There is a peculiarity in the English language and in the way that people think, that if you understand it gives you an insight into the way the world works.

A number of years ago in my home town Houston, Texas there was a criminal case where police officers were accused of planting a gun on the body of an unarmed suspect after he had been shot to death by officers. During the course of the trial one of the officers denied using a "throwdown" in the case. He explained that a "throwdown" was police slang for a gun used to justify the shooting of an unarmed suspect.

For those reading this page who might not be native English speakers I will explain what slang is in the American version of the English language. Americans who speak English as a native language create slang contractions for phrases which they use often; for example in American football the slang for "tackling a player in back of the line of scrimmage before he can throw a forward pass" is "sack". In other words you say it was a "quarterback sack" so that you don't have to say the long stilted sentence: "The quarterback was tackled in back of the line of scrimmage before he could throw a forward pass". People who are familiar with American football understand what you mean when you say "sack". "Sacks" are common events in American football, so the slang term is well known.

If you ask a person who knows American football well what the slang term for "Illegally coming off the bench to tackle a runner who is running for a touchdown" is - the person you are questioning will probably stare at you blankly. Someone coming off the bench to tackle someone is a very rare event; there is no slang term for it. If it were to happen often, Americans would create a slang term to replace the long phrase; we are an impatient country.

Each activity in the U.S. has its own slang used by those who participate in the activity. For example the police slang for "fabricating evidence or falsifying testimony to be used to convict an innocent suspect" is to "frame" the suspect, a "payoff" is police slang for "accepting a bribe to overlook infractions of the law", being on the "pad" is police slang for regularly accepting "payoffs". We have already explained the police slang "throwdown".

Hopefully there is a little chill running up your spine. The police would have you believe that "frames","throwdowns", "payoffs" and officers on the "pad" are rare events like "coming of the bench to tackle a runner who is going for a touchdown", but the truth is that all of these things occur so often that the police have generated slang to speed up talking about them; you don't have slang terms for things that rarely happen.

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