Carny, also spelled carnie, is an informal term used in North America for a traveling carnival employee, and the language they use, particularly when the employee operates a game ("joint"), food stand ("grab", "popper" or "floss wagon"), or ride ("ride jock") at a carnival. The term "showie" is used synonymously in Australia, while "showman" is used in the United Kingdom. Etymology Carny is thought to have become popularized around 1931 in North America, when it was first colloquially used to describe one who works at a carnival. The word carnival, originally meaning a "time of merrymaking before Lent" and referring to a time denoted by lawlessness (often ritualised under a lord of misrule figure and intended to show the consequences of social chaos), came into use around 1549. Carny language The carny vocabulary is traditionally part of carnival cant, a secret language. It is an ever-changing form of communication, in large part designed to be impossible to understand by an outsider. As words are assimilated into the culture at large, they lose their function and are replaced by more obscure or insular terms. Most carnies no longer use cant, but some owners/operators and "old-timers" ("half yarders") still use some of the classic terms. In addition to carny jargon, some carnival workers used a special infix ("earz" or "eez" or "iz") to render regular language unintelligible to outsiders. This style eventually migrated into wrestling, hip hop, and other parts of modern culture. The British form of fairground cant is called "polari". Usage in popular culture Film Freaks is a 1932 thriller which centers around the lives of carnival workers and features several real-life carnival performers in the cast. Torture Garden is a 1967 British horror film with Burgess Meredith as a carny later revealed to be The Devil. Carnies is a 2007 movie directed by Brian Corder and starring Chris Staviski, Doug Jones, Reggie Bannister, and Lee Perkins. Nightmare Alley is a 1947 movie starring Tyrone Power and directed by Edmund Goulding, adapted from the novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham, which chronicles the rise and fall of a carny con man. There is also a 2021 remake starring Bradley Cooper and directed by Guillermo del Toro. In the 1988 movie Two Moon Junction, Richard Tyson plays a carny who falls in love with a rich, southern socialite (Sherilyn Fenn). Carny is a 1980 movie directed by Robert