Shavetail

Shavetail The 17th century term “Lingo” was rooted in lingua, Latin for “tongue.”  One of its definitions—“the vocabulary of a special subject or jargon of a class of persons”—seems especially apropos for many groups of Westerners. Cowboys especially had a knack for colorful banter that often found its way into everyday language. As just one of a litany of examples “shavetail” comes to mind. Win Blevins tells us in his Dictionary of the American West that the word referred