If you've been on this board for more than a week, then you probably have a good idea what one of my favorite words are.

Yesterday I received the June issue of DIRECT magazine in the mail. When it arrives, I go to the back of the magazine and read the columns by Tom Collins and Herschell Gordon Lewis. The beginning of the 7th paragraph in Herschell's column took me by surprise when he blurted out:

"What pikers we Americans are."

Man o man has PIKERS gone viral? hahahaha

The other day Fortin gave SPEEDBUMPS a nudge. Will it have legs too?

What next? FLUFFERS? Speaking of which. . .where the heck is Doc?

pik·er Pronunciation (pkr)
n. Slang
1. A cautious gambler.
2. A person regarded as petty or stingy.
[Possibly from Piker, a poor migrant to California, after Pike County in eastern Missouri.]

And I thought JayKay just made this up!

The Australian version [they're referring to beer drinking]:

A person who does not participate or unreasonably stops participating is known as a piker. A piker, by definition, pikes. That generally isn't a good thing, but the term can be used by way of explanation, 'Sorry mate, gotta pike on ya. Got me oldies coming over this arvie for a barbie. Shocker eh'.

Like some words, their meaning changes over time. I'm sure the urban/slang dictionaries have a bunch of meanings. Here's a short story of what the term means to me:

In '99 I was day trading on the floor at Momentum Securities in Irvine, California. Since the market opened up at 6:30 Pacific Time, I had to wake up at 4am and drive almost an hour to get there 45 minutes before the market opened. I'm not a morning person and it was extremely hard on me. But, while I was there I had a great time. It was an incredible experience being with 100 traders and walking by all their monitors on break and looking at their P&Ls for the day.

Anyone who was having a bad day had their bottomline hidden from view and everyone who was "green" was proud to display it. When I left there to trade from home I discovered the world of mIRC trading chat rooms. Coming from a real trading room to virtual trading room I thought people would be posting real trades. . .real profits (and losses). hahaha

There was a room which was run by a dude with the nick of KingCambo. He's the first guy I ever heard use the term PIKER. He used to scream the word at any noob who would post a trade and an entry after a stock already made its move and was "green." If you didn't post your trade a minute or two (usually seconds) after you made it and then posted it later, you were a PIKER. Hindsight traders are PIKERS.

In the world of marketing, one definition of a PIKER would be someone who enters a penslingin' copywriting contest and then at the last minute makes a lame excuse and bails. He's a PIKER. Herschell is right. America is full of pikers. . .people who will say they'll do something and then not follow through.

So the Australian usage matches that more closely than the Webster's definitions.

I found that on an interesting page that talks about how drinking beer is so ingrained into Aussie culture, any male who isn't constantly sh*t-faced is a "piker" and a "poofter."

http://www.australianbeers.com/culture/piking.htm

Damn, I totally "Piked" on the Gunslinger thing.

Fortunately I did something else that 99% of people
would of choose over the shootout anyways.

I also Piked Out on climbing Pike's Peak.

Although I did drink a Pike's Ale. Not a bad beer.