Introduction
Growing up in New York City, I have always been surrounded by diners that serve up homemade meals. Whenever I am ordering off of a diner menu, it always seems to take longer than usual, because of the myriad of choices that can take up several pages. There are many ways to prepare sandwiches, eggs, and coffee, amongst other things, and the sheer number of individual orders that need to be carried out can confuse the waiters, waitresses, and cooks who have to memorise hundreds of food combinations.
For many years during the 19th and 20th centuries, diner employees and short-order cooks all across the United States of America, would come up with idioms known as “diner lingo” for these orders in order to speed up production. The colourful jargon had made its way into the American English lexicon in the late 19th to mid 20th century, but only a few terms are currently in use. Diner lingo may soon meet its inevitable end because the number of people who speak it has declined. Fortunately, historians have been able to preserve diner lingo, for nostalgic purposes and to teach future generations how Americans once communicated. Well anyway, may I take your order now?
Menu
Can I start you off with something to drink? Here is what we offer:
| Diner Lingo | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Cup o' Joe | Coffee |
| Moo Juice | Milk |
| Hug em | Orange Juice |
We also serve breakfast 24 hours a day:
| Diner Lingo | What It Means |
|---|---|
| A Raft | Toast |
| Wreck 'em | Scrambled Eggs |
| Roller | Sausage Link |
If you already had breakfast, or just want to get a head start on lunch, here are our specials:
| Diner Lingo | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Frog Sticks | French Fries |
| Yellow Blanket on a Dead Cow | Cheeseburger |
| Hounds on an Island | Franks and Beans |
We have all the necessary condiments to satisfy your meal:
| Diner Lingo | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Yellow Paint | Mustard |
| Hemorrhage | Ketchup |
| Axle Grease | Butter |
And I hope you saved some room for dessert:
| Diner Lingo | What it Means |
|---|---|
| Nervous Pudding | Jello |
| Magoo | Custard Pie |
| Sleigh Ride Special | Vanilla Pudding |
Extravagant orders
Now we put some of these above terms and more to the test. To all of you reading this article, the following sentences in this section may sound like something out of a Lewis Carroll novel; but in a diner, luncheonette or cafeteria, these statements would have been normal. This first group of sentences are actual combinations that were popular in the United States:
| Diner Lingo | What it Means |
|---|---|
| Burn one, take it through the garden and pin a rose on it | Hamburger with lettuce (garden), tomato and onion (rose) |
| Burn the British, and draw one in the dark | Toasted English Muffin (Burn the British) with black coffee (Draw ... dark) |
| Noah's boy with Murphy carrying a wreath | Ham (Noah's Boy) and potatoes (Murphy) with cabbage (wreath) |
But of course, many orders can be made up by combining random diner lingo idioms to represent all types of dishes. The following orders have been made up by yours truly. Try these dishes in your own kitchen:
| Diner Lingo | What it Means |
|---|---|
| Making two cows cry by dragging them to Wisconsin | Two cheeseburgers (cows / Wisconsin) with onions (cry) |
| Leaving Dolly Parton high and dry | Two chicken breasts (D.P.) without condiments (high and dry) |
| Pope Benedict, meet Mike and Ike | Eggs Benedict (P.B) doused with salt and pepper (Mike and Ike) |
| Wax pistol in Pittsburgh | Smoked (Pittsburgh) pastrami sandwich (pistol) with American cheese (wax) |
| Hamlet's problem with his warts | Danish with two poached eggs in hot sauce (HP), topped with olives (warts) |
Now that we have run the gamut of the types of diner lingo, I will discuss the origins behind certain idioms. Most terms have little to no recorded history, but these precious few give us an idea of how diner lingo has evolved.
Lingo #1: Adam and Eve on a Raft and related terms
Our first diner lingo idiom comes from the 1890s. “Adam and Eve on a raft”, which means ‘two eggs on toast’, was first seen in the 1894 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary with the following example:
“One day he ordered poached eggs on toast. Going to the slide the waiter yelled out: ‘Adam and Eve on a raft.’ The order was changed to scrambled eggs, when the waiter rushed off, and in stentorian tones there came the alarming direction to those below: ‘Shipwreck that order!’”
