I'm a new on Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language.

We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff.

Today we'll talk about what to call that relative who wiped the floor with you playing

cards over the holidays, what it is about using THEY as a singular pronoun that makes

it sometimes stand out and sometimes get overlooked, and family words for that crusty stuff called

sleep you get in the corner of your eyes.

Western novels, movies and television shows regularly contain scenes of men and saloons

playing cards and cheating at cards.

Sometimes a cheater is called a card sharp and other times a card sharp.

So which one is correct?

Here are some examples.

The Oxbow incident published in 1940 is a Western novel set in the year 1885, and the story

opens with art croft and guild carder writing into the fictional town of Bridger's Wells

Nevada.

They enter a saloon and almost everything seems normal with men drinking and playing

cards, but something doesn't seem quite right.

For one thing, arts surprised he doesn't hear anyone being called a card sharp, which

is what he called people who cheated or who were suspected of cheating at cards.

Next, in one episode of a 1960s Western television show called The Riflemen, which is also set

in the mid-1880s, Lucas McCain played by Chuck Connors, walks into a saloon in fictional

North Fork New Mexico, and sees his friend Lariat Jones played by Richard Anderson in a card

game.

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