Names taken from the coloring of police clothes or the coloring of police cars: blue boy, blue jeans, man-in-the-blue, salt and pepper, black and white, blue and white; A female police officer: girlie bear, honey bear, lady bear, mama bear, sugar bear,smokey beaver; A city policeman or rural police: citty kitty, country Joe, country mounty, little bear, local yokel; state police: boogey man, boy scouts, state bears, whatevers;barnies, bear, bearded bubby, big brother, bull, Dudley, do-right, Peter Rabbit; An unmarked or hidden police car: brown-paper bag, night crawler, pink panther, slick top, sneaky snake; A radar unit: shotgun, electric teeth, gunrunner, Kojak with a Kodak, smoke screen A police helicopter: bear in the air, eye in the sky, spy in the sky, tattle tale CB Bible, 1976: Terms for "police‘
Hypersynonymity.
There are more than a hundred words for "police" in the CB Bible. And this is by no means a unique case. The American Thesaurus of Slang (Berrey and van den Bork, 1976) lists 450 glosses for "thing"; and those for "money", "drink", "be drunk", "kinds of drugs", "be drugged", "to die", "to make love", etc. have high numbers of entries, too.
CB'ers have found new expressions for an already established concept; such expressions that make them appear to be saying one thing while they are really communicating something very different to insiders
heroin: antifreeze, aries, aunt hazel, ballot, big bag, big h, big harry, glacines, golden girl opiuum: Ah-pen-yen, auntie, auntie Emma, big o, god‘s medecine, goma, gondola crack: apple jacks, B.J.s, Baby T,Bad, Ball; Baseball, beautiful boulders, beemers
There are over 1,500 terms referring to specific drug types or drug activities listed by the Drugs&Crime Data Center, who are trying to get hold of all these terms so as to make them known to those people who have to deal with drug users today:
"The ability to understand current drug-related street terms is an invaluable tool for law enforcement, public health and other criminal justice professionals who work with the public." (DCDC, 1997)
Eschholz, Paul A. and A.F. Rosa, "Course Names in College Slang," American Speech, 1970, 1-2:87: Priests and Beasts Introduction to the Study of Western Religion Slums and Bums Urban Local Government Cuts and Guts Principles of Biology Weeds and Seeds Introduction to Plant Biology Choke and Croak First Aid and Safety Education Socks and Jocks General Physical Education Stones and Bones Anthropology: World Pre-History Flicks and Tricks Development of the Motion Picture Trains and Planes Transportation and Public Utilities