At a particular diner in the Bowery section of Manhattan, diner employees came up with their own diner slang. This excerpt came from the Atlanta Constitution newspaper in an article entitled, “Story of a Queer Café in New York” from 1899:
“An order for eggs on toast went to the kitchen as, “Adam and Eve on a raft,” but if after giving this order the customer wanted the eggs plain, the countermand went out as, ‘Save Adam and Eve; sink the raft’”.
Another variant on the lingo was documented in a 1936 article in The New York Times entitled, “Lexicon of the Soda Jerker”:
“Expressions used throughout America include…“Adam and Eve on a raft—and wreck ‘em” for scrambled eggs on toast”.
The “Adam and Eve” theme is no stranger to diner lingo. If someone wanted to order a stack of ribs, the waiters would yell out to the cooks, “Give us a First Lady”. They did not mean bring out the wife of the President, but were referring to the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib, making her the first lady on Earth. When dessert came around and a customer wanted an apple pie, the order coming to the kitchen would be “Eve with a lid on it”. This originates from knowledge that the apple is the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, and “lid” refers to the crust covering the apple. Finally, “Adam’s Ale” which simply means ‘water’, obviously stems from the idea that it was the only drinking liquid available on Earth at the time.
Lingo #2: Eighty-six
The next lingo has nothing to do with the preparation of food or drink, but the actions in dealing with rowdy patrons or the lack of ingredients in the kitchen. When you “eighty-six” something or someone, you get rid of it. It could also mean to refuse service to a customer, or saying that the order cannot be fulfilled. The term has the most complex history out of all the diner lingos, dating back to the 1930s, because there are so many theories as to its origin.
The Oxford English Dictionary, defines “eighty-six” in the context of refusing service to the rudest or most drunk of all customers. It alludes to the story of actor John Barrymore, a notorious drunk whom the establishments did not want to deal with:
“There was a bar in the Belasco building … but Barrymore was known in that cubby as an ‘eighty-six’. An ‘eighty-six’, in the patois of western dispensers, means: ‘Don’t serve him.'”
Another take on the term “eighty-six” came from the famous journalist Walter Winchell, whose column ‘Glossary of Soda-Fountain Lingo’, defined it as “we’re all out of it”. The most probable story is that in the New York State liquor code, Article 86 is the section dealing with the removal of problem customers. Other theories about “eighty-six” vary from the Army Code #86 that details when a soldier is AWOL or “Absent Without Leave”, to certain dining halls only allowing 85 customers at one time, denying the 86th person entry. Whatever the true story may be, “eighty-six” has gone beyond the world of diner lingo into American slang of the late 20th to early 21st century.
Regional lingos
(SCROD/SHROD and Mexican-themed diners)
Some dining terms are exclusive to certain regions of the United States. For instance, in Boston, the fish of the day is known as a “SCROD” or “SHROD” in diner lingo. It comes from the acronym that stands for “Small Cod or Haddock Remaining on Deck”, but in essence refers to all types of fish in the sea. The term dates back to 1841, where its original definition is:
“A young or small cod fish, split and salted for cooking.”
By 1884 when diners were already in full swing, the meaning grew to include its impact on the public:
“Throughout all Eastern Massachusetts… it seems to refer to these small fish slightly corned, in which condition they are a favorite article of food, but the name is also transferred to the young fish themselves.”
Even though the use of diner lingo declined in the mid 20th century, “SCROD” is still a common term in a lot of the restaurants of New England and more recently New York, where it featured in a 1975 article about the art of diner lingo:
“The Penobscot Exchange Hotel always meticulously stated on its restaurant menu just which fish was being offered each day as SCROD.”
