Down in the Skillet
Cowboy Slang
Texans have a way of cutting consonants and lengthening vowels to speak our mind. Some people may assume we’re ignorant. I think we’re somewhat lazy and very entertaining. For instance, we’ve shortened you all to y’all. Rather than converse in a lengthy explanation of our intentions and plans, we simply say, “I’m fixin’ to.” The listener has to fill in the intended task based on the previous conversation.
Talking Hoss
Same thing goes for the cowboys and cattlemen. There is a simple way of speaking your mind and there are few story tellers equal to a group of cowboys gathered around talkin’ hoss. I heard a cowboy mention that his horse was smoked, which means the horse had already been ridden hard for the day and needed a rest so the cowboy had to find a fresh horse. After a busy morning, cowboys might shade-up for the afternoon. One simple word can say a lot.
Down in the Skillet
In the olden days, the Texas Panhandle was down in the skillet. On the cattle drive, the chuck wagon cook, or dough-wrangler, might whip up a batch of sour-doughs with sop (biscuits and gravy), along with a boggy top for dessert (a pie with only a bottom crust).
After a hard days work, a cowhand might dig around in his war-bag for a clean shirt, which is a carry-all for his personal possessions. I’ve heard the term used today by rodeo cowboys. It’s a sports bag with their gear for riding broncs or bulls. Back to the olden days, if he could find clean duds, he’d slick-up for the shin-dig at a neighboring ranch where they’d shake a good hoof until day break.
Cowboy Wisdom
Tomorrow comes to us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives, and it puts itself in our hands and hopes we’ve learnt something from yesterday.
John Wayne
Cowboy: The chief qualifications of efficiency in this calling are courage, alertness, endurance, horsemanship, and skill in the use of a lariat.
Joseph Nimmo, Jr.
Though the cowboys’ existence is hard and dangerous, it has a wild attraction that strongly draws to it his bold, free spirit.
Theodore Roosevelt
In characters, cowboys are like never was or never will be again.
There was only two things the old-time cowpunchers were afraid of: a decent woman and being set afoot.
“Teddy Blue” Abbott
Cowboy Slang Reference
These witty and colorful catch phrases are interesting to me as a western writer, and I try to sprinkle a few throughout my stories. I’ve discovered several helpful reference books, in case you have a hankering to read more about the lingo of the great American west.
COWBOY LINGO by Ramon F. Adams, is a collection of “slack-jaw words and whangdoodle ways” (Houghton Mifflin Company).
WESTERN WORDS, by Ramon F. Adams, A dictionary of the Old West (Hippocrene Books, New York).
COWBOY SLANG “Colorful Cowboy Sayings” by Edgar R. “Frosty” Potter (Golden West Pub).
END OF TRAIL EATS is out now!
Find autographed copies at Burrowing Owl Books Amarillo or Canyon stores. Barnes & Noble Lubbock. Also online wherever fine books are sold.
Natalie Cline Bright has written 20 books for adults and kids. She is a blogger at “Prairie Purview” found on the home page of her website, a hobby photographer, and speaker. Her cookbook, KEEP ‘EM FULL AND KEEP ‘EM ROLLIN” about chuck wagons, won a first place gold Will Rogers Medallion. Her newest book is END OF TRAIL EATS about the food and history of Cowtowns. She also writes romances for adults, easy readers and chapter books for kids, and is currently working on a wild wet adventure for tweens. If you enjoy pictures from the Texas Panhandle, check out her Instagram account @natsgrams or Facebook page Natalie Cline Bright.