Just thought this was interesting for you Historians. If you would like to read more about shark vs sharp heres the entire article. And a pool shark is not someone who wins at pool by cheating, but rather someone who wins money from more naive players by being better at the game than they realize he is.Īn excerpt from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado (1885): According to the algorithm behind Urban Thesaurus, the top 5 slang words for card shark are: card sharp, credit card, dolphin, tiburon, and shale. Still, there are two different occupations here, and it makes sense to have two different terms. The "trade" of Trollope's 1870 card-sharper was "to tout and find prey for gamblers", while the 1903 Police Gazette article makes it clear that the "secrets" known to the card shark consist of methods for "cheating at cards". Maybe that's why there's a video game called Card Sharkand a TV show called Card Sharks. In addition to being a sharp-toothed marine animal, the word sharkhas been used to mean 'a dishonest person who preys on others' since the 1500s. A card shark is different from a card sharp, who uses deception for purposes of either card tricks or to cheat at a game like poker. Card sharpis correct, but seeing it spelled card sharkis common. If we combine the 1903 Police Gazette citation with the 1870 Trollope example, we get almost exactly the opposite of the claim made in this Wikipedia entry for card shark:Ī card shark is an expert card game player who feasts on weaker "fish" players. I just wanted to share a couple excepts from an article I found while looking for some clarity on Pool Sharps and Pool sharks which is believed to have been derived from Card Sharps.
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