular and perhaps most important book. It was published in 1940 by

Bobbs-Merrill Company The Bobbs-Merrill Company was a book publisher located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Company history The company began in 1850 October 3 when Samuel Merrill bought an Indianapolis bookstore and entered the publishing business. After his death in ...

. The source material for it came from Maurer's correspondence, interviews, and informal chats with hundreds of underworld denizens during the 1930s. Among the interviewed criminals were such figures as Joseph "The Yellow Kid" Weil, Charles Gondorff and Limehouse Chappie. Maurer won the trust of hundreds of grifters, who let him in on their language and their methods. The book served as a source for the film ''

'' as well as the episode "Horseplay" from ''

The Adventures of Harry Lime ''The Adventures of Harry Lime'' (broadcast in the United States as ''The Lives of Harry Lime'') is an old-time radio programme produced in the United Kingdom during the 1951 to 1952 season. Orson Welles reprises his role of Harry Lime from the c ...

''. Maurer wrote three other books: ''Narcotics and Narcotic Addiction'', ''Whiz Mob: A Correlation of the Technical Argot of Pickpockets with Their Behavior Pattern'', and ''Kentucky Moonshine''. In all these books, Maurer described the language, mostly the lexicon, of the people living in these "subcultures". For example, in the last book, he focused on the craft of the moonshiners, discussed their infiltration of "dry" counties and reported their terminology. ''Language of the Underworld'' is a collection of several of his previous published articles collected by two of his students. It includes an introduction that describes the methods he used to collect criminal

argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argo ...

. Maurer also wrote ''The American Confidence Man''.

References

External links

David Maurer, the Dean of Criminal Language
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maurer, David 1906 births 1981 deaths Linguists from the United States Ohio State University Graduate School alumni University of Louisville faculty Suicides by firearm in Kentucky 20th-century linguists 1981 suicides

Biography

Works

References

Further reading

External links