For some time now, some of my on-line friends have advised me to provide a version of CassidySlangScam without the invective aimed at Cassidy and his supporters. In response to that advice, I am working on providing a glossary of the terms in Cassidy’s ludicrous book How The Irish Invented Slang with a short, simple and business-like explanation of why Cassidy’s version is wrong.
This was originally a term for the act of robbing a drunk. In recent years, it has been used, notably in South Africa, for crimes of gang-rape. Again, Cassidy claims that this is from the Irish tiach, which he says means ‘a wallet, small purse; fig. money’. In fact, tiach means a bag or satchel and is not specifically used to refer to a purse. There is no evidence of it being used to mean money (any more than there is evidence for satchel being used figuratively for money in English slang). It is also quite different in pronunciation from the English jack.
cassidyslangscam 