Word Ways
Abstract
First unionized in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the trade of iron worker developed at a time when the industrial revolution allowed, for the first time in history, the erection of steel structures on a widespread scale. The technology of steel construction was new; the men hired to do the actual work, the construction gangs, were for the large part uneducated immigrants willing to work a dangerous job for low pay. The combination of a new technology with a class of worker unfamiliar with architectural and engineering terminology precipitated a colorful jargon which exists, in one form or another, to this day. The vocabulary of this jargon is functional, descriptive, often amusing, and usually obscene.
Recommended Citation
Buczynski, Alan
(1989)
"Tool-Naming by Iron Workers,"
Word Ways: Vol. 22
:
Iss.
2
, Article 9.
Retrieved from:
https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol22/iss2/9