Something’s up in the underground.

Dear Word Detective: What is the origin of “skullduggery”? Is it related to grave robbing as in the 1800s for medical use of cadavers? Or is it much older? — Lyn Kin.

Ah, yes, body-snatching. The practice was so widespread in the 18th century that a device called the “mortsafe” was developed, a sort of iron cage that surrounded the coffin and prevented abduction of the occupant. Body-snatchers, who sold their product to medical schools, were known as “resurrectionists,” and some, such as the infamous team of William Burke and William Hare, were not above employing murder when the natural supply ran low.

Those readers who made it past that cheery paragraph may have noticed that I let the spelling “skullduggery” (to which my spell-checker objects) stand in the question, because the combination of “skull” and “duggery” (which sounds like an archaic form of “digging”) certainly puts one in mind of grave-robbing. But the original and more common spelling is “skulduggery,” with just one “l,” and the term actually has no connection to either skulls or digging.

“Skulduggery” today means “underhanded dealings,” “trickery” or “clandestine machinations.” The term is apparently an American invention, first appearing in print (as far as we know) in 1867 (“From Minnesota had been imported the mysterious term ‘scull-duggery’, used to signify political or other trickery.”), but since that quotation is an explanation of the term, we can assume it had been in use for some time before that. Today “sculduggery” is most often associated with cloak-and-dagger intelligence agencies such as the CIA, but freelancers and domestic political operatives have made their own splashes on occasion with “skulduggery” (“Watergate was such a sensational piece of skulduggery,” The Times (London), 1980).

While “skulduggery” may be a US coinage, its roots appear to lie in Scotland. The 18th century Scots term “sculduddery” meant “indecency” or “breach of chastity,” defined at the time as meaning specifically “fornication or adultery.” While “sculduddery” may at one time have been a serious legal term in Scotland, most written instances of the term treat it as jocular slang.

In any case, just how “skulduddery” in Scotland became “skulduggery” in the US is a mystery, although the terms do share obvious overtones of secrecy and impropriety. We also have no idea of what the roots of “sculduddery” might be. On the bright side, however, we do have “skulduggery,” a great word for those times when something underhanded is afoot.

Flatfoot Jack and the Fuzz Brigade.

Dear Word Detective: If you were able to get to the bottom of this one you would deserve a medal! In Australia, at least, and, I think, elsewhere, the police are referred to by criminals and other elements of society as “the Jacks.” Long hours of searching and asking questions of other sites has produced exactly zero. How can this be, when the word is so consistently used across the board? Perhaps if you cannot answer my first question, you can answer my second. — Aliki Pavlou

Medal, schmedal. Just send me one of those kangaroo things and a dozen sheep. The roo can do the dishes and the sheep can mow the lawn. They would also give Brownie the Dog (who claims to be part Border Collie) something more tractable to herd than the cats she’s been working with.

“Jacks” as slang for “police” is indeed common in the UK as well as in Australia, but virtually unknown in the US, although “Jacks” may have a close relative in US slang.

To begin at the beginning, “Jack” is what linguists call a hypocoristic (affectionate or “short”) form of the name “John,” derived from the French form of John, “Jacques.” As a slang term, “Jack” has assembled an impressive range of meanings, from “to jack up” (to increase, from the use of “jack” as a mock-personal name for a lifting mechanism) to “jack” meaning “nothing” (as in the eloquent double-negation “You don’t know jack about cars.”).

“Jack” as also been used, since at least the 16th century, as a stand-in for “the common man” or “a fellow,” as in “every man Jack needs a job.” The slang use of “Jack” specifically to mean “police officer” dates to the late 19th century (“A couple of men who were in plain clothes in the tap-room of a public-house, and were suspected by the ‘gaffer’ of being ‘Jacks’,” 1899).

This use of “Jack” to mean “police” seems to have been derived, again as a “short form,” from the use of “John” also as slang for “policeman,” and here things get interesting. This “John” was itself short for “John Darme” a joking Anglicization of “gendarme,” French for “police officer.” So “John Darme” became “John,” which became “Jack” as slang for “cop.”

But wait, it gets better. At least in Australia and New Zealand, “John Hop” was once also slang for “police” via rhyming slang, an underworld “secret language” where the phrase spoken rhymes with the hidden meaning. “John Hop,” of course, rhymes with, and signifies, “cop.” A contraction of “John Hop” (“jonnop”) is still current Australian slang for “police.”

In the US, “John” as slang for “cop” crops up only in “John Law” as the personification of the police and legal system (“We go mooching along the drag, with a sharp lamp out for John Law,” Jack London, 1906). It is possible that “John Law” harks back to the “John Darme” joke, but it may simply spring from the use of “John” in the US since the late 18th century as a personification of the average fellow (“John Q. Public,” etc.), a role now more often filled by “Joe” (as in “Joe Sixpack”).