Word: cumshaw
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Concatenation of Cumshaw. Dodd's affairs have become the Dodd affair because of a muckraking series of articles by Columnists Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. On the basis of files fed to them by at least one disgruntled former assistant to Dodd, they charged that the white-haired, square-jawed former FBI agent accepted a concatenation of cumshaw from all manner of individuals and companies seeking official favors from him. The payola, claimed the columnists, included a sapphire ring for his wife, a television set for his office, shoes for some of his family, carpeting for his house...
...Coat for Cumshaw. But the ultimate protest did not take place in the Assembly Hall. It worked itself out in a cheap hotel in a grubby lane of Nanking's crowded red-light district (nicknamed "Confucius' Temple...
...humor will secretly be tickled by the spectacle of these two cooped up together on shipboard; 2) the President would rather take them along with him than leave them in Washington to raise Ned during his absence; 3) just as an Oriental potentate uses his viziers to scatter cumshaw to the multitude, the President could use his two prime Relievers to make his tour a happy one by promising Federal gold at strategic points en route...
Speaking of words, "cumshaw" (generally pronounced commishaw) is not restricted to shipping men. Chinese servants in the East are all accustomed to getting cumshaw. The Chino cook buys the groceries for the household and if he does not get his cumshaw from the dealer at the end of the month, he buys elsewhere. This practice is generally considered quite ethical. "Cumshaw'' is Pidgin English and evidently is derived from "commission...
...Cumshaw" is not of course limited to the sea. Big graft and little graft run through the entire commercial structure. In Graft in Business, published last week by Vanguard Press ($3), Author Flynn goes into the matter. Part of the book deals with petty graft by corporation officials, tells of no practices one does not know or suspect to exist. Typical example : a Victor Talking Machine Co. superintendent who changed glue brands when offered a 5% commission...