Catchword: bahl gorms

Filed Under: English, United States, California

Part of Speech: n.

Quotation: The “Boontling” Knox refers to is a sort of argot or private language valley locals developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries using the syntax of English but substituting parts for wholes or referring to things by their uses or their most famous users. For example, a pay telephone rendered in Boontling is a “bucky walter” because a man named Walter Levi owned the first telephone in Anderson Valley and a call on early pay phones cost a nickel, which in those days was the buffalo nickel, nicknamed a “bucky.” Phone booths on the streets of Boont (Boonville) still bear signs identifying each of them as a bucky walter, such as the one outside the Horn of Zeese Cafe (the name is Boontling for cup of coffee), where a bright- lighter (city slicker) can score some bahl gorms (good food) unless he/she wants to drive the extra six miles to Poleeko (Philo).

Article or Document Title:
“Anderson Valley Pinot Noir comes of age” (URL)

Author:
Steve Pitcher

Article, Document, Publication, Web Site:
San Francisco Chronicle

Publishing Location:
California

Date of Publication:
July 8, 2004

This catchword has yet to be researched.