Meanwhile, in the opposite corner of the United States in the Arizona/New Mexico region alongside Route 66, diners would serve Mexican food to cater to its mainly Hispanic population. Waiters and cooks in those dining establishments coined their own shorthand code for their own Spanish cuisine. Some of their basic dishes and their lingo counterparts include:
| Diner Lingo | What it Means | |
|---|---|---|
| Cluck and Wrap | Chicken Enchiladas | |
| Moo and Wrap | Beef Enchiladas | |
| Stampede Blanket | Large Bean and Beef Burrito |
And then there are the condiments that come with the above dishes:
| Diner Lingo | What it Means |
|---|---|
| Con Lumbre | Add Hot Sauce |
| Top it with White | Add Sour Cream |
| Top it with Red | Add Salsa |
| Sour it | Add Lemon |
Depending on the region, there are other names for dishes that include the names of locales.
It is unclear if these terms are exclusive to those regions or widespread around the country:
| Diner Lingo | What it Means |
|---|---|
| Bronx (NY) Vanilla | Garlic |
| Hoboken (NJ) Special | Pineapple Soda and Chocolate Ice Cream |
| Chicago (IL) Special | Steamed Hot Dog with Relish (Sauerkraut) |
| C.J. Boston (MA) | Cream Cheese and Jelly |
Future of diner lingo
As the 20th century progressed, diners began to close down due to the increasing number of chain food and beverage outlets such as McDonalds and Starbucks. In addition, instead of the waiters physically communicating with cooks, automated systems for ordering took over, thus eliminating almost all of back-and-forth human exchange. Only a few diner lingo terms like B.L.T. (bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich) and mayo (mayonnaise) still find themselves on mainstream menus of all types around the USA. People of the last couple of generations would be more likely to associate the term “Quarter Pounder with Cheese” with a cheeseburger, as opposed to “Dragging one through Wisconsin”, or “Frappuccino” for coffee instead of “Cup o’ Joe”. Today, diners are operated like fancy restaurants, with high-end cuisine at expensive prices. However, diner lingo still exists, but barely, and only in retro-style diner themed restaurants that reach out to a select group of patrons. If more of the old-fashioned diners open up again, diner lingo could be resurrected and saved from being a dead style of communication and hopefully hark back to the symbol of Americana that it once represented.
Appendix: More Diner Lingo Terms
| Diner Lingo | What it Means |
|---|---|
| Heart Attack on a Rack | Biscuits and Gravy |
| Life Preservers | Doughnuts |
| Zeppelins in a Fog | Sausages in Mashed Potatoes |
| Bossy in a Bowl | Beef Stew |
| Maiden's Delight | Cherries |
| Foreign Entanglements | Spaghetti |
| Frenchman's Delight | Pea Soup |
| Hope | Oatmeal |
| M.D. | Dr. Pepper |
| Family Reunion | Chicken and Egg Sandwich |
| Checkerboard | Waffle |
| Corrugated Roof | Lemon Meringue Pie |
| Fish Eyes | Tapioca Pudding |
| Boiled Leaves | Tea |
| Butcher's Revenge | Meat Loaf |
References
http://www.jitterbuzz.com/diners.html
51 Responses to “Diner Lingo”
Darin Johnson
Nice write up. Any idea what “hash with eyes, burn it” means?
Also, fyi, the term 86 comes from the Navy for discontinuing or decommissioning. The Navy form AT-6 for parts designated for disposal.
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Lol, Law & Order SVU S01E01.
Will Jo
I found that egg on hash potato.
https://food52.com/recipes/535-hash-brown-one-eyes
Jake Sterling
My Dad, who came from Potsdam, NY (very far north in New York State) referred to tapioca pudding as “fish eyes and glue,” not just “fish eyes.” He had a few other diner slang terms which aren’t repeatable—not so much because they are scatological but because they are racist.
And, in response to the question about “hash with eyes and burn it,” my guess is that it mean fried hash with two eggs cooked in wells made in the hash.
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I’m British so would you kindly make the appropriate allowances …. what are ‘Jersey eggs’ please?
Roger
Also, I heard “saltbox” is a grilled cheese sandwitch.
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