Hold This End: Units of Measurement
If I Had a Hammer... The Nonstandard Toolkit
Linguistic Diversity
Petticoat Junction: From the Costume Shop
Squints and Squeaks
We Just Might Burn in Hell for This
Moving Scenery
Tech 101
It's a Concept: Design Style
Politically Incorrect Soft Goods
Ooze, Stickum and Slime
Casting Central
Knot Again: Rope and Rigging
Toto, I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore: Terms on Tour

Hold This End: Units of Measurement

Skoshe - Measurement term, Slightly less than a nudge Spelling varies since I've never seen it written. Stephen Litterst

Around here, I've used (in varying proportions) hair, smidge, and scootch.
Which begs the question of conversion factors... If there are 4 hairs to the smidge, and 3 smidges to the scootch, how many scootches are in a skoshe? Or is a skoshe half a scootch? And where do the gnat's ass and nudge fit into all of this? Or are those metric units? Of course, then there are units of force... the oomph, kick, tap, and wallop... anyone wanna try those? Paul D Schreiner

Gnat's ass - unit of measure similar to Skoshe Peter Whinnery

British usage is a 'Gnat's'. To what part of a gnat's anatomy this refers I leave to your imagination, although I believe that, officially, it's a whisker. Frank Wood

"Skoshe" is an Americanization of a Japanese word meaning "small amount." It's transliterated as "sukoshi," and comes out sounding like "s'koshi" and thus, `skoshe'. I first heard this as a military brat in post-War Japan, and suspect that, like so many other useful words of non-English origin, it was brought home by returning soldiers. Pat Kight

I have not heard anyone mention the smallest measurement known to the theatre world, a RCH. Commonly translated as a red c*nt hair... still meant to be a small, small amount. Gregg Hillmar

On the RCH topic (which I had originally decided to avoid) I have heard distinctions in size based on color (red being the finest hair, an RCH is a more precise unit of measurement than a plain C hair) Colin Buckhurst

Yo-yo - Measuring tape. Steve McBee

Slipstick - Tape Measure. That one threw me for a loop packing for a site survey. The Production manager asked if I'd packed slipsticks and I had a hard time keeping a straight face when I asked what he meant. Stephen Litterst

Wasn't a slipstick a sliderule? Harold Hallikainen

Guesser - Tape measure Mark O'Brien

Or the measurement Saigons, a unit of measurement brought into being after a successful musical whose theatre plans differed from actuality. Thomas Hares

I remember mixing up a batch of industrial kitchen degreaser to clean the fish oil off of some steel and asking the head carp how much stuff to how much water, and became immediately familiar with the Some-to-Some Ratio. Chris "Chris" Babbie

When something was measured incorrectly, you must have used an Ollie instead of a Stanley. (From Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.) Sigrid Wolf

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If I Had a Hammer... The Non-Standard Toolkit

Whacking stick or Hi-tech focusing aid (broomstick) for lights? Jon Ares

Percussive Maintenance - see Whacking Stick Peter Whinnery

I have heard "Percussive Maintenance" as Percussive Re-alignment. Sigrid Wolf

Also Knockometer. Frank Wood

One of the ones that come to mind here at Syracuse is Toshi (pronounced "toe-she"). It is basically a large pole with foam wrapped around one end (imagine a 18' or 20' Q-Tip). We use it to help push battens/linesets/electrics around "obstacles" on the set. I've also seen a lighting designer use it to "focus" an impossible to reach instrument. VERY handy! I can't think of a load-in or strike that it hasn't been used. David M. Bowman

I wonder if that is named after Toshira Ogawa, a lighting designer who taught at Ohio State Univ. in the late 1970s-early '80s. I remember him as a very good lighting designer, and he could, in a pinch, do a great deal of focusing with a stick. Long stage braces were his favorite back then. Watching him put in a gel from 14' below the pipe was a treat. Steve Boone

It started out as a trick played on freshmen, but we more often than not will call a kerf a Bladewipe. It's one of those smile-when-you-say-that things. Gerald Ford

Precision Adjustment Tool - largest sledge hammer in the shop (sometimes referred to as "precision alignment tool") Stephanie Dawson

And the largest pry-bar with a hooked end is referred to as the Ford tool. Chris "Chris" Babbie

American screwdriver - a hammer Pat Dillon

Of course I've heard this one as a Union Screwdriver - hammer Gregg Hillmar

We use to call that one a Chicago Screwdriver. Tom Hansen

I thought that that was a crescent wrench... Michael J. Banvard

Oh, you mean an adjustable ballpeen hammer... S. Mooney

And here I was just telling a crew the other day that a hammer was a bolt-driver and a one-inch spade bit. Amazing range of uses for one tool. David Boevers

I thought we used the screwdriver as a chisel! James Wenting

Heck, after some of my experiences with students in the shop, I thought we used a chisel for a screwdriver! John Bracewell

Naah... Everybody knows that *every* tool in your toolbag is a hammer, except for the screwdriver which is actually a prybar/chisel, and the cordless drill which is actually a screwdriver. Dave Vick

Back in my schooldays, I had a very pedantic woodwork master. What we would all call a 'screwdriver', he would call a screwturner. If asked for a 'screwdriver', he would produce a hammer! Frank Wood

