Going to jail "for a yard"??

Status
Not open for further replies.

mrghd

Junior Member
Joined
May 29, 2012
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
Hungarian
Home Country
Hungary
Current Location
Hungary
Hello,

thanks for everyone who helped me with my questions so far. Now I met a problem again in the book I currently read:

Iceberg Slim - PIMP The story of my life

My question is: what does it mean to go to the jail "for a yard"?

Here's the paragraph that contains this expession:

„Old Party had had the funky luck to try the strong arm on a professional wrestler called the „Blimp”
Old Party went back to the joint for a yard after he got out from the city hospital”

Background: "Party" -a friend of Iceberg- tries to brutally rob money from a fightsport-expert, but he gets beaten hard and given over to the police

With the help of urbandictionary.com and thefreedictionary.com (the sites that I strongly recommend for non-native English speakers who have to deal with difficult texts) I got to the consequence that "for a yard" here means for robbery ie. the type of the crime. Am I right?
 

charliedeut

VIP Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
Spanish
Home Country
Spain
Current Location
Spain
Hi,

I found this: The whole nine yards - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Therefore, I would infer that "for a yard" means "for a trifle" or "for something minor" - since the robbery was just attempted and the robber-to-be ended up black and blue.

Greetings,

cahrliedeut
 

SlickVic9000

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2011
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
(Not a Teacher)

It sounds to me like 'yard' refers to the length of Old Party's sentence, but I'm not too familiar with this kind of slang, so I don't know how long a 'yard' is supposed to be.
It may not even refer to a specific amount of time. In the US, we talk about 'doing a stint in prison' or 'going to jail for a stretch'. 'Stretch' and 'stint' are terms for a relatively small but not insignificant amount of time.
 
Last edited:

BobK

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 29, 2006
Location
Spencers Wood, near Reading, UK
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
This sounds likely to me. Perhaps its 30 x something. If it was his third offence, it might even be 30 years - but I have no idea.

Slang sometimes assigns strange things to useful quantities ( a 'pony' and a 'monkey' are £25 and £500, though I'm not sure which way round).

b
 

Tdol

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Staff member
Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
Japan
A yard can mean $100- could it be associated with that? $100 of drugs?
 

ohthatdeb

New member
Joined
Jun 19, 2012
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
A yard can mean $100- could it be associated with that? $100 of drugs?

I think this is it -- he was trying to get "a yard" ($100) from the fighter, and ended up going to jail for that small amount of money -- not worth it!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top