Scene from a load-in, Vancouver BC:
American Tour Staging Guy: "Y'all got the greatest things up here in Canada - Roberston Screws. And I have them!" (Passes around the familiar blue boxes, to the delight of the local crew.) ATSG: "And.... I have some Robertson Screw Drivers!" (With a grin and a wink, produces several hammers, to the dismay of the local crew.... but we were actually to use these screws as fascia pins, and later remove them with drivers/turners.) Tom Heemskerk

An Electric's Metric - C-Wrench. Chris "Chris" Babbie

Slappin' Rag While learning scene painting some years ago, I was introduced to a wonderful tool - the flogger. At the time there was a 'non-traditional' (OLDER) student in the class. She saw the purpose of the tool and called it what was - slappin' rag. The term has stuck in my mind, and even today I teach my students the importance of the slappin' rag. Tony Hardin

Micrometer Fine Adjustment Tool = 16 pound sledge used to shift a row of connected platforms a scoche.
Miniature Micrometer Fine Adjustment Tool = 8 pound sledge MPTecDir

I hadn't thought about it in this connection, but a few years ago, working with some students where we were using a 16-pound sledge in addition to several other kinds of hammer, the students starting referring to the sledge as the BFH. You figure out expletive behind the acronym. John Bracewell

Tweaker: any hammer over 5 lbs that isn't the biggest in the shop (See Precision Adjustment Tool- I was at NC School of the Arts, too) Ron Cargile

Caveman Sledgehammer: stage weight

Friendly Persuader - the largest sledgehammer
Glynnis - the largest sandbag
Bubba-Mag - the largest flashlight
Rope Wrench - knife Tom Heemskerk

Wazzer - cordless screwdriver Thomas Hares

hmm, you know, i'm so used to the things we say around the theatre, it took this long into the thread to even occur to me that this might be considered nonstandard from the first day's appearance in the theatre of 'self-tapping drywall screws' they have been called zap screws, no known origin for the term. The drawer they live in is labeled zap screws and always has been, and even the local hardware stores know what we mean when we ask for them. And, of course, by extension, this makes your cordless drill/driver a zap gun, which is especially satisfying to us children of the 50's, who remember Dick Tracy's wrist radios and buck rogers' ray guns, and are watching them become reality. We're living in the future! Don Taco

We call 'em grabbers and grabber guns down here - sometimes tech screws and tech guns Mikkel Mynster

In the Juilliard scene shop we had the Kraken - a Porter Cable 3hp router and Barbie's Dream Router - our laminate trimmer. At Seattle Rep we had tuffets which are low rolling swivel stools great for low projects without killing your knees. They were featured in Tech Briefs a while back. Colin Buckhurst

Poop Stick - used to prop up a long header when raising a false proscenium type flat. Merel Ray

A term we use to indicate any tool you can't remember or don't know the name is a woo woo. Richard Schroeder

I thought that was a jobidoo. Rigger

The other term I've always used is TyZingy instead of, "one of those plastic cable tie wraps." Sara Mooney

Audition Slippers - kneepads Colin Buckhurst

Whisky stick... Thing to mark odd shaped wood on a theatrical flat. Closely related to jump stick Mark O'Brien

Tuning Fork = It is piece of wood cut like a tuning fork, hence the name, generally with 3/4" between the tines. One use is to quickly and fairly accurately transfer a line from one side of a piece of wood to the other. Scott Conklin

Tuning Fork = Magic Fingers David Boevers

We have a black box space that has unistrut along the ceiling for hanging lighting equipment. Around here, the special rectangular nuts with springs on them that thread onto the yoke bolt and lock into the unistrut are called spring bobs. Mark Harvey

Boingy Nuts: Uni Strut nuts with attached spring

Do you already have rope wrench as a monikker for a knife? Mickey Carter

Two pieces of 1X lumber joined at a 90 degree angle (into an L shape) along their lengths = Hog-trough = Whaler(Wailer?) = Strong-back Duncan Mahoney

And hampers are hampsters around here. Susan L. Kelley

Bolt cutters = the master key (especially during year-end locker clean up)
Another one my girlfriend just heard while volunteering at the local museum is ghost poop for packing peanuts. Keith Houghton

Nutcracker--swaging tool
brass knuckles--stage screw
popper - rivet gun
flame thrower--hudson sprayer Michael Sorensen

Set Finesser - a hammer
Set Adjuster - a sledge hammer Will Leonard

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Linguistic Diversity

Frou-frou (pr. Fru-Fru) -- tiny detail work. "I haven't finished putting the frou-frou and ditz on the backdrop yet." Stephen Litterst

"Frou-frou" is an onomatopoeic French word which literally means "rustle" but came to be used for bits of ruffle, lace and other frippery that made ladies' dresses rustle as they walked. From describing the sound, it drifted to describe the trims themselves. Pat Kight

Let's not forget the late Billy Mintzer's favorite Shmatteh - Rag, anything worthless from the Yiddish. Herrick Goldman

In Hawaii the term wiki-wiki means hurry or quick.
Huli means to flip over top for bottom, and
kapakahi means crooked or lopsided."Shell"

To which I would add "Hemo," literally meaning "to throw" but is commonly used to mean shoving (usually accompanied by much grunting)
And my favorite: "Huli maka huli" where "maka" is eye. If da bruddah wen hemo da roadcase an' slip, he go huli maka huli.... Frank E. Merrill

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